My training in Portugal

Hello everyone,

Antonio here. Less than three days to go now and I must admit the apprehension is growing a little bit. Today, 26 January, I made the last training, and I took the photographic camera to share with everyone my little Algarve gym !!

In Portugal on the Algarve coast there are very many beautiful cliffs and I have been training by walking up and down them (and up and down .....and up and down......and up and down!). I have even been out at night walking up the cliff with a head torch on just to see what it is like.

In theses photos above you can see a large cliff in the distance. Well that is my Portuguese Kilimanjaro and I have been using it for my training. On the rocks at the bottom my boots would slide everywhere: maybe they are feminine as they just would not obey where I wanted them to go :)

Most of the time things have been fine - though not if you put your foot in the wrong place!!!

Because then ..well things would not be so good.

From the highest point the view of Luz is very good.

Well I think overall I am ready.  And though I am like probably everyone else, travelling with a little nerves, I am really excited about this adventure!! See you all Wednesday.

Go Waratahs Football Club !!!!!

Hi Shannon here ...........and I'm over the moon that we've just raised AUS$12,000 from our Australia Day Fund Raiser !!!

My football club's name is Waratahs Football Club and we have just held a game on Australia Day in aid of Breast Cancer.  I did not play as I did not want to risk getting injured due to the climb and how close it is - however I was the runner for that game so I am in the bright yellow shirt in the photos.  


It was a great day and the team and my football club really embraced the day.  The girls won the game 100 to nil which was even better!! What a score eh ?


After the game we auctioned off the jumpers. On average each football jumper sold for about AUS$300.00 and the most someone paid for a jumper was the signed one by all the girls that played and they paid AUS$950.00 for it.  It was an awesome day. In fact it was sooooooooooo successful that my football club are hoping to continue this and do this as an annual event for breast cancer which is even better :)

After the game we then went round all the local pubs which topped up the fund raiser even more. Everyone was just fantastic.

Well only a few days left now. The nerves are kicking in a bit but I'm so excited I can't tell you. For all those in Australia who have helped me and embraced this challenge - so many thanks and I'll be doing my best!


Cheers. See everyone in Kilimanjaro Wednesday night!
 

Getting your visa for entry into Tanzania has never been simpler.  You post your passport, a couple of photos, your application form and some cash to the Tanzanian Embassy in London and a few days later they post your passport back, visa approved. 

Or so Ally thought when she sent her passport off in early January.  The embassy confirmed receipt on January 12th and everything seemed to be on track.  Days passed but the arrival of a visa stamped passport never came.  Then earlier this week Ally contacted the Embassy who confirmed they had posted it back earlier in the month.  After a frantic day tracking her passport through Royal Mail it seems that whilst it had reached Dublin (where Ally lives) it then got re-routed to ...

PORTUGAL!!!

Well done Royal Mail!

After endless phone calls (thank goodness to Antonio in the Sportingbet Portuguese Customer Service team) the passport was located and placed on a KLM flight back to Dublin via Amsterdam last night.  Phew!

So I email Ally this morning to ask if she's got it ... the answer "I'm waiting in Dublin mail centre now as I type for the last half hour waiting for them to find it ... Yeah they just can't find it, flight it was supposed on landed last night alright"!!!!!!

Finally at 10am this morning, after a very stressful few hours, the passport was found and handed back to Ally. 

Five days to go and counting ... there's nothing like a lastminute drama to keep things interesting!

Now all we have to hope is that my camera is delivered today after being destroyed by water damage after the insane breacon beacons training day!  Keep those fingers crossed please :)

Portugal in style

Antonio held a fund raising party in Portugal on Saturday. And after the late night at the Mad Men Party, (preceded by the way by root canal work on my tooth....) Paula and I flew over to Portugal on Saturday afternoon to join in with all the fun for a mad few hours!!

In typical "Claudia" fashion - that's Antonio's wife - the food was plentiful and quite fantastic, the entertainment just brilliant (god forbid even me on a karaoke machine....) and a truly memorable time was had by all.

And a great deal of money was raised too. All in all a very successful evening to cap off a quite mad but brilliant weekend.

