Over the past week things have really picked up. I guess it was when Kerstin from Oxfam asked me for the Project Outline. I thought, #$%@, better do the Project Outline, and I did it that night. I'm trying to upload it onto the facebook group but I don't know how. I mean, I had all of that stuff in my head, but I hadn't organised it, and certainly hadn't presented it in any coherent way. Now I've got something to show people and they seem to respond well.
There's been so many developments. On the charity, or rather NGO, organisation that is doing environment related community development front I have been in discussions with 2 great orgs. It was pretty hard to find an organisation that was doing exactly what I wanted to support with the ride, but these two seemed to come closest. I read the Oxfam "Adapting to Climate Change" paper, which expressed exactly what I was feeling and the other org, FOE, came well recommended.
So this weekend I'm going to present the project to the FOE national meeting and see where we can go from there.
The next priority is the website. I've decided firstly to put up a myspace site and then when I can get some assistance, put up a site exclusively for the ride. Owen Cordes-Holland, our new Campaign Advisor, has a contact who might be interested. My friend Elizabeth in the states has offered her boyfriend for the job. My little brother's oldest friend Max is apparently a prodigy on the web designing thingo, but I haven't been able to get onto him yet. But I'm excited because with the NGO and the website we can start moving forward quickly, with sponsorship matters and publicity.
Then there's the launch, I was just gonna have a little leaving party but thought, if I'm going to arrange something, may as well make it big. So there's one month to arrange a party, with bands, DJs and an auction to raise money for the ride. I've managed to enlist James from work as Launch Manager. He seems really keen although I felt bad because I thought we'd both get fired we were discussing the plans so much and the director kept walking past. But he and his friend Niki are onto the media thing and have started doing up the press releases and sending emails and everything else that Launch Manager's do.
A really big development is that Rick called, from Southampton, England. He is going to produce, video, and edit the doco (with me of course) and I couldn't be more delighted. One of my best friends, one of the best guys and he is on board.
There's little developments every day and I'll have a camera soon so I'll be able to upload visuals. If anyone is reading this and is interested in getting involved in some way give me an email at kimbobaggins@hotmail.co.uk.
I apoloise if there are any spellin mistakes, this keyboard is terrible.
I'll keep you posted...
RIDE PLANET EARTH
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Getting the planning stage well and truly underway
I have been planning this thing in my head for years but have not gotten off my butt to actually lay the ground work.
I've now only got 6 weeks until I leave so I have got even less than no excuses. But some good ideas have come up since I wrote the first blog so I'm happy to record them and look forward to putting them into practice.
The first was put to me by my good friend Owen Holland, when I was in Canberra two weekends ago, Owen is doing his PhD on some element of environmental law so he is very on the ball with environmental things. Good luck with his first seminar presentation that's coming up.
Owen told me that the UN is having a convention on the environment, I'm not sure if that's it's official title, in December 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark. Well, geez, if that's not the perfect place and time to end this trip there isn't one.
It's almost perfectly aligned with my expected arrival in Western Europe, and it will be one of the most important international meetings to discuss how to save the environment, although of course that's not exactly what people will be discussing, more, how do we keep making money and living lush lifestyles while not completely destroying the world around us, but still, as the world's media will be there, the ride should be able to make it's statement to the appropriate people and to a much bigger audience that it would otherwise reach.
So I'm excited about that.
Then there's a couple of other exciting ideas as well, I was speaking you my great pals Jon Thomsen and Ruth and Jon had the idea that people could participate much more fully than just support me with their well wishes and ride their bikes. They could become as fully a part of planet ride as I am, by riding their bikes to work, or school, or to the shops, and they could be sponsored to do so and so raise money for charity just as I will be, and maybe they could be sponsored for the amount of kilometres, although that's a bit hard to calculate. And I thought that people could become financiers of the planet ride documentary, just as my friend Canadian Rich is organising with his grass roots funding for his film.
So those are the main ideas, although I'm also excited about some other things.
One is the start of filming, I will be recording the planning process as of this sunday, when I will do my first video diary and try to get some shots of me on the bike and the hazards to petrol driven traffic.
And identifying a charity, that's exciting too, I hope they will be as excited about the project as me.
I will need to get a digital camera and work out how to put photos on this thing as well so it's not too boring...
I've now only got 6 weeks until I leave so I have got even less than no excuses. But some good ideas have come up since I wrote the first blog so I'm happy to record them and look forward to putting them into practice.
The first was put to me by my good friend Owen Holland, when I was in Canberra two weekends ago, Owen is doing his PhD on some element of environmental law so he is very on the ball with environmental things. Good luck with his first seminar presentation that's coming up.
Owen told me that the UN is having a convention on the environment, I'm not sure if that's it's official title, in December 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark. Well, geez, if that's not the perfect place and time to end this trip there isn't one.
It's almost perfectly aligned with my expected arrival in Western Europe, and it will be one of the most important international meetings to discuss how to save the environment, although of course that's not exactly what people will be discussing, more, how do we keep making money and living lush lifestyles while not completely destroying the world around us, but still, as the world's media will be there, the ride should be able to make it's statement to the appropriate people and to a much bigger audience that it would otherwise reach.
So I'm excited about that.
