Sean Curnow: Welcome to the fourth update for the UAE Charity Challenge Team.
CHARITY
During the month of April, the UAE CC team received a wonderful email from the Dubai Centre for Special Needs PR Coordinator (Delhna Cama) expressing the centres gratitude to the UAE CC team, our supporters and all our sponsors for all their efforts to date. Matt Wilson received a special mention for the volunteer work he is doing to maintain and constantly improve the website – good job Matt!
We are still in the process of finalising the charity organisation we plan to support in Uganda. We will be making an announcement in the near future.
TRAINING
The UAE CC team was out in force in the fourth and final DMX Baja Challenge Race for 2007/2008. Steve, Paul, Jonathan and I all competed in a race that was marred by a serious crash to a fellow competitor. We all stopped to check he was OK and Steve and I waited until help arrived in the form of DMX support personnel. (Note: A broken collar was just one of the injuries suffered by the nameless rider - a gentle reminder that this sport is not for the faint hearted). The UAE CC Team finished 15th, 17th, 23rd and 26th respectively. Overall, Paul finished a credible 11th in the Clubman Class for 2008 having competed in only 3 of the 4 events – nice one Paul!
The UAE CC team was also out in the desert training every other weekend during the month of April. We concentrated this month on Route 2 (The Triangle) and Route 5 (Schwaib). We also made the trip out to a new location just north of Al Ain where the dunes are generally bigger and are separated by salt flats – good training for the UAE Desert Challenge.
We are also planning a trip for May to the Liwa area where much of the actual UAE Desert Challenge takes place. Out here in an area known as ‘The Empty Quarter’ the dunes can rise over 300m above the salt flats. The base camp at Moreeb is a massive slip face that can only be appreciated in real life. Check it out on Google Earth (22°58'30.00"N / 53°47'17.00"E)
Note: We have still not resolved the vibration problems we have been having with our helmet camera. Once we get these sorted out we will upload some live footage to the Website so that you can experience what it is like to ride in the deserts of the UAE from the comfort of your living room.
MEDIA
Sunday 20th April 2008 - 7 Days News covered the UAE CC team as they took delivery of the 4 x 2008 Honda CRF450X at the Honda show room on Sheikh Zayed road. A copy of the article can be viewed on the 7 Days News website at the following URL - http://www.7days.ae/showstory.php?id=71100. We will also add a copy of the article to the website in the near future.
Monday 19th May 2008 - Dubai Eye 103.8FM have invited the UAE CC to appear on their evening radio show from 8-9pm with the aim of further promoting the work we are doing as a non-profit venture dedicated to raising money for worthy charities both in the UAE and abroad. Don’t forget to tune in!
SPONSORSHIP
It has been a huge month for the UAE CC in terms of securing sponsorship. The support shown by companies in the UAE and abroad continues to be first class. In the month of March we managed to secure the support of ten additional sponsors.
Baker Hughes has joined the UAE CC as Gold sponsors.
Baker Hughes provides the worldwide oil and natural gas industry products and services for drilling, formation evaluation, completion and production. They create value for oil and gas producers by providing practical and reliable technology to find, develop, produce and manage oil and gas reservoirs. Baker Hughes operates in over 90 countries worldwide providing products and services to international oil companies, independent oil and gas companies and national oil companies.
AGR, Weeks, Target, Wood Group, Weatherford and Smith have joined the UAE CC as a Silver sponsor.
AGR Petroleum Services is one of the world’s leading providers of professional services to the upstream oil and gas industry. Their core competences are geology, geophysics, petrophysics, reservoir engineering, well construction, field management, and project management of production facilities including FPSO and subsea services. They specialise in assisting oil companies with low-cost, fast-track commercialisation of hydrocarbon resources using leading-edge technologies and world-class processes. They can provide clients with a complete solution from prospect generation through to field management. They also specialise in the provision of recruitment and consultancy services to the upstream oil and gas industry with offices situated in the UK, Norway, Dubai and Australia
Weeks are a family owned multi-disciplined organisation, trading for over 25 years, providing integrated technical construction services throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.
Weeks specialise in the provision of services to the construction and oil/gas industries. Topographical surveys, design, contract strategies, procurement and the supervision of civil engineering and building works. Projects range from well sites, base camps and access roads to production facilities and underground gas storage schemes.