The Mad Men Stunning Success

On Friday 21st January, Liam and Andrew (with a huge amount of help from the Starlight charity and Liam's wife Alex) organised a Mad Men Party held at Cannizaro House on Wimbledon Common. The Party was held to raise money for the climb, with 50% going to Breast Cancer and 50% going to Starlight (a charity close to Liam).

Amongst the capacity 140 guests, 99% of which were in appropriate Mad Men costume, many climbers were in attendance including Mike, Nigel, Dan, Grant - and of course Liam and Andrew.

Having known Liam and Andrew now for several years - I know full well that they are just far too modest to write a blog posting such as this. So I'm going to do it. It was a fantastic event. No, it was better than that - it was absolutely phenomenal. The food (which was excellent); the ambience (which worked from the start); the organisation (everything but everything was spot on); the music (one of the best bands I've heard in a long time); the raffle and the auction (great prizes such as four Wimbledon Final tickets donated by Andrew) , were all first class as was the attendance of the charming actress Emma Samms who founded Starlight.

Everyone had a truly great night. What marked this Party out however in addition to all of the above was the sheer attention to detail: the wall posters, the quotations, the fake cigarettes, the Mad Men plasma screens, the Mad Men table decorations, the 60's cocktails....well I could go on. This was an event that you just know took ages and ages to plan and organise and had been done by people who knew what they were doing.

And to top it all this superbly organised and executed event raised a staggering £18,000 for charity. Whilst at this stage this is a provisional figure, it won't be far off. That brings the overall total now raised to well over £65,000 smashing through our £50,000 target.

Everyone on this climbing team has worked wonders in terms of the effort they have put in for charity. But this night belonged to Liam and Andrew. Guys, well done. Really well done. Be proud.

Pink jerseyed australian football player here....

Hi All,

Well the day's fast approaching now and I must confess I'm excited in a nervous kind of way. 

In today's paper here in Aus they have a write up about my trip and the Fundraiser that Me and my Football club are doing.  Anyway I have attached the article below so everyone can have a read if they wish. 

Please try not to laugh TOO hard at the photo, (I'm in the middle) not the best one but it is a good article and Sportingbet get a good mention too.

So if you are in Darwin (ha ha....) and want to come down to Gardens Oval on Aussie Day to support my football team it would be great to see you there for a beer.

So far I have raised just over $4k and with this Aussie Day fund raiser hope to raise a lot more before I leave.  As a whole group I hear from Lisa and Nigel that we have raised over $85k AUD now, which is AWESOME!!!

I just want to thank everyone here at Sportingbet Australia for their support especially Haylie for putting together the video which led to me being on this trip.  It is going to be a great experience but very nervous.  

Really looking forward to meeting everyone!

PS I think if you double-click on the article then you should be able to read it.

 See you soon - Shannon

My Fundraiser in Dublin :)

With the help of family and friends I will be arranging a funfilled fundraising night on January 28th 2011 in McGowan’s of Phibsboro, Dublin 7 (http://www.mcgowans.ie/) and hope to see as many of you there as possible :) For those of you not in Ireland, feel free to invite friends and family over here to the evening. Upstairs from 7.30pm until 11.30pm – Disco afterwards J Drop me a line for more info at allyson.gormley@sportingbet.com

So why is it different from a regular Race night?? I’ve been to one before and it really is such a great night of fun - LIVE ACTION RACING - NO VIDEO OR FILMS YOUR CHANCE TO BE A JOCKEY - ‘Trojan Horses Racing’ is a novelty fundraising event. It does not use the traditional video or film formats to run a race-night. A set off small metal horses are employed on a racetrack and spindles which operate the horses are used by the race-goers who act as ‘Jockeys’.

Also, I have a raffle arranged throughout the evening with some fantastic donated prizes from SPA breaks to a Nintendo Wii J So hopefully I’ll raise lots of money with that.

My Story: After making a 60 second video on "Why I want to climb Kilimanjaro", see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWOmE3O7rdU&feature=player_embedd...ed

 , I was chosen as 1 of the 3 Sportingbet worldwide employees to climb Kilimanjaro along with 13 others. I'm from a family of 5 girls and I cannot wait to get to the top of Kilimanjaro! A big thank you to my sisters, Daddy / Orla, colleagues and brilliant friends for supporting me and believing I can do it! I’ve been working as a PA at Sportingbet Dublin for 10 months now, have a real lust for life, relish a challenge and am looking forward to being part of a great group of people whilst raising money for charity. So with all the hard work done, “ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no river wide enough” Don't worry... I'll leave the karaoke machine at home after my video :) Kilimanjaro, here I come!

