Just for the Challenge writes:
Last year, we had a stand at the London Boat Show and Bear Grylls happened to stop by. It turned out that Bear is a big fan of paddleboarding and loved the idea of what we were doing. Bear told us about his aspirations to launch his own inflatable expedition board and asked if we would help by using it on the expedition - obviously we said "yes!".
One of the aims of the project is to support charities and a few weeks ago the team set up and operated the first ever paddleboard 'marathon' which was held on the River Thames. The event, supporting cancer charity 'Momentum' raised over £30,000!
We really want people to experience just what fun paddleboarding is, so at venues in London, Brighton, the South Coast, Essex and Cambridgeshire we have been, and will be, running taster sessions and events for people to come and have a go and enjoy the fun. We're also looking at venues across the south west and in the north of England for later in the year. The entire project is being filmed for a documentary which will help to 'share our story' of the expedition, the work that we've been doing, and, hopefully, encourage other people to set their own challenges.. The documentary will be shown at private screenings hosted by us and at film festivals around the world.
For my part, my experiences of the expedition will be used to create some more fun and interactive lesson plans and activities for the 'Schools Explorer' project. The company that I work with, TT Education, will use their professional staff to turn my experiences in to learning materials which are linked directly to curriculum subjects. You can find out more by going to the TT Education website and clicking on the 'Teaching Resources' tab.
To make it even easier to follow the expedition, we've teamed up with technology company 'Voyage Manager' who will be using their specialist software to track us in real time and display our 'footprints' on the web. The tracking page will also be used to help schools following the 'Schools Explorer' initiative to follow and understand where we are and what we're doing. You can see our tracking page here.
You can get involved by helping us to tell the story of the 'Polar Bears and Paddleboards' project through Kickstarter. Please have a look at this page and join in by making a pledge.
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