76 days to go!

76 days to go until our foundation EXPEDITION 2012 and the days are flying!

I guess we all ask the question – “Just where do the days get to?” – every now and again. Well, that saying sure is true for us. 76 days and loads to do, but loving every minute of it!

This week was a full-on desk-based week, with no meetings scheduled in order to play necessary catch-up to all the admin prep for 2012.

The week started with a positive phone call from Nedbank expressing their continued keenness in the project – they have promised a follow-up meeting before the month is out!

Promising conversations were had with OUTsurance, Aqua d’UCT and Nokia. The latter we thought were out of the game, but we managed a last-minute salvage. It was great to also finally hear back from CapeNature – this is a real positive match-up and one we will do anything to be a part of!

Follow-ups will be made with them as well as Billabong and Stanlib this week coming.

The remainder of the week was fantastic! We set ourselves a deadline of contacting all relevant municipalities and government departments by the end of the month – and we are doing well. Every department from the environment, education, tourism, economic development, trade & industry, and social development – will hear from us before November! And not only the HODs and MECs will be contacted but also the individual local municipalities will get an intro too! A lot of emails and phone calls, but also very interesting learning the who’s who of South African politics.

Finally, the weekend will be spent making a start at contacting accommodation providers for all 200 towns. A lot of the time we will be camping and staying with host families, however, we also need the odd comfy locally recommended B&B or Guest House – purely for research purposes of course….hey! even we need a good hot shower and clean sheets once and a while!

Following that, we move on to other hospitality providers in the form of restaurants and the like. You never know there may be some real classic unheard-of or untouched gems out there! South Africa and the world needs to hear about them and so do we!

So, if you own a Guest House, B&B, Hotel, Motel, restaurant, Cafe or anything interesting and would like us to stop in and meet you – drop us a line!

This week we will be meeting Dirk from What’sUpCapeTown in order to present sponsorship possibilities to his contacts in the Wine Industry! Great stuff, we could do with some wine on our travels!

And we will also be meeting with Martin from MSC (Marine Stewardship Council), and then the following week with Vivian from SANBI (South African National Biodiversity Institute).

Unknowns at this stage:

• Pam Golding
• MTN

But not for long…

That’s it for this week, but…

Until next week!

The EXPEDITION Project  Team,

Cape Town, South Africa