Carol Watchler, Insurance/Treasurer

I am in my sixth year of paddling with the Machestic Dragons team.  I have served on the Machestic Dragons Board of Directors as treasurer and been an active organizer with our Paddle for Pink Festival for the past two seasons.

Getting a breast cancer diagnosis just a few months after leaving high school teaching in 2003 was an unwelcome way to greet retirement, but the inspiring friends as well as support and opportunity to teach others which I have discovered in the breast cancer community never cease to amaze me.

I participate in the Patient Educator Project out of Pathways in Summit, NJ, to help educate medical students and other health professionals with insights into the experience of breast cancer. I’m an active volunteer with the Breast Cancer Resource Center of the Princeton YWCA and feel truly honored to represent BCRC for the month of October in the 2010 YWCA calendar titled Twelve Lives Changed. I have also been a steady member of the Lesbians with Cancer support group at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey.

I was thrilled with my international dragon boat experience as part of the Machestic Dragons contingent traveling to Caloundra, Australia, in 2007. Now I am looking forward to paddling with many more teammates in the Peterborough, Ontario, BCS international races this summer. One thing I brought back from the trip down under was the Breast Cancer Network of Australia’s Field of Women project to be part of our own Paddle for Pink Festival.

Besides my enthusiasm for dragon boating I’m also involved with volunteering on the First Aid Squad in my town of Roosevelt, part time work with a help line, co-chairing the Central New Jersey chapter of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network), and workshop presentations in the education field.

I love listening to baroque music, running a couple miles most mornings to stay fit and keep up that cardio, and paddling on Mercer County Park Lake at sunset.