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After the chaos and the madess of last week with my promotion stunt, the BBC filming what seemed like every aspect of my life and the incredible day the four fnalists had when we met Glenn and his team from Hamilton Island and Tourism Queensland it feels as though the dust has started to settle on this part of the campaign for now.
The cut-off date for any further PR was last night, Friday 27th March and instead of thinking about The Best Job in The World for just a day my thoughts turned to Afritrex once more and a presentation to my village on the events of 2008 which temporarily had taken a back seat in my mind.
The annual AGM for the Ropley Society is a well known event on the village and I had been invited to deliver a speech on my fundraising activites as a warm-up for the main event. My expedition had been covered by the parish magazine and I wrote an article for it, which appeared bi-monthly throughout the journey, and gave details of the talk I was to give that evening.
And quite a response it produced too; an event which normally draws around 20 people had them arriving from 7pm and as the last of the chairs were pulled from the store the total number had swelled to around 150...YIKES I wasn't prepared for this!
In the midst of all the BJITW shennanigans I'd only found time to select around 200 images out of the 10,000 I had from Afritrex the night before leaving me no time to prepare any sort of script or notes....so I'd just go do it I thought and it went really well!
Having been given 40mins I was concious of the clock ticking (well I would have been if my watch strap hadn't broken the night before giving me no reference at all!) and tried to summarise a year and the 10 challenges into something to fit my allocated slot....and I did fairly well by ending up with an hour of unprepared chat and banter which the crowd seemed to enjoy.
My first real venture into the world of public speaking was a success and I loved it. I'm talking to the three charities I raised money for at the moment trying to organise a date when I can visit them to make a similar presentation so they more be more to offer!
Counting down the days until the big Final 10 are announced on April 2nd at 11.00pm. If I'm unsuccessful then its onto the next project and Alaska to Chile is sounding mighy tempting right now......
Ben
After a week of preparing and planning a PR stunt in London which would highlight to Tourism Queensland why I am the best candidate for the job, the dust has finally settled.
On Sunday 22nd March I arrived at the Old Ship in Hammersmith in glorious sunshine to start the day of setup and promotion for my push to make it through to the final 10 for the position of Best Job in the World.
For those of you who haven't heard about it visit:
I'd been lucky enough to be donated numerous bottles of wine and champagne by The Mill Tavern in Haslemere, courtesy of Pierre-Loup DeCam and his son Tristan - a good friend of mine, and these made up the prizes for the Cork Bobbing contest which drew even more people into the small patch of grass where I'd chosen to setup the campaign.
I walked into the water, laid back on the lilo and enjoyed the unusual view as the crowds lined the banks cheering me on as I floated downstream passing rowers with jaws on the floor.....what on earth was this crazy man up to!!
After a swim and 500yds downstream I made for the bank and clambered up on to the footpath, dripping and stinking from the interestingly murky London water - not quite the same as the Great Barrier Reef!
I'd invited Glenn and the team from TQ down to witness my publicity event and he was there to meet me at the top of the walkway smiling with his family at the stunts and reactions this campaign was attracting! An unusual one which stuck in his mind I hoped!
The end result was a fun day down by the river which drew a huge amount of attention to my latest project, gave the local pub a few more punters and kept the sun-loving Londoners amused for an afternoon.
Ben
www.islandreefjob.com/bens
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Welcome to Afritrex - A privately funded charity endurance challenge of marathons, mountains and more; documenting the encounters, obstacles and achievements of 12 months of hard fundraising and charity work across Africa.
Whilst circumnavigating the African Continent I will complete the following challenges:
- To complete five marathons of at least 26 miles
- To climb five of the highest mountains in Africa
- To visit as many of the sites across Africa where the Victoria Cross has been won as possible (VC180 Challenge)
"The challenge to make every penny count"
Have a closer look at the site and find out more about how we'll be spending 2008.
Keep up to date !! - The action is happening as we speak...
Click here for the latest diary entry
Click here for the latest photos
Click here for the latest route
Project Overview
My name is Ben Southall and for the last decade I’ve travelled extensively throughout Southern Africa taking on projects and expeditions to test my abilities and discover exciting new areas of the African continent, whilst in the UK I take part in fitness and endurance events to raise money for charity and thought it was about time I combined the two fields to create my own fundraising expedition from with others could benefit.
So was born Afritrex: the logistical equivalent of one man trying to build spaghetti junction using Taiwanese instructions and a broken shovel.
The idea was simple: take one continent; attempt to circumnavigate it and whilst doing so try and stay fit enough to complete a number of endurance challenges to raise money for my chosen charities and whilst doing so post it all on the internet!
This is set to be the most challenging, exciting and exhausting year of my life, can I really do it?
"The answer is I don't know,
so why not find out!"
This is me Ben Southall and this is my mission throughout 2008. Stay in contact with my progress updates on how things are going through this site.
I’ll be keeping you informed of my progress through biweekly updates to the site, route information and with regular photo and video blogs.
Check our route and progress here
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