SEB'S ODYSSEY CONTINUED - AFTER THE WALK!
Donations to my charities: over £30,000!
Wednesday 4 February 2009
Apologies for the long silence, but I do have a slight excuse. This website, sponsored by hosted4peanuts .com, was designed and set up by my great friend and DofE soulmate, Mike Hicks. Every time I log on I still have to type in Mike's name and password. On 4th January, totally out of the blue, Mike died, aged just 60 after a very short illness. It has taken me some time to work up the courage to type his name into the login - silly I know, but he was so supportive of this project, and I miss his witty banter on the end of the phone...
But life goes on, and I'm delighted to report that Seb is in great form and getting involved in all sorts of local projects. My DofE kit cupboard has been sorted and stock-checked, and he is back in the full swing of his life with the TA, volunteering for weekends on Dartmoor and various other activities. Donations still trickle in slowly, but today we received yet another cheque from Chester Park for monies raised on the sponsored walk round Portland organised by Pauline and Linda adding another £118 in the pot. And completely coincidentally Pauline rang to say they have another £507.50 to pay in, also from the sponsored walk, so that puts Seb over the THIRTY THOUSAND barrier. How amazing is THAT!
Looking back 12 months to the 4th February 2008 he was on the Isle of Wight enjoying glorious weather - hard to believe as I look out the window as more snow swirls under the streetlights. How different things might have been if he'd set out into weather like this...
Sunday 21st December 2008
Just a brief update to say that Seb has been chilling out this week - he's sorted all the money out that he collected en route and paid it in, and with the steady flow of donations received his total has now crept over the £27000 mark - awesome. On Wednesday evening he attended the annual D of E Presentation which takes place at Lulworth Castle, and there he received a certificate in recognition of his outstanding achievements from the Dorset County Council Youth & Community Service signed by the Head of the Council, the Chief Executive, the Director of Children's Services and finallt the Cabinet Member for Childrens Services, Councillor Toni Coombs who also presented it (and a Christmas stocking for Flash!)
There are a few new messages on the message page, and over the Christmas period I will update the sponsors pages, and the media links. However, just googling Seb Green will bring up most of the media stories for you to enjoy.
On Friday, Lynda from Vodaphone shaved her head - here's the link if you'd like to sponsor this very brave lady. http://www.justgiving.com/lyndatull. All monies will be donated through Seb to the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance and will be matched by Vodaphone - it will bring Seb close to the £30000 point.
And so the magic goes on. Happy Christmas to you all!
Monday 15th December 2008
Well, it seems appropriate to start a new page for the ongoing story of Seb's Odyssey. Part One has been successfully completed, and what better place to begin a new chapter? Also, to be totally honest, I've been having enormous trouble uploading pictures over the last couple of days and I have a sneaking suspicion that the 'blog' has simply grown too big to be contained in one 'file'.
Seb has had a busy busy day today and if you google Seb Green I'm sure you will be amazed at the number of results that come up! He arrived in London yesterday evening by train and having conducted one last interview for the BBC World Service he booked into his hotel. There he was slightly surprised to find a booking in the name of Mr SDOG Green and after a moment of confusion and a consultation with the manager he pointed out that SDOG was probably him plus Flash! He had a comfortable night, although not a huge amount of sleep, and a 6.30am start ensured that he and Neil Swan, Director of Starlight, arrived at the studio in good time for their appearance on the famous breakfast 'sofa'. I hope you saw it - it was magic. Seb's slight bewilderment at one point was caused by the autocue suddenly speeding up massively and scrolling at high speed - we have concluded that they were running late and needed to skip a bit before the news at 8.30! High point for Seb? Meeting Arline from Strictly!
Flash was the most laid-back of all - what a well-behaved superstar - and in fact when Seb transferred to a second studio to record a piece for News 24 he was asked to stroke Flash at one point just to reassure the viewers that he was still alive and well! Flash obliged with a stretch and a yawn and promptly went back to sleep....
I picked Seb up at Dorchester at 2 and after dropping Flash at home for a much needed sleep I drove Seb up to the new Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance Base at Henstridge to meet with Annette Trapaud from the Air Ambulance and Martin Dowse from Meridian to prepare for a live broadcast at six.
The team at the Air Ambulance made us very welcome and obviously see Seb as something of a local hero which was brilliant. Technology conspired against the 'live' link - problems with satellite comms - but a really good piece was recorded to run later in the evening - so if you read this in time it'll be after the 10 o'clock news hopefully! (or you can watch it on-line tomorrow). A tired but content Seb was delivered home for a very late tea....
The website has gone totally berserk today and we think that is part of the explanation for the difficulty in uploading photos - we've gone from a daily average of about 120 hits 3 weeks ago, to 150+ in the run up to the finish, to nearly 1200 yesterday and over 800 already today. Have a look at Seb's Justgiving page too (there's a link on our Index page) - it has almost gone off the scale with donations (123 so far today including some to Starlight's site) which is fan-tas-tic.
I'm going to upload this text now and I'll then try and upload some photos shortly after (some nice Air Ambulance shots!) but hopefully you'll at least have something to read if not to look at.
Fingers crossed........