Then there's a couple of other exciting ideas as well, I was speaking you my great pals Jon Thomsen and Ruth and Jon had the idea that people could participate much more fully than just support me with their well wishes and ride their bikes. They could become as fully a part of planet ride as I am, by riding their bikes to work, or school, or to the shops, and they could be sponsored to do so and so raise money for charity just as I will be, and maybe they could be sponsored for the amount of kilometres, although that's a bit hard to calculate. And I thought that people could become financiers of the planet ride documentary, just as my friend Canadian Rich is organising with his grass roots funding for his film.
So those are the main ideas, although I'm also excited about some other things.
One is the start of filming, I will be recording the planning process as of this sunday, when I will do my first video diary and try to get some shots of me on the bike and the hazards to petrol driven traffic.
And identifying a charity, that's exciting too, I hope they will be as excited about the project as me.
I will need to get a digital camera and work out how to put photos on this thing as well so it's not too boring...
Monday, June 2, 2008
The first days...
Hi,
this is my first blog. I'm not great with computers so this is kinda a big deal for me. But it's something I had to do. You see, I'm soon going to be embarking on something special, a special chapter in my life. And I want it to be recorded, because I think it has the potential to have implications that go beyond me.
I'm planning a trip, the ultimate trip so far as I'm concerned. I'm going to try and ride a bicycle from Brisbane Australia (my home country) to Paris France, on the other side of the planet. I'm doing this for lots of different reasons, some purely personal, the others environmental and social.
I've been planning this trip for many years, mainly just inside my head. At the World Cup in Germany 2006 I was hitch-hiking to Stuttgart for Australia's crunch game against Croatia and amazingly one of my best friends from highschool in Canberra was driving past and picked me up. That's Keegan Knowles, and I spoke to him about the idea, of cycling from London to Asia and within a couple of weeks he had set up a web-site and was contacting sponsors and we were going to be on our way to Singapore in March 07. But it didn't pan out, we got a great response from friends and raised almost one thousand pounds for Save the Children but nothing for ourselves so didn't have the resources to go.
But I've been saving ever since, and at the end of July of this year, 2008, I'm off. One of the main motivators for doing this is the desire to do something actively about climate change and environmental destruction. I'm going to be documenting the whole journey on video, and finally when it's done will produce a documentary of the experience. The focus will not be my trials, as gruelling and challenging as I expect they'll be, but rather the people that I meet along the way, and how climate change has been effecting their livelihoods and communities. I especially want to find out how climate change has effected those who have been forced to move because of it, the "environmental refugees". They are a group of people not formally recognised by governments and international law however forced to deal with the harsh and devastating realities of the rapid modern climatic changes and a group that is expected to grow and grow. I will be travelling through Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India and Pakistan, amongst other countries that have been at the brunt of traumatic environmental disasters over the past few years. These are places where the impacts of a polluted environment, higher temperatures, changes in sea level and climate patterns are everyday matters of life, death and survival, not just rhetoric.
I want to raise awareness of these issues, and of some of the solutions, like environmentally friendly transport and travel. We don't have to get every where fast.
So I hope that this is the start of something. I'm going to ride my bike to Paris, I hope that people start thinking about riding their bikes, or walking, to the local shops, or to work.
I'm going to track the planning process on this blog, before the real thing, so I'll be writing an update soon.
Thanks,
Kim
this is my first blog. I'm not great with computers so this is kinda a big deal for me. But it's something I had to do. You see, I'm soon going to be embarking on something special, a special chapter in my life. And I want it to be recorded, because I think it has the potential to have implications that go beyond me.
I'm planning a trip, the ultimate trip so far as I'm concerned. I'm going to try and ride a bicycle from Brisbane Australia (my home country) to Paris France, on the other side of the planet. I'm doing this for lots of different reasons, some purely personal, the others environmental and social.
I've been planning this trip for many years, mainly just inside my head. At the World Cup in Germany 2006 I was hitch-hiking to Stuttgart for Australia's crunch game against Croatia and amazingly one of my best friends from highschool in Canberra was driving past and picked me up. That's Keegan Knowles, and I spoke to him about the idea, of cycling from London to Asia and within a couple of weeks he had set up a web-site and was contacting sponsors and we were going to be on our way to Singapore in March 07. But it didn't pan out, we got a great response from friends and raised almost one thousand pounds for Save the Children but nothing for ourselves so didn't have the resources to go.
But I've been saving ever since, and at the end of July of this year, 2008, I'm off. One of the main motivators for doing this is the desire to do something actively about climate change and environmental destruction. I'm going to be documenting the whole journey on video, and finally when it's done will produce a documentary of the experience. The focus will not be my trials, as gruelling and challenging as I expect they'll be, but rather the people that I meet along the way, and how climate change has been effecting their livelihoods and communities. I especially want to find out how climate change has effected those who have been forced to move because of it, the "environmental refugees". They are a group of people not formally recognised by governments and international law however forced to deal with the harsh and devastating realities of the rapid modern climatic changes and a group that is expected to grow and grow. I will be travelling through Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India and Pakistan, amongst other countries that have been at the brunt of traumatic environmental disasters over the past few years. These are places where the impacts of a polluted environment, higher temperatures, changes in sea level and climate patterns are everyday matters of life, death and survival, not just rhetoric.
I want to raise awareness of these issues, and of some of the solutions, like environmentally friendly transport and travel. We don't have to get every where fast.
So I hope that this is the start of something. I'm going to ride my bike to Paris, I hope that people start thinking about riding their bikes, or walking, to the local shops, or to work.
I'm going to track the planning process on this blog, before the real thing, so I'll be writing an update soon.
Thanks,
Kim
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