14 days and counting…. J

All donations are greatly appreciated :) http://www.justgiving.com/Ally-Gormley

Post madness feed ...

Lisa here again ...

Post the madness that was our walk on Saturday, we warmed through in a lovely pub (with the most miserable staff EVER) called The Wellington in Breacon.  The food was spot on ... just what we needed after all that horrid weather.  Whether we needed the desserts too is another matter but boy did they look good ... :)


Nigel and his cheescake!



Grant and his Sticky Toffee Pudding!

 Clever photography here making sure I was always behind the camera so no one can see the sheer amount I ate that afternoon! :)

Lunacy, madness, scary, adventurous fun. I think!

It's 9am, it's freezing cold, you can't see more than a few yards in front of you because af the driving rain and I am sat in a flooded car park in the brecon beacons in Wales waiting for Grant, Lisa and George to arrive.
What madness has descended on me? Sometimes don't you just wish you'd said no! Sorry Grant I'm busy Saturday..... Sorry Grant I need to take the kids swimming. Instead of ...Sure Grant I'll gladly get up at 5am saturday morning and drive 3 hours to the middle of Wales to go walking in a bog and incessant rain!

But of course as is often the case, like the film you didnt really want to see but enjoyed very much, or the dinner party you didnt want to go to but left feeling it was pretty good... things that you don't expect to be good often are. And so it proved to be - but in a very masochistic way! Lunacy, madness, insane, scary, dangerous, ... All these words come to mind for the walk we did today.

Without a shred of exaggeration, it rained incessantly throughout the walk, the wind blew constantly with gusts of 80mph - yes 80 mph - sometimes physically lifting us into the air! Even so it was brilliant. It was tough but exhilarating. The memory of being physically lifted up and blown down a mountain for maybe 20 feet with your team laughing their heads off behind will remain with me for some while. We were like Strictly Come Dancing Contestants but without any partners.

Two important lessons were learnt however. Firstly, we all learnt that whilst our fitness was good our kit was not - we all got soaked. Drenched. Saturated. Completely and utterly soaked. Our socks, trousers, shirts well everything really was thoroughly wet. If this was Kilimanjaro and I had the kit I took with me today: well I'd have been in a bit of trouble! A visit to the shop tomorrow is definitely required to get some gortex gloves, and protection to stop water getting into my socks..

Secondly and more importantly, we learnt the vital importance of being well prepared. Half way up one of the three summits we did, (my god we did three in that mess of a day!) we perhaps managed to prevent a human disaster. And I'm deadly serious. A father was at the top with his two children aged I guess 14 and about 8. Dressed in the wrong clothes, no proper shoes or rain gear, the children were very close to hypothermia of that there is no doubt. Between us (Alistair, Grant's friend was amazing frankly) we grabbed hold of and frog-marched the kids back to the bottom (still took an hour and a half mind) and arrived in the nick of time as they were so very close to collapse. The more we looked back on this the closer we realise that danger was so marginally averted.

When we got back to the cars we went to Cotswold Outdoors to browse where we were told that the mountains were closed today to all but the most experienced mountaineers. I don't know at this point if I felt proud or a little foolhardy. Regardless, this strange day was just great and a fantastic test of fitness, equipment, mental strength and so much more.

Thanks Grant.

P.S. I probably owe the fact that I'm still able to attempt Kili to my good friend Sean O'Connor. Yesterday Sean marched me off to a London based shop to get a protective wrist brace to protect the two fractured bones. Well today it had two effects: Firstly I managed to climb okay (though with no real pressure on the right wrist) but importantly yet again (what is it with me this trip?) I fell over again and again landed partially on my right arm and wrist. To say that the brace prevented any further damage is the understatement of the century. Sean: I owe you.

Twit, idiot and other profanities.....

Oh what joy!

After 12 days of worsening pain sadly today my worst fears have been realised and I learned that I have not one but two fractured bones in my right wrist following my oh so graceful fall down the mountain in Austria! Not big fractures at all but fractures nonetheless.

