This is Zero, comms check over....

The Alpha groups have now all been in their new homes for three days and have settled in well.  Field base get regular updates each morning and evening from them.  There is always much anticipation and excitement about what they have to say. 

Each morning the groups must call in with a "comms check".  This is to ensure their phone has good reception.  It is especially important for the Tango groups who are always on the move.  Other messages can also be passed on; we have started recieving a number of riddles since starting the craze ourselves!

In the evening a SITREP (situational report) is performed.  This is a much more formal communication which gives the field base team lots of information about how the projects are going.  The SITREP is broken up into a number of sections to make it clear in case reception is poor.  Each section has a special prefix such as Serial Bravo (place name or map reference) or Serial Delta (progress to date).  If the group has a place name to spell they mush use the phonetic alphabet.  My name would be Sierra Uniform Sierra Alpha November.... a bit of a mouthful!

Each venturer will have an opportunity to complete a SITREP while out on phase.  This can be more fun for some that others as it can be a bit daunting!  However we always look forwards to recieving them and guessing who is on the other end of the phone.

A number of lucky field base staff will soon be departing on loop to check out how each Alpha group is going.  Echo three has already had a visit from Del, who was kind enough to bring enough Coke and Mars bars to satisfy eveyones needs.

Rachel and John have set off with banoffee pie to see Tango six.  They are hoping to celebrate our first 10k Raleigh birthday as Kane Grennan is turning 18.  They will also be delivering all your lovely blog messages and hoping to get some replies.

I will be joining Del and Denise for a quick trip to Tango five.  We will be leaving Denise behind to carry on with the trek. We will also be bringing banoffee pie and your blog messages which will be a nice surprise for the group.

After his visit to Tango six John moves onto vist Charlie one.  They have been making great progress and have finished the foundations of their 4th house.  Echo four have also been going great guns and have even had time to pop into the local village to buy some fresh veg and a chicken for a well deserved celebratory meal.

By Doug Meehan and Susan Pollock - Guest bloggers

Phase One Deployment

Friday at field base saw the five alpha groups start the arduous job of collecting their mountains of kit and food supplies from the logistics store.  With the assistance of their Project Managers the teams packed everything they needed to live and work for the next 18 days onto waiting buses.  The trekking groups had an even harder job of deciding what they will need to carry on their backs.  Everything having to pass the scrutiny of Olly and Lynne the Mountain Leaders, acting as hard task masters as their first food drop will be in five days. 

In the evening the venturers were treated to a great slide show presentation showing just how much they had done over the last five days and leaving them in awe of what they will experience in the next nine weeks.

As Saturday dawned the air was full of excitement, and the sound of a few early moring yawns, as everyone woke to say their final goodbyes before heading off to their various project sites.  By 8:30 field base was left with an eerie silence as the sixty eight venturers and PM's left along with Anna, Polly and Polly from the office, who headed out on their first loop with the groups.

For field base the morning offered a chance to catch our breath after the last week, and enjoy a gratefully received breakfast of bacon and eggs from Country Director Mark.

As the day progressed Charlie One reached their project site in Uluvada and had a welcome meeting with the village, who have been waiting with anticipation for the groups arrival.  They have now set up camp.

Echos Three and Four have made a start on the construction on their camps with bashers springing up and tree houses being built by project partners for elephant watch.  Everyone had a fabulous nights sleep under clear and starry skys with Laura Burnett even spotting a shooting star!

Tango Six have started their trek, fording seven rivers on their first day and having a well earned peaceful night's rest.  Whilst Tango Five will be continuing the journey to their starting point this morning after spending the night in a dorm along the way.  Venturer Robbie Dwyer successfully solving the field base riddle that had been set to both Tango groups.

Two men are walking in the arctic when they discover the body of a dead man.  One man says to the other "That's the body of Adam, the first ever man".  How did he know this?

By Doug Meehan and Susan Pollock - Guest bloggers

Photos by Doug Meehan, available for all events and occasions in the Mysore area

X Factor Allocations – “Your Phase One starts right here” ...

Allocations are always hot topic on Raleigh – “where am I going, what am I going to be doing, who am I going with and what am I going to be sleeping in?!”.

The buzz of nervous excitement was in the air and so in order to throw the Venturers off the scent they’d been told that allocations were going to be announced on Friday morning. Instead they were told that after two days of intensive training they were being treated to an X Factor karaoke party last night.

So the Venturers pulled on their glad rags (including some dashing outfits some of them had picked up in Mysore earlier in the day) and headed to the Fieldbase roof terrace which had been transformed into a karaoke disco for the evening.

