“How’s the planning going?” 5 months to Mo!

The most common question I am asked about this journey is – “How’s the planning going?” So I have dedicated this post to try answer as many questions as possible, as well as include what has been achieved and what is needed to ensure momentum continues forward.

Hard to believe six months has past since the birth of this crazy idea. In January, I tweeted asking if it was possible to navigate NZ using only twitter as my resource. Those who have followed this journey from day dot will know that the event has morphed and changed into what it is now, out of my love for Movember & my love (or abuse) of twitter turning this into 2012s biggest individual Movember fundraising drive. The road so far has been long and hairy! The amount of man hours that have gone into this so far has been enormous! I don’t think I was naive when I decided to do this, I knew it was going to take a lot of hard-work and here I am reflecting (and babbling) on the journey so far.

I would like to give a big THANK YOU to:

• Richard Brown, TiMO’ru crew and my good friend Matt Vanderlip, all of whom have had to deal with my persistence to get this perfect and put up with my messages at crazy hours with my sudden brain farts! From day one I have had nothing but amazing encouragement and support from them.
• Vetta, a Timaru company, kindly donated my website as soon as they heard of my idea.
• Slash Web design donated me those lovely logos you all have become familiar with.
• Again, a huge thanks to Wicked who have supplied the custom Mo van. Jit and the team share my passion for Movember as much as they do for their amazing campers!
• I can’t forget the team at Assassin Imports who plug my journey at any opportunity they get.

These donations and sponsorships are so important due to running this on a negative budget. Negative budget you ask? How is that even possible? The negative comes from the fact I am taking 3weeks annual leave from my real job (yeah, I have one those) to do this. This event relies on donations/sponsorship to ensure that we can make it happen. On that note, if you know of anyone that can help, send them my way.

So you have a website but what have you actually achieved?

1 – We have clothing! Hell yeah we do! Seen it yet? No? Have a look here and grab a hoody or 12. It’s getting cold now!

2 – The Timaru Herald ran an article which you can check out here.

3 – I made the NZ Herald Twitter top tweeters list. Personally it was awesome to not only have my work acknowledged but all our hard work from last Movember. You tweeps kicked ass!! My Movember profile was the most tweeted Mobro/Mosista in NZ by 100s! You can check out the list here

4 – We have a road map! Well that’s an important achievement right?

5- We have started collecting a Mo-Stash! This is a collection of goodies that will be auctioned off during Movember. Again, if you know of anyone that can help contribute to this, PLEASE let me know!

6 – I now have a Facebook page. Although Twitter will be my main use of communication for finding accommodation and collecting, Facebook gives me another audience to share the message with. If you know anyone without Twitter, send them here to get involved.

Pretty good so far, eh?

Moving forward what needs to be achieved?

• Sponsors. Simple really. In order to fund petrol and other costs, I’m more than willing to go above and beyond to help anyone that helps me! We are still a very long way off hitting the petrol goal, let alone other expenses.
• Tell YOUR friends! Easy right? Get them following on twitter or send them to Facebook. It will be as much my success as it will be all yours and with a little bit of effort we can make this amazing.
• Mo-Stash goodies – Know anyone famous? Know any sports team hook ups? Willing to donate something? Let me know! I’m more than happy to send any info needed to ensure any kind of donation!

I will be arranging special events in Wellington and Auckland so keep your eyes peeled for the details. You won’t wanna miss out on these!

Friends, family, tweeps & fans. This is a New Zealand first. Nothing like this has been done here and together we can make this one hell of an amazing journey. I am so lucky and blessed to get to share it with you all.

Fuzzy lip warmers and manly bear hugs…

Me.