The good news is that the injury will not stop me going to kilimanjaro or from setting off.

The bad news is that unless it is nearly healed by then, the pressure and increased blood flow and pulse at the higher altitudes may stop me going above a certain (who knows what) height. Time will tell I suppose.

Oh what joy !!!!! Never a dull moment eh?

Anyone know any bone mending spells??

Bhutan

Hi - Brian here. Just back from Bhutan which was fabulous “training” and so varied as a quick glance at these pictures will show. Highly recommended and a damn sight better than the bloody Gym!!  Brian

Lisa's first contribution to the blog . fundraising at Christmas time :)

Okay, so probably best to point out first that this is Lisa writing ... a Kili team member! Nigel has kindly (or perhaps foolishly) given all team members access to the blog so I thought I'd share my fundraising wisdom with you all :)



That's me ... oh and Nigel of course at the top of Ben Nevis a few months back!



As the clock ticks by, our fundraising efforts have moved up another notch.  With a total pot currently sitting at around £38,000 we have exceeded our expectations already, but fingers crossed with a few big events planned and a few more fundraising ideas up our sleeves we should hit the big £50,000 by the time we go.  Fingers crossed.

So in terms of the fundraising I've been doing ... well back in December I jumped on the back of the London office's (Sportingbet) charity raffle and managed to persuade them to change the charity this year to the Injured Jockey's Fund, one of the Kili team's charities, and one of the core charities Sportingbet supports.  

The charity raffle is an annual event where all Christmas gifts recieved by Directors and Senior Managers are pooled together and employees buy raffle tickets to win the gifts.  This year we had an incredible amount of gifts ... who said we were in a recession?!  Gifts included hampers from Harvey Nicholls, Fortnum and Mason and Harrods and far too many bottles of wine and champagne.  Our sponsorship team also gave away tickets to some of our sponsored teams matches over the Christmas season including Wolverhampton Wanderers on Boxing Day and Spurs during January.  In total we had over 40 prizes to give away!!

As you can imagine, most people were pretty keen to buy a raffle ticket, with some people actually splashing out and buying over twenty tickets each, all at £1 per ticket.  In total we managed to raise just under £1,400.

It's worth mentioning here that one of the prizes was a whole leg of Serrano Ham given by one of our Spanish clients. It looked truly amazing and apparently is worth quite a bit of money.  Anyway, one of my colleagues was deperate to get his hands on this prize.  When he didn't win, he proceeded to give the actual winner £150 in cash to take the prize away.  This money was donated to our total fundraising pot!

Thanks to everyone based in the Sportingbet London offices ... a great start to my fundraising efforts!

Outside of this, I have a few ideas planned for January besides simply pestering everyone I know every way I know possible - facebook, twitter, email, in person, by text ... ... ... :) 

My first idea - a small change box on my desk - is already in action (see picture) ... its only raising pennies, but as they say, "every penny counts"!! 

As for my training ... let's just say my quad muscles hurt A LOT!

Not the bloody wrist again !!!!!!!!!!!!

So my family and I went off on boxing day to Obergurgl. Paula, Emma and Adam to ski and me to climb up the 8000 feet peaks over there. Obergurgl is magnificent and the weather (again there) was just amazing. There was plenty of snow and the sunset scenery was just stupendous.

My loyal training partner son, Adam, joined me on the third day for one of the climbs which was great.

Emma is a very good skier and came second in her high-grade race and Adam had the best time of the day in his more junior race. Pretty good kids - well done !!

Then on the last day I did it again. Having successfully climbed and descended the local 8000 feet peak  4 times in the week I went out on the last day, in far too icy conditions and pretending to be superman, an hour from the bottom I  slid about 40 feet down a descent slope and landed on my wrist. Those that no me know that last year I broke my left wrist in Obergurgl - this time I landed on the right. For ten minutes I lay there and dared not move. Bloody hell no I thought - not two years on the trot !!!!!

At the moment it is very swollen and painful though I am pretty sure it is not broken- just very badly sprained. Hopefully it'll be mended in 4 weeks. Cos that's all the time we have left before we go !!!!!!!!! I can't hold a pole and I can't really move it. Ice-packs and anti-inflammatories are my new best friends.

A great start to 20011. What an idiot I feel.