Archive for May, 2016

Its been a busy week for all of us since Laura’s blog about our trip to the Palace. Last week I was up in the New Forest at Forres Sandle Manor School presenting to them about our journey. I presented to the Prep School, but then went down into Pre-prep which was a new experience talking to ages 4 – 7. They were particularly interested in whether or not I had seen crabs and lobsters whilst out at sea! Really looking forward to taking part in their sponsored walk on 21st June across the New Forest in aid of our charities. I then also spent Friday evening at the Royal Temple Yacht Club in Ramsgate. It was so awesome talking to lots of sailors who have also been in big waves and out at sea, but also people who have used some of the equipment that we used on Doris. A massive thanks to them for digging into their pockets and also raising funds for us.

Laura has been out in Switzerland for the Swiss National Championships for Wheelchair Racing. It is where all of the top Internationals are competing, and also the last time that they are all together before Rio!

Lizanne has been planning her trip over to the UK, which is just so exciting that we will finally for the first time all be together in the same place but more importantly all at the same time! We are really hoping to get lots of team things organised for when she is over, so Lizanne has been busy planning this too!

Izz and Ems went to Kenwick Mountain Festival last weekend. They were asked if they had ever tried rehydrated food. When Ems answered that she had eaten it for a whole 9 months, the guy nearly ate his hat – don’t think that he had had that response before! Ems was also with the Rotary Club in Marlow again, as last night they donated another £1000 to our charities!

Last but not least, Nats has some very exciting news! She has joined forces with New Level Results and Best Year Yet (The results focused and goal setting program that the Team used to help us get to the start line, and also across the pacific). She will be doing individual and team coaching to help others reach their own full potential and cross their own pacific.

We are all collectively making lots of plans for our event on 26th June. If you haven’t bought your tickets yet, don’t wait, they are being bought up rather fast, and we would hate you to miss out. Please do invite anyone that you know that followed our journey and would love to meet Doris! You can buy them from the link below!

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/coxless-crew-friends-family-and-supporters-event-tickets-25592933152?utm_term=eventurl_text

Lots of Love

Meg

x

It’s been a whirlwind of a week that I know not many can say, started with an invite to Buckingham Palace. Thanks to the D of E Awards who were celebrating their 60th Anniversary, they had kindly invited us as a team to be part of a select few that were presenters on the day. There were approximately 1,000 students who had successfully completed their Gold Duke of Edinburgh Awards and all presenters were assigned a group of about 50 students each.

We were fortunate enough to spend some time with the Duke himself who shared a joke or two with us and showed a good interest in the row, I think the conversation started with ‘Well you all look quite normal for a crazy bunch!’. He was intrigued to see Doris after Meg invited him over to meet her, which I’m sure didn’t help his timing schedule, but we were honoured to introduce him to her and to share a giggle or two along the way.

Whilst there we got to meet a few of the other presenters who were so friendly and supportive of the row, some of those being; Sally Gunnell (my childhood hero), above Charley Boorman who isn’t normally in a chair but has had a recent motorbike accident and has injured his leg, then below, the girls got to meet Paralympic and World Record holder Hannah Cockroft who is one of the athletes I work with and will be hopefully heading to Rio in the Summer.

It was a beautiful day but it was tainted by the fact that we weren’t there as a full team with Lizanne. We did however call Lizanne whilst we were all together and gave her a run down of the day, but it goes without saying that she was missed. That being said, we are SUPER excited to announce, that Lizanne will be making it over to the UK at the end of June!! We seriously can’t wait to be together as a full team for the first time EVER!! Even pre row we had to work remotely with Lizanne and had only met during team selection when there were other girls involved, so it’ll be sooooo great to have all of us together.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/coxless-crew-friends-family-and-supporters-event-tickets-25592933152?utm_term=eventurl_text

Here is the link to the ticket page where you can book to come and see us as a team and meet Doris for her solo visit to London on 26th June 2016. You’ll find there are 2 options, 1 for attending including a welcome drink and another option which includes a bite to eat. For those of you that have supported us throughout, we would love to see you and thank you in person for all the encouragement and motivation you gave us.

xx

What a beautiful week. It was so good to see the sun shining and as much as we thought we would never want to see the sun again after our relentless exposure on the boat…it was actually great to feel the heat again and to see everyone’s moods lifted. It’s amazing what a blue sky does to people.

