John Hayfield has been very helpful with suggestions about finding corporate sponsorship - supply of campervan, et cetera. The idea has some attractions, but this morning I wrote him the following message:
"I have decided, during my walk from Quillan this morning, that I don't want to be involved in commercial sponsorship. There are two reason:
If I did this, I would be doing the walk for somebody else, not for me. The whole thing would feel different.
More importantly, I would be going against my own principles. I always sneer at people who say something like "I want to sail around the world but I can't find a sponsor" - in other words, "I want to indulge my dream but I want somebody else to pay". I would be a hypocrite to do the same.
No, barring any disasters, we can stretch to buy a secondhand motorcaravan for the duration of the walk. What we lose on it, should we sell it after the trip, should be covered by the savings in accommodation and restaurants during that time. But, who knows, we may decide to keep it. We have had two campers in the past and have enjoyed them. I don't really understand why we don't own one already - probably something to do with spending 3 months of each year in New Zealand and therefore being reluctant to leave this beautiful area during the rest of the time. Despite the fact that we are so well situated for camper trips to so many other beautiful places in France and Spain.
So thank you once again for your very productive thoughts on this matter. They weren't wasted because they fuelled my own long hard think which led me to the above conclusion.
As for accepting sponsorship to raise funds for charity/chariities, I am still up for that one.
I mentioned above that I just walked back from Quillan, which I do generally once a week. 16 kms, with a climb of 350 metres before coming down 150 metres. A reasonable walk, but I mentioned it to one of our part time neighbours, who is here for a few days. He said that his wife's mother used to grow vegetables and pick mushrooms - of a Wednesday morning she would get up in the middle of the night, walk to Quillan, sell the stuff, then walk back again! Not the first tale like this that we have heard in this area."
1 comment:
Let us know if you do decide to go for the sponsorship with $$ going to Charity option... Not that NZ$ go that far in Europe, but we are well versed with this concept - the kids give us plenty of chances to practice each year through school etc too ;-).
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