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| June Jottings |
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| Written by Rachel Smith | ||||
| Thursday, 01 June 2006 | ||||
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Welcome to the June Jottings of two would-be ocean rowers! I almost seems a bit repetitive to say that things are hotting up - but as ever it's competely true. Since our last diary entry we'e clocked up a fair few miles between us, getting from one fundraiser to another. And we hope things are only going to get busier from here on in!
But even travel should be a bit easier soon - it's top secret at the moment, but we've been in negotiation with a car manufacturer with a view to loaning a beast of a 4x4 for ocean rowing business and towing. Hopefully that's all going to be finalised shortly, providing highly visible travel on the UK's roads. Watch this space! Our fundraising exploits started off at Salop Leisure, a business based in the Heart of England, and a company that I've known for some years now through my job. Having just opened a new and massive showroom, Salop invited us to exhibit at their open event. Initially apprehensive, we had a fantastic time and couldn't have felt better supported by all of the Salop Leisure staff. It also gave us change to practice our sales pitch and answer a variety of questions, including 'of course, you'll have a motor attached to help you row, won't you?'. We weren't quite sure how to answer that one politely! But Salop Leisure have invited us backin October so we must have put on a good performance. Next came the first of several events organised by our first Gold sponsor, Accelerate. Their Autolinks event was held in Brimingham and was a really early start for both of us. We'd also been a bit nervous prior to this outing, mainly because we weren't sure of what to expect and desperately wanted to do well for Accelerate as they have been so great to work with. But we soon realised that Accelerate mean business with their support and felt very welcome. We'd organised the motivational speaker, Alan Chambers, and motivate he did, with a fantastic presentation on being the first person to make it to the North Pole from Canada, previously thought to be an impossible trek. {mosimage} One chap even came up to us afterwards and said that as a rule, he takes an instant dislike to people who claim to be adventurers - including ourselves! (Mental note to remember this one!). But listening to Alan and meeting us had completely changed his mind. Quite powerful stuff!. And we're not that bad actually. Through the day we spoke to loads of people and learnt a lot about keeping answers fresh. Although we might get asked the same thing time and time again, for those asking, it's prompted by genuine interest ans we have to put as much into every meeting as we can - you never know where the next Gold sponsor will come from... ...And we may have found him. Several companies expressed an interest in getting involved in different ways. We're really lookin forward to the ongoing relationship with Accelerate adn following up the leads we took from the event. But it didn't stop there. We were interviewed and made the front page (and page 3, but fully clothed!) of the Liverpool Daily Post. This story was picked up by the Chester papers and also by a big news agency in London. Not only that, but we were also inteviewed by a freelance journalist and have already had some good response from regional publications. Question of the month - So what are the washing facilities like onboard? Interesting one really! Obviously hot baths are a bit of a no no, but other teams have suggested an occasional dousing with sea water followed by a rinse with desalinated water does the trick - providing the water maker is working! Othe than this, we think that baby wipes are hte way forward. It's been suggested that anything perfumed is horrible onboard - your senses change as a lack of pollution heightens your sense of smell. Bio-degradable goodies are also important to us, we don't want to clutter up the ocean with anything that will have a bad effect on the ecosystem out there. So we'll do a bit of research and find something suitable... while dreaming of a hot bubble bath at the other side!
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