Once again bangkokvanguards are on mission with Khun Preeda and his team to do their part to prepare and recover flood affected communities in Chai Nat. A Substantial part of the donation we have raised during Wipe the Tide will be put to good use and we want to share the achievements with our community who helped to raise the money thus on the weekend of 14/15July we’re heading to Chai Nat to help farmers plant flood resistant plants namely 800 bamboo trees which are cultivated with organic methods. This is part of our micro loan based funding to facilitate the necessary trainings, tools and resources to help farmer grow bamboo in order to secure income during the flood and expand the organic farming network.
This project was acknowledge by her royal highness Maha Chakri Sirinthorn and we want to introduce visitors to Thailand and locals alike to experience the beauty and lifestyles of a less known region of Thailand and work hand in hand with Khun Preeda and the locals for a better future.
The event will be held during two days whereas the first day will mainly include a trip to the northern highlights of Chainat and the neighboring province U-Thai Thani followed by setting up our tents (no resort this time) at the agricultural learning center. There we will send a team to the market to buy food and drinks to get the German style Schwenk BBQ ready and our talented guitar players should get their guitars ready and the singers make sure they got a soul voice like Whitney Houston coz if we camp and schwenk we go all in!
bangkokvanguards are Schwenk ambassadors to Thailand what that is check it out. After having become professional tree and rice planters last time we’re now moving to the next level of becoming expert bamboo planters right after our breakfast on the second day.
We’ll be heading back to Bangkok late afternoon and probably arrive there around 6-7p.m. The expenses that have to be covered by the participants are: van trip from Bangkok to Chai Nat and back (160Baht one way trip) and we have to chip in for food and drinks for the BBQ party. The trip within Chainat, tents, lunch on the first day and breakfast on the second are covered. The maximum number of participants we can take on this great excursion is 40 thus if you’re planning to bring some friends pass them this blog entry and reserve in advance since we go according to the first come first book principle. Looking forward to see an awesome bamboo platoon heading to our friends in Chai Nat.
What goes on in your mind if you suddenly see a hyperactive, orange tiger and a big, fat, pink hippo battling it out (within their movement range) with breakdancers on a street corner in Bangkok? Right, you think you’re on an LSD trip but actually you’ve just bumped into our Hugs for Thailand fundraising campaign.
Hugs for Thailand was our second strike after Wipe the Tide following the unprecedented energy of Wipe the Tide that has swept across Bangkok city through November.
Inspired by the Free Hugs campaign we needed to fill the time between the Wipes to satisfy our hunger for fundraising and companionship, something easy to organize to show that we can come up with more ways of doing fundraising, thus we stuffed Sanju, Noor and a bunch of others into animal costumes to bring about the hug relief.
We first started off without any costumes relying solely on a massive charm attack which worked well despite concerns that the rather reserved Asians would refrain from hugging you. But the only ones who rolled out the barbed wire were a few stern-faced foreigners raising their fingers with a determined NO! They may had spent few too many Baht on those famed TukTuk shopping roundtrips and took it as another scam attack!? Anyways, let’s forget about those party poopers and keep in mind that Thais are considered the Danes of Asia, kind, joyful, open minded and seasoned with a great dash of Sanook (fun) hence showing up with the right team, the right message and spreading your arms for a genuine hug sanookwill be ensured and contributions are being made.
Thus we didn’t bother stopping, we hugged on, changing our boring daily wardrobe to something wild, something straight out of the jungle book, thus we had to unleash tigers, hippos, the cuddly, crazy wildlife into the streets to spread love and fun and what love and fun we spread especially with those kids.
The 30+ degrees (even in the evening) turned those costumes into a steam saunas but our panda platoon hugged on regardless, joined breakdance sessions, crashed a party of football fans, every meter of the walk was made for some odd and fun scenes and burst with positive energy and interaction between strangers ending up in nearly 100,000THB raised.
The usual barriers between us and them were torn down by this energy and the realization that we should stand in for one another in difficult times. Whether we hug one another, speak words of encouragement, walk the streets with signs and donation boxes, wipe windshields or convince people in supermarkets to add an item to their shopping basket, for as long as we are able to connect those who turn ideas into action and those who give when an opportunity arises, then there is hope.
