Now... bring me that horizon.

Hi there!

So having successfully completed my fundraising for my expedition to Costa Rica and Nicaragua with Raleigh International, which I blogged about quite a bit, I've decided to start a brand spanking new blog to share my experience of the expedition itself.

Whilst I will be managing the Raleigh International blog for Costa Rica and Nicaragua, I've decided to share the experience at a much more personal level here. Opinions and views and scenery are my own, and this will probably be riddled with references to music and films and dinosaurs that you can't really do with a corporate blog.

Let's start by clarifying that this blog has nothing to do with the band Bring Me The Horizon. The line "Now... bring me that horizon" from The Pirates of the Caribbean film, from which that band derived its name is simply one of my favourite quotes. I think it sums up my current approach to the expedition. I know it's there, but when I get there, there's a different horizon to aim for, and I've no idea what that might be, but bring it to me anyway. In the words of Aerosmith "Life's a journey, not a destination". You don't know what's there, but whatever, check it out anyway.

Here's a funny picture. It's got nothing to do with the blog, but this post was just getting really text-heavy. Good, eh?

Although the main focus of the Raleigh International experience is the expedition itself, I can't stop thinking about how much I've already gotten from it, and that the experience actually started quite a while ago.

It's almost a year since I was sat at work, not having a good day, and just wanting to run away and do something exciting. Some Googling for exciting jobs brought me to the Communications Officer role for Raleigh's Borneo expedition that June. I applied that night. That in itself was a big leap, because nobody in my circle of friends had ever done anything like it, not in my family, and I knew there'd be a lot of questions to answer from lots of people, because it was pretty much unheard of. At the end of the day, I was a 30 year old admin assistant, stuck in a rut with a job I didn't enjoy, in an industry I didn't believe in, and not awfully sure what to do. Christ, is wanting to do something a bit mad to break out of that rut that unreasonable?

The following week I was invited to attend an assessment weekend in March. By this time, I'd found out a bit more about Raleigh International, and discovered that they also ran expeditions in Costa Rica, and that they had different start times throughout the year, so I'd decided that I'd rather go to Costa Rica, because of my love of Jurassic Park, and in September, because it would give me more time to fundraise. The assessment weekend was without doubt the single most important defining moment of my adult life. I sent an email to the coordinator explaining:

"I really did get so much out of it, and walking in my front door I felt really reinvigorated and alive like I haven't felt in years.  I learned so much about myself and where I'm at in life, and what kind of environment makes me happy to work in.  It's also inspired me to get back involved with Scouting, hopefully after an expedition with Raleigh!"

So yeah, I was excited about something and I knew that I shouldn't be working in Higher Education anymore, and I decided that I'd really like to work in a digital marketing position for a charity. Everybody on the assessment weekend was really sound, and people would let everybody finish their sentences, which was so respectful and polite, and which I really wasn't used to. It was as if people were actually listening.

Time for another picture. This was an image I used in some of the promotional material for my fundraising.

Apart from that, I got a call offering me a position on expedition. They didn't have any Communications Officer roles available, but they were able to offer me other roles, but I knew that careers-wise, I needed to have that Communications Officer job title on my CV. They said I could wait until January, which would give me more time for fundraising anyway, so I went with that.

The fundraising was a massive experience. I tried to plan it well and think outside the box. I had to pay the last little bit myself, but I was so overwhelmed by people's generosity. I had recently seen Amanda Palmer's TED talk, called The art of asking, which was hugely influential in my approach to fundraising. It's a scary thing to have to be asking people for money all the time, and it can be boring for the individual doing the continual asking. I was particularly amazed by friends and colleagues of my parents, who I had never met, donating money. The generosity of people, and their belief in what I was undertaking, was humbling.

The next major part of the experience was the development weekend. This was a weekend where we went to a scout camp and undertook a series of activities which I guess were to essentially develop our way of thinking and our values in the context of others, and to prepare ourselves for dealing with the wide range of cultures and backgrounds that we'd be exposed to on expedition. It got me thinking a lot about international development and the fact that there's no 100% right answer, and it got me thinking about my values and how I project or don't project my values onto others. Lots to consider. One of the most important things about the weekend was meeting quite a few people who I'll be working with on expedition. Here we are! Aren't we lovely?

And since then it's just been sorting gear. I quit my job, I'm haemorrhaging my savings but, hey, I need new stories of new adventures, and I leave in five days time!

Now... bring me that horizon.