DJ Doctor Luke was on the decks spinning the floorfillers and Raja and Ajeesh, two of the expedition’s Host Country Venturers displayed his dancing skills and taught the group some Indian moves.

The PMs were first up on the mic with ‘I Gotta Feeling’ by Black Eyed Peas to get the party started. They followed this up with an ear screechingly terrible rendition of The Police’s Roxanne.

The Ventureres were then split into ‘bootcamp groups’ and each given a karaoke classic to sing:

• We Built This City by Starship for the Coummunity group who will be building houses for a tribal village
• Eye of the Tiger by Survivor and Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and The Waves for the Environmental groups who will providing solar panelled elephant proof fences for rural communities
• I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers and Is this the way to Amarillo? by Tony Christie for the Adventure groups who will be going out trekking.

Admittedly the links were quite tenuous, but the penny didn’t seem to drop within any of the groups that this was actually allocation announcements.

The ‘bootcamp groups’ had 10 minutes to come up with their routines to their songs before performing in front of our ‘Raleigh Factor’ Judges and the crowd. We were treated to high energy performances with some great dance routines (and slightly suspect singing), however Judges ‘Simon’ and ‘Louis’ were true to form and not too kind on them!


Raleigh Factor Judges
Louis, Cheryl, Simon & Danni



After all the performances, the Volunteer Managers huddled together to argue over who had given the best performances, but for some reason they couldn’t all agree on who was the winner! Dramatics ensued as the Project Managers each aligned themselves with their favourite ‘bootcamp group’ ... and still the penny didn’t drop!

So it was Compére Anna that revealed to the Venturers that their ‘bootcamp groups’ were actually their Alpha groups on Phase One! Despite the unexpected shock of allocations being revealed the group were delighted to form their Phase One groups.

 And so, here are the group allocations for Phase One:

Charlie One
Aimee Welch
Anupama
James Rowantree
Narthan
Irene Yiu
Owen Duffin
Philip Smith
Rosie Ward
Ryan Heeley
Tessa Nooteboom
Elisabeth van der Zee

Echo Three
Ajeesh
Amy Gannon
David Frattinger
Fiona Marchbank
Hubertus Kramer
James Mcintosh
Jess Norgrove
Kavita Shah
Kirsten Elliot
Simon Majtlis

Echo Four
Basil
George Miller
Jack Phillips
Jonny Womack
Justine Stuart
Kimberley Delamare
Laura Hulley
Natalie Gordon
Ros Page
Shanelle Ward
Shaun Green

Tango Five
Isabelle Wijsmuller
Arthur Fane
Coen de Mol van Otterloo
Denise Stoelzel
Erdinch Yigitce
Katarzyna Ulichnowska
Katharine Studley
Lucy Flint
Raja
Robert Dwyer
Sean edlin

Tango Six
Anniek Akerboom
Iain Hood
Jennifer Rimmer
Kane Grennan
Katie Macnaughton
Michiel Kruize
Olivia Ferrari
Reghu
Samuel Mason
Sarah Ward

For full details on each of Alpha groups projects and to meet their Project Managers click here.

Everyone deploys tomorrow for the first Phase, returning on Wednesday 3rd November. Check back to this blog regularly to hear updates of how each alpha group is getting on out on Phase.

If you’d like to send a message to anyone out on Phase you can add a comment to the bottom of any blog entry by clicking the link. Don't forget to tell us who the message is for including their full name and project group. Then select name/URL from the dropdown menu to tell us who it's from (URL can be left blank). Please be aware that we might not be able to publish all personal messages but we will make sure they are distributed via 'Radio Raleigh' or sent out to the project sites with all the supplies.

On a personal note, I'm deploying out with Tango 5 for the first week of their trek. In the meantime Susan and Doug at Fieldbase will be holding the blog fort and providing an update early next week.

All text by Polly Carpenter and photos by Polly Baldwin http://www.dynamicpictures.co.uk/ (unless stated otherwise).

The Venturers return from Trek Training

Tuesday morning was an early start as the Hotel groups each embarked on their 21km treks. The route took them from Fieldbase down through local villages, past luscious green Paddy fields and over the River Kabini.

The groups did fantastically well, especially considering their jet lag, and all completed the trek in full. The walk gave the groups a really good opportunity to get to know each other better, with some groups even engaging in motivational sing-a-longs to get them through. Thankfully the routes are mainly along uninhabited rural tracks!

By early afternoon the groups had reached their destination, Ude's Chicken Farm, where they set up camp for the next two nights. Their first challenge came in the shape of a short but sharp rain downfall that tested their tent assembling skills. Unfortunately some didn’t quite pass and their tents were soaked, so for some groups the first night was spent in disused chicken coops – stinky but dry!

