Thanks Donegal News!

http://donegalnews.com/2012/10/27/raphoe-woman-in-antarctic-expedition/

Please keep the support coming, I only have 6 weeks until my deadline to raise the balance of the Expedition Fee!

Click here to support me directly!

Or you can donate using PayPal skatethedrake@gmail.com

Or you can go into any AIB Bank and quote Eimear Carlin Antarctic Fundraising Account Smithfield Branch!

Thanks so much!

Kerry Outdoors Sports

Thanks to Aoife and all the gang at Kerry Outdoors Sports who are helping me source second hand gear for the Expedition! They have been really helpful and offer great service!

Click here to visit their facebook page.

hitting 100km in Skate the Drake! And other treats in store!!

Ok, I really have to keep up with maintaining my blog updates, but every day seems to bring more progressions, and thank you's and acts of incredible kindness and peaks and troughs of emotions that it can be very difficult to keep up with my feet, not talking about my blog!

 

First things first, I managed to raise the first $5000 for the deposit for the Expedition, meaning this Cinderella will go to the Ball, on the ship, to Antarctica (!) Now, I say I managed to raise the money, when in fact it has been YOU ALL that has raised the money. I cannot express my gratitude enough to everybody involved, but especially I would like to offer a massive thank you to Ecocem, the French Embassy in Ireland and Kimmage Development Studies Centre for their generous patronage.

 

November it seems is going to be the month of Fundraisers. Confirmed is a Café Scientifique Event at the Alliance Francaise de Dublin, titled "Climate Change- Ireland's place in the Polar Plight"

 

 We will have a panel of Climate Experts (including myself) speaking on Climate Change, followed by a Q+A session and debate. We will also be showing a short excerpt of last year's expedition. This will all be held over food and drink in La Cocotte Café on November 22nd from 6.30pm.

 

I am also planning A 'Stand Up for Penguins' comedy night, kindly arranged by Simon O'Keeffe over at the Capital Comedy Club http://www.capitalcomedyclub.com/. We are finalising a venue and acts, and I will post details here once everything is set in stone.

 

Finally, if the rain had not called off play tonight, I would be announcing that I have skated over 100km for Skate the Drake! I am at 91km at the moment, but please keep supporting me, every message/donation/offer of being my skate buddy pushes me closer to the line! I may be asking for donations of wheels soon enough as my skates are as battered as my knees today!

 

SUPPORT ME HERE!

 

 

Inspirational picture of the day is courtesy of the Antarctic Youth Ambassador Programme Facebook Page!

 

 

http://www.ecocem.ie/

 

http://www.ambafrance-ie.org/

 

http://www.kimmagedsc.ie/

 

 

 

 

 

First Milestone Crossed!

I can't quite believe it has only been six weeks since I came home spouting I'M GOING TO ANTARCTICA!!! After the initial exuberance of having been accepted on the 2041 Antarctic Youth Ambassador Programme came the realisation that I would have to raise almost 20,000 euro to make this a reality. Well today I passed the first milestone of this and I transferred the funds to secure my place on the Sea Spirit ship to Antarctica!

The exuberance has returned and is augmented because in the last six weeks I have experienced so much love, support and generosity from friends and from people I barely know.

Thank you all and I'm gearing up for round two refreshed!!!

http://www.gofundme.com/17a1ww&preview=1

Thanks Repak Ireland!

Thanks to Laura and all the team at Repak Ireland for the lovely blog piece today!

http://www.recyclemore.ie/recycling_news_blog/2012/10/eimear-carlin-our-antarctic-youth-ambassador.html

Thanks Donegal Democrat!

I'd like to send a huge thank you to Alan Foley and all the team at the Donegal Democrat for publishing an article in today's issue. This article was also featured on Google Science News this morning!

http://www.donegaldemocrat.ie/#

Alan is a true pro and Happy Birthday to him also!

http://www.gofundme.com/17a1ww?pc=fb_cr#description

Ecocem support AYAP

I'm absolutley delighted to announce that Ecocem are now a major sponsor of my Antarctic Expedition, Ecocem are an Irish Owned Organisation who are market leaders in eco-construction and their cement is the world's most sustainable building material.  Their impressive resumé includes The Aviva Stadium and the Convention Centre in Dublin.

