Speaking

x Just a quick thank you x

Well….what can we say…

An amazing day surrounded by wonderful people, great energy, cocktails, raffle prizes, sunshine and laughter!

A HUGE thank you to everyone that came to share a momentous moment when the 6 Coxless Crew were together for the FIRST TIME ever!! Doris was also there in person to allow everyone an opportunity to meet her and see our home.
Interesting how some people commented that she was so much smaller than they thought she would be and others said she was bigger!?!

There were welcome drinks by the wonderful Albion Racing Club a great hog roast lunch outside on the balcony and plenty of friends, family and supporters.

Super exciting to finally meet Jim Andrews and Simon TY who, as you all know, commented on our blogs every day whilst we were out on the ocean showing us so much invaluable support.
We love the way they instantly felt like old friends on our first face to face meeting. Thank you once again for all the encouragement and for keeping us rowing…
(JG and Barney you were missed but were there in spirit!)

We did a brief chat about some of our highlights and lowlights and then opened the floor up to a Q&A. Incredible to have the ever fabulous Sarah Osborne and Ceri from Breast Cancer Care there and Kate McKeand from Walking With The Wounded representing our charities and helping the event run smoothly. A big thank you!

We could not have done this without you ALL.
Old friend and new friends. It’s all about a team united and that is what Sunday’s event was all about.
A wonderful sense of community and connection.

A sincere THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts for all your endless support, encouragement and patience.

Thanks to all the photographers especially Carlos and more photos to come soon.
We’re off to Cornwall this weekend…so we’ll keep you all updated on the shenanigans!! x

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

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!

This week has been a busy one. After returning from Slovenia after a great two weeks away as assistant leader on a personal development programme with children from Churches College, Petersfield, I have been bobbing between Kent and London. Two weeks with seventeen, fourteen year olds where I crossed paths with Ems only once who was also out there, was brilliant, but I’m also happy to be back doing Coxless Crew bits.

I’m back working one day a week doing some freelance sales, and stepping into an office after all of this time was hard, but something that was inevitable in order for me to keep more time free to share The Coxless Crews story.

Yesterday I met up with Nat, Ems and Izz at Izz’s work Powell Gilbert who have been a huge support to us, and we gave a talk to them in the office over lunch. It was quite informal, and I just love talking about the row with the girls, it really makes our talks come alive when we can relive the memory together.

Today I then went to Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Faversham and gave a talk to the Sixth Form. They have been raising money for our charities, and were such a brilliant audience. I never thought that we would be able to talk about losing sight of shore and continuously rowing to get to land in relation to revising for A Levels, but today that happened – it was so fantastic speaking to the sixth form after the talk and hearing them say that they were inspired.

In other news yesterday we were invited to Buckingham Palace to present the Duke of Edinburgh awards in May which is VERY exciting to say the least!

What an amazing week we have had as a team with talks for ‘Night of Adventure’, the Rotary District Conference in Marlow, iSportconnect, the Cambridge University Women’s Boatclub crew, to name a few. It’s been diverse and exciting and reminded me how different we all are as a team yet how well we always pull together!

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The idea for the coming months is to have different topics to discuss on a weekly basis in our blogs if there are no events to share with you.

This week is about mindfulness.

Whoever we are and whatever we do, I think that there is this undeniable feeling of disharmony in the world at the moment. Nature is giving us signs all the time and I think we have all become a little more aware of the importance to look after not only our physical health but also our mental wellbeing. Finding that time to forget the stresses of everyday life, try to quiet the mind and find the perfect work/personal life balance!

One of the best things about being in the middle of the ocean for me, was all the time we had to be mindful. No mobile phone distraction, societal pressures to consider and to be able to connect fully to the surroundings and to each other as a team. Everything we did was worthy of our undivided attention. We truly listened to one another, we tasted what we ate, we really saw what we looked at and sound and emotion was heightened. I’ve promised myself that I will always bring myself back to that mindful state and carry those oceanic moments with me wherever I find myself – even in the middle of the chaotic city of London!

For us collectively as a team, some of the most special memories from the journey are the silent star-strewn nights, the magnificent sunsets, getting to know each other’s life stories and those hysterical moments when something in that instant made us laugh uncontrollably. For me, there was something very mindful about all of these situations – as we were fully present.

Have a great weekend everyone and remember:

“ In this moment, there is plenty of time. In this moment, you are precisely as you should be. In this moment, there is infinite possibility ”

Victoria Moran