“Im speechless… I’m utterly speechless first by the turn out… 150 + people!! Second by what you guys have raised: 328,000 Baht!!! But that’s not all, the evening afterwards in the Cha’s bar, having such a diverse group of people, most having met first time and yet we celebrated, partied, laughed, hugged, and danced as if we had known each other for 20 years!!! This positive energy and pure connection between humans makes life so freaking exciting that I thank god to be on Earth, thank you everyone!!! Now, let’s take it easy for a day and then full steam ahead again!!!” Michael
This was Sunday, November 06. On Monday, November 07, I scrambled out of bed, feeling as if I just had a few sparring rounds with Mike Tyson!! Sundays were always the climax of intense weeks climaxing into those insane Sunday-wipe-parties that are not from this planet. The fuzziness before my eyes was gone pronto when I saw what was going on on the internet in the wake of the 3rd wipe. Facebook was exploding with pictures, videos, status updates and comments making it all the more difficult to describe one’s feelings in a compact status update. Now the power of technology was felt at every level, with responses, messages, likes, comments, emails, sms and calls coming in from all directions, Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, email, phone and smoke signals. Nat’s trailer views skyrocketed and our trailers kept going strong, it was the fuel that added to the fire of Wipe 4.
We had to use this momentum and even outdo the success of Wipe 1 -3 but for that Monday it was about enjoying the positive energy that was sweeping across Facebook and handling all the other things that fluttered in throughout the week. From comments I learned that we were at Channel 11 and the next piece of news came from Thai PBS News Channel with video clips being shared by our volunteers. Die schriftliche Zusammenfassung auf Thai:
We were quite amazed to see that we made it into the Thai news but even this amazement was soon to be outstripped by the phonecalls I got from Central World Plaza Bangkok’s largest shopping and lifestyle mall vowing to fully support the campaign and playing our video trailers on their massive Panasonic screen which is one of the largest in Asia and sending out their media team to capture the event and put a live-stream on their screen. Baskin&Robbins called and asked to join the campaign with their own wipe in front of their Platinum Mall branch, staff from Mini- cooper Thailand supported us by donating equipment, interview requests trickled in and my favorite article on Wipe the Tide got a full page cover in the Bangkok Post Thailand’s leading English newspaper.
“I went outside to grab the actually paper edition of the Bangkok Post Newspaper and just read article and what a great summary of Wipe the Tide it is!! I’m overwhelmed. And the BURNER IS: Central World Plaza is going to promote our campaign by playing our videos on their massive TV screen, with all the infos on the next wipe action!!! Guys, what is happening here????”
With all this media exposure and our proclaimed aim of raising one million Baht the pressure of defining the relief projects grew and we tried as good as we can to gather as much information on projects. FB Status, November 07,2011
“The first three waves of our donations safe and secure on a Bangkok Bank Account and it’s not going to move until we find or create a great project to support. The money will not go into one single project and the fundraising won’t stop here. Our first aim is get the million but parallel we’re researching ways on how to use this money wisely and effectively especially in the long run!! Please submit your suggestions!!“
We were invited to Gareth Finch for a follow up interview on Wipe the Tide and there we wanted to bring the message across that we’re scoping out the possiblities for our funds.
FB Status Update November 10, 2011:
“If you’re reading the Bangkok Post newspaper tomorrow, turn to the Life section there will be an article on Wipe the Tide!! :o)Oh and here’s another interview on Wipe the Tide with Gareth Finch and his randomdream podcast, five guys on one sofa, it was packed but the interview is funny :o) check it out”
The scope of the Wipe the Tide project grew tremendously almost beyond control it seemed and we kept pushing and pushing with our sights set on raising one million Baht!! FB Status Update November 12, 2011.
“Hey friends, just to confirm, tomorrow we are out there on Bangkok’s streets to hit the 1 million Baht donation mark!! Need your help, please come out strong and support us, make calls, send mails, spam and bring your friends and grab everyone around you!! We need to conquer Bangkok tomorrow, that’s how we spend a Sunday these days ;o)Got questions? call me: 085-8339218“
We kept going, unswerving, focused and full of energy. I had no choice, there was and is no rest. Accountability and realibility are the law of the day, my uni and work started to take a toll but the impact we created and all these amazing people I have met along the way made up for it.
On November 13, we were set to go for the fourth strike. This was to be the biggest we’ve landed so far. The diversity of people willing to lend a hand and to contribute in times where Thailand needed help was simply mind-blowing. From highschool kids, to managers to tourists, every age, every religion and nationality appeared to have sent their most awesome ambassadors. Why most awesome? Because not only the diversity of this crowd made them special but their energy and readiness to kick ass which gave them also reason to be impatient with us at times since managing so many people was quite a challenge.
