We’ve been meaning to update for ages. Time just seems to be running away at a supersonic pace and there are only about 15 weeks left now until we leave. Arghhh…

So what have been up to?

Well, firstly we’re working even more ‘normal’ work hours than usual. We all need to get some money in the bank but more importantly, we need to push hard now so we can take so much time off later in the year. We all work for ourselves but that really just seems to add more pressure at the moment.

Also, we’ve begun to train quite hard - longer, more endurance focussed sessions. Lots and lots of dragging tyres around Hyde Park in London (hello to everyone we have met recently!). And all three of us have entered the London triathon which is in about 4 weeks so we’ve also been doing some swimming as well as our normal running/cycling.

Sponsorship of course is one of the biggest and most time consuming areas. Things are going quite well in this area though and we’ll let you know more soon.

And finally organising. Occasionally we need to do some of this and occasionally it happens.

Up until last week, it was all really hard work, but now, with deadlines looming, we’re getting really motivated and beginning to see through the work load and get excited about the trip. There’s nothing like some new kit or booking flights to make it all real!

A few little changes to the site - hope you like them. We’ll write a lot more updates, a lot more regularly now…only 108 days to go.

We don’t really have a lot of money.

This is a potential problem for getting to the south pole and back.

That is why we went and saw Dan Fletcher at Mindshare who looks after an impressive list of clients and their sponsorship requirements - small clients like HSBC and Ford. If anyone could get us sponsored, he could.

But, if we ever expected an easy answer to our problem, Dan rest assured us that there was none. It is a hard, miserable slog and we probably won’t be able to get any cash. “It isn’t about the costs” says Dan, “it’s about the value you can provide a sponsor. You must provide value. But you probably won’t get any cash.”

Most expeditions focus on the costs because they are so damn big. It’s hard not too. The costs can be so high that it is usually very difficult to justify them to any sponsor. And if you can’t see how you can provide massive value, what do you do? Cancel the trip? But the point is taken, we are thinking a lot about what we can provide to people/companies.

So how do you provide value? There are hardly any real ‘firsts’ left that are worthy of media coverage and the only one we have revolves around David having orange hair and that isn’t even funny. We don’t really see any point in claiming new routes to the pole (not that we are) or having the first person from an obscure village (Perth!). Neither are we likely to be particularly fast; we don’t see this as a race (we’re glad not to be doing the polar race although Ben Saunder’s expeditions command a lot more respect). So from an international news perspective, we’re a little lacking in appeal. Yet most people are still quite interested in what we are doing.

The current economic client isn’t helping much either. Under normal circumstances, the banks would be lining up to sponsor us, but of course as we all know this credit crunch thing affects us all in different ways. Now, these same banks won’t even return our calls. Actually, that’s not quite true - if you owe them lots of money, they are more likely to call you back (can almost hear the phone ringing now). As some saying goes - if you owe the bank £2000, they have the power but if you owe them £200,000,000, then you have the power.

But the beers with Dan continues to flow (he has a very cheap bar in his building too!). Creativity began to follow.

We’re pleased to say that we have come up with a strategy that will solve all our problems - one we still liked when we woke up the next morning and the beer effect wore off. Clearly is is brilliant.

We just can’t see a single sponsor shelling out £100k to send us away. But we can see quite a few other options at a much cheaper level ie, £100-£1000. We’ve got plans to exploit this end of the market but we can’t say too much more right now because we haven’t built it or put it into practice. Dan wasn’t totally convinced but we have to start somewhere. So we’ll update after the 24th (the launch party).

Thanks Dan - you’re a legend.