I am incredibly impressed by their dedication to reducing carbon emissions in the construction industry and their support of my Antarctic Youth Ambassador Programme, and other enviromental and educational initiatives. I am looking forward to working with Conor and all the team at Ecocem over the next 18 months.

Thanks guys!

"Climate change is an issue that we must all be concerned with. Those of us with greater influence must have greater concern. If an individual in their normal life reduced their emissions by 50% they might save 8 tonnes of CO₂ annually (this would require halving their journeys, their heating, their holidays, their food consumption, etc).

 If professionals working in the construction industry reduce the emissions of their projects during construction by 50% they can save up to 4,000,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually. During the construction peak, if half the cement used was green cement such as Ecocem over 2,000,000 tonnes of CO₂ alone would have been saved."

http://www.ecocem.ie/home.htm

GoFundMe

http://www.gofundme.com/17a1ww?pc=fb_cr

9 days to go till Deadline One...Gulp!

What a few weeks! The interest in my Expedition bid since my last update has been phenomenal! I have been working around the clock as I get closer to my first fundraising deadline of October 15th. As the logistics involved in getting a group of future environmental and climate leaders from all over the globe (including yours truly!)  down to Antarctica is so complicated, the deadline was set this early to ensure maximum numbers of us could secure our place on the Sea Spirit Ship. It is daunting that the first deadline is so close, but it will be amazing to have my spot secured and work on fundraising for the rest of the project.

The French Connection!

I am very proud and humbled to announce that the French Embassy to Ireland have become an official supporter of my Antarctic Youth Ambassador Programme. Their enthusiasm and confidence in this great project has been amazing. I was rather daunted being interviewed en francais in the Cultural and Scientific Department of the Ambassade, but Mr. Hadrien Laroche, Mr. Claude Detrez and all the team at the Embassy have been amazing. They have wonderful ideas about how to bring this project forward and gain as much publicity as possible for the protection of Antarctica and my role in that.

I must also thank Mr. Philippe Milloux and Mr. Vincent Lavergne from the Alliance Francaise. They included a piece about my bid in the Alliance Francaise newsletter and have offered to hold a Cafe Scientifique Event at the Alliance Francaise on November 22nd.  I am currently searching for panel speakers in regards to Climate Change and Protection of our Polar regions. I am looking forward to inviting all the team at Kimmage Development Studies Centre to this event.

http://www.alliance-francaise.ie/Newsletter/

In Other News!

In other fabulous news, I have been awarded a bursary from a major Irish Charitable Foundation this week. Details of this will follow in the coming weeks, but I am incredibly excited about the prospect of working with such an admirable organisation.

I am also going to be taking part in a voxpop session at the Ernest Shackleton School in Athy Co. Kildare in the last weekend of October! Many thanks to Margaret Walsh at Athy Heritage Museum for this opportunity.

Extra! Extra!

The wonderful Alan Foley has been burning the midnight oil for me and has completed my press release for this project! Alan has been a great friend for many years and I would like to thank him for taking them time out of his hectic schedule to help me out. Legend. I have a photo shoot lined up this weekend with Karl Martini, a very talented photographer from Dublin. When we spoke on the phone, I had to laugh when he said "So wait a minute, the themes you want me to combine are Rollerskating-The Antarctic-Phoenix Park. Pause. Okay... I can make this work..." I have every faith that he can!

On that note, the Skate the Drake! fundraising is going very well, I clocked up 17.2km last Sunday, and looking outside at the sunshine- I really should be out there now, so I am going to sign off for now. Please keep supporting my bid and sharing my plight- I have a beautiful little feeling inside that this is going to happen!!!

I have so so many people to thank, I will post again on Sunday night to share the other great things that are going on and in the meantime THANK YOU ALL!

Skate, skate, skate!

http://www.gofundme.com/17a1ww&preview=1

http://www.facebook.com/eimear.carlin?ref=tn_tnmn

http://www.kimmagedsc.ie/