BEST Swim Fundraiser - Dan Snow helping out

I am actively involved with helping 6 Bristol kids break the World Record for swimming the English Channel - their attempt will be in August this year and they will have all just turned 12 years old by the time they swim.....incredible!

Raising money for adventures and expeditions is most definitely the hardest part of any great adventure, and so we are delighted to have Dan Snow on board to help us raise funds for the Swim Challenge. We are running an event in Bristol on Friday 15th called "An evening with TV Historian Dan Snow"

Its about his life in front of the camera, and his forthcoming series on the Royal Navy. It is in aid of BEST (Bristol English Channel Swim Team) 6 local children planning to become the youngest team ever to swim the English Channel.

Friday January 15th 2010, 7.30 - 9.15pm
QEH Theatre, Jacobs’ Wells Road, Bristol
£8 adults, £6 under 18s/students
For tickets ring: 0117-944-4409
Or email: sj5798@bristol.ac.uk

More on BEST - www.bestswim.co.uk

Howies Brainfood - great sausages

I recently spoke at the new(ish) Howies store in Bristol on my last 2 years of adventuring, messing about with bikes, skis, pulkas and shotguns. Not only do I respect the Howies philosophy to business and like what they are doing with low-carbon manufacturing, but they are one of a few companies today that are integrated into their local community. Bristol is a great city and this tiny store (and relatively small brand) managed to attract 50 people off the streets to hear me wax lyrical about why a full suspension mountain bike with a trailer is a great way to cycle across the central Iceland desert (how naive was I?)

Anyway thanks Howies, for the warm welcome, great beer and sausages on cocktail sticks and of course the merino, can't forget the merino.

http://brainfood.howies.co.uk/2009/09/wee-do-bristol-jon-bradshaw-2/

http://www.howies.co.uk

A treatise on preparedness

One of the great things about carving out a niche for myself in this life is you get the opportunity to meet with some incredible people. In recent months I have shared a pint with Ben Saunders (North Pole veteran), chatted to Dan Martin (round the world cyclist and now endurance swimmer) and Hadyn Welch (who is planning to swim around the coast of Britain on his own – incredible).

Recently, however I had lunch with Olly Hicks – Olly was the youngest person to ever row across the North Atlantic – he did it in 2006 and did it alone. It took him 124 days, read all about his incredible adventures at Virgin Global Row. He is back temporarily from his latest adventure rowing around Antarctica, where he has had a few problems with the design of his boat. I contacted him, as he has firsthand experience of the ocean at real ‘sea-level’ along the same route as want to swim. I wanted to learn from his experiences on the conditions of the ocean and its currents and weather. He also knows how to land big sponsors and what’s involved in keeping them happy. I am not sure which advice is more valuable at this point, how to fend off sharks or how to convince potential sponsors that you are different and unique – Olly seems to be master of both.

What I really like about Olly is his honest and upfront approach to his adventures, he is incredibly enthusiastic, positive and optimistic about his future (why shouldn’t he be, he has the backing from a major sponsor, an ocean of determination and a healthy perspective on his motivation behind expeditions and adventures.) Olly was also very humble about his accomplishments and enthusiastic about his failures. I am coming to understand that unless you fail or loose once in a while in life, where does the motivation and hunger to win come from.

We chatted about risks and how too much planning can often stifle an adventure, I found myself resonating with his opinion, you can’t have it all worked out to the nth degree, you can’t mitigate every single risk, you have to trust and rely on your judgment when tricky situations occur. Too much planning often leads to too much weight and equipment, too many people involved and ultimately too much cost. So I have had a long hard look at my expedition in the making and have worked with an interested sponsor to strip out all the unnecessary, all the chaff and fluff and comfort and get back to the bare bone essentials of the swim. Much of why I loved my early adventures was facing head on the fear of the unknown – if I knew where all the crevasses were, or when a piece of vital kit would fail then I don’t think I would have got as much from my challenges as I have.

This brings me nicely on to the subject of sharks. I have not been overly worried about them so far, they rarely attack humans, the Atlantic Ocean is huge and I am sure they have better things to do than eat me. Every expert I have spoken to says that my shark repellent strategy will be overkill so I have moved on to other parts of the expedition, like how do I safely get back onto the boat in heavy swells, without battering myself to death.

Over lunch Olly showed me photos of his Atlantic crossing to give me an idea of the water conditions, towards the end of his slide show we came across a photo of a large grey fin breaking the surface of the water behind his boat, it was a huge Great White shark headbutting the transom of his boat, and he said quite plainly, (as if he hadn’t really clocked what I was attempting to do) that on one day he saw 3 of them [Great Whites] in a group, circling his boat – no doubt discussing whether Olly would taste better with Heinz, Hellman's or HP!

There is a fine line between planning too much and too little…I am sure!

Exeter Cathedral School

I try to balance my talks and lectures to ensure I give more of my free time to schools rather than corporations, albeit the latter pays the bills. Last week I was down in the South West of England at Exeter Cathedral School, talking to kids about motivation, determination and discipline. I used my last 3 adventures as metaphors for trying to inspire kids on how they should look to themselves for their source of motivation, setting their own standards by which they should measure themselves, rather than always trying to live up to expectations that others may have of them.

I wish I had been encouraged more as a child to set my own personal standards and goals and to try and live up to them rather than always doing (and failing) what was expected of me.
I was your classic overweight, bullied, picked-on kid at school, always selected last at sport and usually associated with kids far more needy and dysfunctional than I was. The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme, was my way out of the trap, it taught me much of what I love about life nowadays and showed me that a its important to spend as much time as possible being outdoors and active. Wherever I can I try to encourage schools to participate in the Scouts and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme, the skills provided outside of the classroom will last a lifetime.

Thanks to Andrew Pennington for hosting me and the year 8’s who strangely enough knew exactly how to navigate using the sun and wind the win in a desert - amazing what we are teaching kids in school these days!

Clifton College lecture

I recently finished a lecture series at Clifton College in Bristol on Exploring Antarctica; it was less about Exploration per se and more about how to walk to the South Pole. Working with the great teachers at Clifton we clothed the curriculum topics of nutrition and healthy eating along with temperature and thermal dynamics, with teaching the kids the principals of surviving in extreme conditions not only from a practical physical point of view but also an emotional and mental one.

The course was a resounding success and my skills at keeping 40 or so 10 year olds quiet and concentrating for an hour or more are much improved, all the teachers wanted to know how I did it. Easy when you bring along a GPS, 10 kilos of Cadburys Dairy milk and an ice-saw for the kids to play with!

My thanks to all the staff and pupils at Clifton College who continue to support me and allow me to train at the excellent facilities of the Clifton College Sports Centre.

“Jon gave most considerately of his time to inspire and enthrall the pupils. He has natural way of incorporating education elements from our curriculum into his incredible story.”
Julian Edgell, Clifton College

The local paper had this to say: Article