This time we had a great amount of people and with that comes a great amount of people that want to talk to you, ask you questions, need this and need that while you actually want to talk to the volunteers, getting to know them, welcome them and make them feel at ease and welcome. But there was no way for me to do this and this is something I regret – not being able to thank people personally for coming and supporting our campaign. Instead my mind was all over the place, trying to think of a million little things at once, call backs, my belongings, matching names and faces, things I had been asked for, questions, concerns and again questions and in between we squeezed in the interviews.
It was an epic day when all volunteers got together in front of Bangkok’s major shopping mall on a bright, sunny day, with our breakdancers getting people fired up and ready to roll out. After little more than an hour the groups swarmed off to occupy major intersections in Central Bangkok once again.
This time we cut out Nana intersection (people are way ‘too friendly’ there) Victory Monument, and the area in front of Platinum Mall (too dangerous). Instead we added Ratchathevi and Silom and added more people to upper and lower Ratchadamri Road. I stayed behind with a small team of volunteers to assign late comers to various teams and to make sure that groups can be resupplied with additional squeegees, signs and donation boxes. People spontaniously joined to create more signs and donation boxes which I would send out on my bike.
My adrenalin was pumped at all times, knowing that we’re having so many awesome people at all these intersections out there doing fundraising for flood victims. I will never forget the moment I came out from the underground carpark Ratchadamri exit on my Gary Fisher bike, to deliver supplies to the groups.
As I plunged into this insanely congested 8-lane road in front of Central World our Wipe the Tide Chemical Brothers trailer suddenly started booming all over the Central World Square. Cutting light and fast through the traffic chaos of Bangkok while our video was playing in the background on Central World’s huge screen injected so much energy in me, it was indescribable, crazy, it was yet another climax of life in Bangkok and an example of what was possible in this awesome city.
I had 90 min. left to cycle a loop passing by various groups at Hendri Dunant, MBK, Ratchathevi, Witthayu and Ratchaprasong intersections. I only wish I had more bikers with me, if I imagine going out with a large group of cyclists to deliver water and other supplies to the volunteers that would make a great impact.
Unfortunately at 4.30pm we have to stop the operation since the bank closes earlier, just when traffic is getting denser everybody has to call it a day and be back by 5pm. The groups flocked back, settling down at the front square of Central World turning it into a public show of grassroot charity unprecendet at this scale.
Each group powered by the experience started counting their catch and each announcement seemed to outdo the previous. The energy and vibe created would have any beerpark pale in comparison. It was mind blowing and I wondered what my friend Michael Stroemer would have said if he had seen this, from 9 people at one stop light to an army of do gooders.
The bank was sort of used to our onslaughts by now but this time they had to surrender and we were able to announce only the final count in terms of bank notes with the counting of coins following the next day.
As with every wipe, volunteers were bind together by a full day of all-out fundraising with all the surprises, exhaustion and fun that comes along. If the energy-level was moderate in the morning it was exploding in the evening. As already mentioned the positive psychological impact that these events bring along are significant, the feeling of empowerment and achievement as a team working for a great cause is something that not only connects people but shows that simple ideas carried out by the average person can have profound impact for all sides.
over 40 minutes passed till we had a rough idea of how much money had been raised. Livethelife’s trailer announced that we wanted to go for the million and the question in the people’s face was whether we had achieve it with this wipe. And the answer was: YES!!! The awesomeness and charme of the volunteers brought people to donate 613,000 Baht in total in around 3 hours time!!
That was a feat that could only be outdone if were to go for the million in one day and this idea was born after wipe 4 with one major question in our minds – when and how to stop Wipe the Tide.
A Substantial part of the donation we have raised during Wipe the Tide will be put to good use and we want to share the achievements with our community who helped to raise the money thus on the weekend of 14/15July we’re heading to Chai Nat to help farmers plant flood resistant plants namely 800 bamboo trees which are cultivated with organic methods. This is part of our micro loan based funding to facilitate the necessary trainings, tools and resources to help farmer grow bamboo in order to secure income during the flood and expand the organic farming network.
We’ll be heading back to Bangkok late afternoon and probably arrive there around 6-7p.m. The expenses that have to be covered by the participants are: van trip from Bangkok to Chai Nat and back (160Baht one way trip) and we have to chip in for food and drinks for the BBQ party. The trip within Chainat, tents, lunch on the first day and breakfast on the second are covered. The maximum number of participants we can take on this great excursion is 40 thus if you’re planning to bring some friends pass them this blog entry and reserve in advance since we go according to the first come first book principle. Looking forward to see an awesome bamboo platoon heading to our friends in Chai Nat.
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