Wednesday morning, after tucking into the standard Raleigh breakfast of porridge, the group headed to a local riverside Temple for First Aid training, swim test, Comms training and Indian culture discussions.

Then it was back to the campsite in the afternoon where the groups prepared from scratch their dinner of chicken curry ... and when I say from scratch, I mean from scratch!

For most of the Venturers, in everyday life, they are unattached to the reality of where meat comes from and how it gets to the dinner plate. In India, when a family wants to eat chicken, they will buy a live one from their local shop and prepare it themselves. So to provide the Venturers with greater appreciation and respect of eating meat they were shown the traditional Indian way.

Anna, Country Program Manager, gave a demonstration of how to humanely kill a chicken and then Manju, one of the Raleigh drivers, showed the group how to skin and butcher the chicken. The Hotel groups were not expected to kill a chicken themselves but were each given a whole chicken to skin and prepare for their dinner.

After another night at the Chicken Farm (thankfully in dried out tents) the Hotel groups returned to Fieldbase yesterday morning; smelly, dirty and tired but ultimately with a better insight into Project Phase life and full of excitement of the weeks ahead. The afternoon was spent in Mysore where they munched on Pizza, shopped for last minute essentials and caught up on their email correspondence.

Now it's time for allocations when the Venturers will find out where they're heading on Phase One. Check back later when all will be revealed ...


Raleigh India 10k
Click the image for a closer look



The Raleigh India 10k Venturers Have Landed

Luke & Polly C waiting for the Venturers (photo by Del Roberts)

In the early hours of this morning we went to meet the Raleigh India 10k Venturers at Bangalore Airport.

Although sleepy from the overnight flight, the group were full of excitement as they met eachother for the first time. Everyone got through bag collection and customs without a hitch and by 6am we set off on our four hour coach journey to Fieldbase.

For many of the Venturers this is their first visit to India, so they looked out in wonder at the scenes outside the window. India never fails to intrigue it's visitors with the sensory overload of women riding motorbikes in brightly coloured silk saris, the cacophony of horn beeping rickshaws, cows who have the right of way on the road and the delicious smell of spices that permeate the air.

By mid morning the group had arrived at Fieldbase where waiting to greet them with welcoming smiles were the Raleigh permanent staff, Vounteer Managers and the Host Country Venturers, who'd arrived at Fieldbase yesterday.



A traditional Hindu welcome was given by Manglamare, who lives on Fieldbase site with her husband Chakrapha, Fieldbase Security Man and their children.



The Venturers were then officially welcomed to the Raleigh India 10k Expedition by Mark, Raleigh India Country Director and Anna, Country Program Manager.

The Venturers have now been split off into their intial Alpha groups which they'll be in throughout Induction:

Hotel One
PMs: Caroline, Eirs & Liam
Venturers: George Miller, Laura Hulley, Jess Norgrove, Samual Mason, Olivia Ferrari, Ros Page, Irena Yiu, Philip Smith, Tessa Nooteboom, Coen del Mol can Otterloo, Narthan & Basil

Hotel Two
PMs: Hannah L, Charlotte & Christina
Venturers: Fiona Marchbank, Aimee Welch, Jack Phillips, Kavita Shah, Sarah Ward, Robert Dwyer, James Rowantree, Arthur Fane, Elisabeth van der Zee, Anniek Akerboom & Raja

Hotel Three
PMs: Hannah W, Sterling & Laura
Venturers: Owen Duffin, Natalie Gordon, Jennifer Rimmer, Rosie Ward, Lucy Flint, Shaun Green, Ajeesh, Shanelle Ward, Simon Majtlis & Denise Stoelzel

Hotel Four
PMs: Lynne, Josse & Bethan
Venturers: Katharine Studley, Kirsten Elliot, Iain Hood, Kimberley Delamare, Erdinch Yigitce, Kane Grennan, Ryan Heeley, Raghu, Michiel Kruize & Hubertus Kramer

Hotel Five
PMs: Olly, Phil & Rachel
Venturers: Jonny Womack, Justine Stuart, Katie MacNaughton, Amy Gannon, Anupama, Sean Edlin, James McIntosh, David Frattinger, Isabelle Wijsmuller & Katarzyna Ulichnowska

To ward off jet lag the Venturers will start straight into their full packed Induction this afternoon. Then it'll be early to bed before rising at dawn to embark on their three day Trek training. We'll be back in a couple of days with pictures and tales of how the Hotel groups get on.

All text by Polly Carpenter and photos by Polly Baldwin http://www.dynamicpictures.co.uk/ (unless stated otherwise).