The flights are booked!

Finally! This project is off the ground!

So I am flying out to Cancun on the 1st May, and home from Halifax in Canada on the 22nd; dateseekers among you will be keen to know that I will arrive in on the evening of the 23rd, which means that if I get a good night's sleep I should be able to enjoy my first day back in blighty by celebrating my birthday! Be sure to have your party hats ready, everyone.

My party hat

Better yet, I managed to get those flights sorted for under £1,000. I managed this through www.skyscanner.com, a website which is a bit like confused.com crossed with the national rail website, but with planes instead of trains. You can make your search incredibly broad; I searched for flights from the UK to Mexico, any time in May; Skyscanner pulled all the flights together and found me the cheapest ones at £406, all in. Not bad, ey?! Not all the flights are refundable, and sometimes you can actually find cheaper deals by going to the websites that advertise on Skyscanner (so don't ignore them!) but by and large I think it's going to become my primary method of searching for flights from now on.

My original method of trying to shout one down out of the sky wasn't great, to be fair

Fundraising efforts are continuing as well... well I have completed two grant applications, one of which is pending the district commissioner signing it, and the other of which could be construe as sliiiiightly tenuous - the The Spoore Merry & Rixman Foundation does wonderful work providing funds for educational purposes for people in the Maidenhead & Bray, including helping with tuition funds and uniform costs. Now while I am not trying to get my student loan paid off, and I already have a Scout Uniform, I am hoping that the educational value that this blog will have if people read it, and the things that you and I can learn about scouting in other countries and about other cultures in general as I wander the world and see what it has to offer, will let me qualify for a little bit of financial assistance.

And that brings me a point I made in my first post. This adventure is only going to be half achieved if nobody reads this blog, it's going to be even less of a success if nobody gives me any neckerchieves to swap! By the way, do we think it's neckerchieves or neckerchiefs? The spellcheck thinks the later, but bearing in mind that it doesn't register the word blog I won't be taking its opinion to heart any time soon! Anyway, bottom line is that to get my adventure off the ground, I need people to spread the word about what I'm doing. Even if you don't know anyone in Scouting, chances are that someone you know will. Heck, they might even know two of them. So when you are sat in the pub, telling them about that chap who's planning on Scouting his way round the Americas, watch for someone who sits up and goes "Scouts?". Chances are they will know someone! Or be someone! Well of course everyone is someone, but you know what I mean.
I will be trying to get one of the national papers to take an interest in my story over the next week, and even talking to local radio and TV to see how much airtime my pretty face can grab in the name of Scouting.

But if that face up there tells you anything, it's that my efforts alone won't make this happen. It's going to take you wonderful people talking to everyone you know, telling them about the man with the radio-face who's going on a journey to meet everyone he can and give them all neckerchieves. Can you do that for me?

Good. Knew I could count on you :)