SAVE THIS DATE!

Sunday June 26^th is the day that we have set for our friends, family and followers event.

This will be an informal celebratory daytime get together that will give us all the opportunity to show photos, answer questions and meet as many people as possible that followed us and showed us so much support during the journey.
Lizanne is coming over from South Africa and we will be together as a team for the first time! It’s going to be a real highlight of the year for all of us.

There will be more information to follow, but for now…please save the date.

It’s been all go for the team.

Izzy and Laura had a good catch up with Sarah Moshman to discuss the production of the documentary and obviously we are all very excited to see how our story of the journey will be told. We’re hoping for a release date of beginning of 2017.

Natalia was asked to partake in a video Blab (live web-cast) with Best Year Yet to talk about how the program helped us as a team create a successful framework with a clear focus and to set goals and prepare for getting to the start line of the row as well as the actual expedition. It was great to hear other stories about how Best Year Yet has been used with younger ages and basketball where the program is being set up to help teams achieve sports goals while also maintaining balance with their personal values and the other roles they play in their lives.

Meg headed off to do a schools talk in Broadstairs. The school has done a huge amount of fundraising for us and it’s also where Meg’s aunty Linda and Elaina work for Dolphin swim school – who swam the length of the Pacific in lengths for us back in September 2015.

Ems did a talk at Godolphin and Laytmer School and presented medals to their J16 fours crew who won at the national schools head race. They’ve also fundraised for us two years in a row in their ‘challenge your limits’ week.

A hearty thank you to everyone at the schools for their invaluable support, hard work and dedication.

LP headed to Crewsaver as they have been reviewing our lifejackets. Using them during our 9-month odyssey was the perfect test of their endurance. They worked wonderfully for us, being small, comfortable and extremely effective.

We are happy to announce the winner of our Crewsaver life jacket competition.

CONGRATULATIONS to Josh Ohill.

If you can email us your contact details (info@coxlesscrew.com) , then we can get the life jacket sent out to you.

In other news…Doris has been cleaned in preparation for her big trip to Buckingham Palace next week – which is very exciting. So we’ll update you on that next time!

Time continues to fly by, and I can’t believe it’s May already! I went back and read the blog post that was posted exactly a year ago. I’ve copied the link below:

Day 15 – Back in sight of shore

I cannot believe that was A YEAR AGO! Awaiting my turn on the boat and following the girls progress with hawk eyes the nerves had started to set in! Reading about the food even made me miss it! Might have to order a cheeky packet of Beef and Potato hotpot… dehydrated style!

Anyway… here’s what we have all been up to over the last week…

Laura did a talk at a prize giving event at Redruth Schools, Megs and Ems did a school talk in Folkestone last week to four different year groups and Meg has been attending the amazing Fierce Grace yoga sessions. This has been such an incredible tool for getting our bodies back in shape after spending months at sea. For more info you can visit www.fiercegrace.com

Ems went down to see Doris last week to do a bit of cleaning. Can only imagine being back on Doris what memories and emotions came flooding back! She also did another great school talk at Howell’s School in Llandaff sports awards.

Now for the most exciting news… We have been running a competition this week, and you have until TOMORROW (6th May 2016) 12PM UK time / 1PM SA time to enter! Simply head over to our Instagram page and repost this picture below and tag @coxless_crew to stand a chance to win this brilliant Crewsaver Life Jacket.

It is exactly like the ones that kept us safe on the Pacific.

You can also text DORIS to 70300 to donate 3 pounds to our charities.

Lizanne x