Smith International, Inc. is a leading supplier of premium products and services to the oil and gas exploration and production industry, the petrochemical industry and other industrial markets operating through four business units, M-I SWACO, Smith Technologies, Smith Services and Wilson. The company provides a comprehensive line of technologically advanced products and engineering services, including drilling and completion fluid systems, solids-control and separation equipment, waste-management services, water treatment systems, oilfield production chemicals, three-cone and diamond drill bits, turbine drilling products, drilling and fishing tools, underreamers, casing exit and multilateral systems, packers, liner hangers and tubular products.
Target Well Control Limited, a subsidiary of Target Energy Group, is a UK based Directional Drilling Company proving service to the Oil and Gas industry internationally. The Company focuses on performance and service quality and has experienced customer focused personnel and reliable equipment to provide exceptional service cost effectively. Targets product range includes Drilling Engineering, Directional Drilling, well planning, Rental Tools, Mud Motors, Rotary Steerable tools, MWD/LWD and fishing and milling equipment on a rental or service basis. In addition to these products Target provides field engineers and office based supervisors who are experienced in the management of complex and challenging drilling projects to assist in delivering projects successfully on time and on budget.
Wood Group is an international energy services company with $4.4bn sales, employing 24,700 people worldwide and operating in 46 countries. The Group has three businesses - Engineering & Production Facilities, Well Support, and Gas Turbine Services - providing a range of engineering, production support, maintenance management and industrial gas turbine overhaul and repair services to the oil & gas, and power generation industries worldwide. Wood Group Pressure Control manufactures, installs and services wellheads and Christmas trees for land and offshore platform installations around the world. Both conventional and service specific wellhead designs are available. Trees can be provided with WGPC valves and actuators for single source supply of all equipment. WGPC employs over 1,400 people at 57 location in 14 countries around the world
Weatherford is the fourth-largest diversified upstream oilfield service company in the world. Their global network includes more than 38,000 people, 730 service bases, 87 manufacturing facilities, and 13 Technology Centres in more than 100 countries. Their products and services span the lifecycle of a well, including drilling, evaluation, completion, production and intervention. The Company’s range of production-enabling technologies include evaluation services, directional drilling services, controlled pressure drilling (CPD®) systems, cased hole completion systems, expandable technologies, intelligent completion technologies, production optimization systems and all major forms of artificial lift systems.
Corpro and MT Clothing have joined the UAE CC as a Bronze sponsor.
Corpro Systems Limited is a global company specialised in providing Coring Solutions to the Oil Industry. Corpro have been heavily investing in Research and Development to meet the challenges of the 21st Century by improving coring efficiency, recovering high quality material for conventional and special core analysis.
MT Clothing symbolizes Deviancy, Intelligence & Strength. It is a distinctive intelligent brand, of super clean and dark creations. Aiming at the darker side of freestyle extreme sports and the punk rock metal music scene, MT Clothing brings you the highest quality alternative street wear clothing. MT Clothing believes that everyone has the ability to make a difference in this world. “Environmental and humanitarian issues are very important to us. With each apparel a free sticker stating such issues is given, in hope to provide our customers, especially the kids, with the possibility to be more opened minded to the world and not only be concerned with appearances”
Gecko Motorcycles has joined the UAE CC as a Special sponsor.
Gecko Motorcycles is a bespoke centre specialising in motorcycle sales and after-market apparel combined with a modern workshop facility. Under the direct supervision of the proprietor Sean Linton (a 20 year veteran in this field) Gecko Motorcycles has established itself as the premier off road biking first point of call in the UAE.
We welcome Baker Hughes, AGR, Weeks, Target, Wood Group, Weatherford, Smith, Corpro, MT Clothing and Gecko to the UAE CC team and thank them for their charitable support.
We would also like to thanks all those people who have contributed personal donations to the UAE CC. (see your names listed in the Sponsors page)
TECHNICAL
THE BIKES ARE HERE!!
We picked up our 4 new 2008 Honda CRF450X bikes from Honda in the 3rd week of April. Anton Fisher of Honda was on hand to officially hand over the paperwork for each of the bikes. The bikes have all been ridden in and the initial service completed by Honda FOC. Our thanks go out to Honda for the continued support of the UAE CC Team.
Taking delivery of the bikes is just the start. The bikes need to be specially modified for the race with the modifications costing almost as much as the bikes themselves. This job falls to a local company that specializes in just this type of work – Gecko Motorcycles. Here mechanics with years of endurance racing experience make the necessary modifications to turn these bikes from stock short distance rally bikes into race prepared long distance endurance bikes. Everything from the fuel tank to the suspension needs to be changed to accommodate up to 9hrs a day of riding in conditions that would have most of us running for the air conditioned safety of our living rooms.
The support from Gecko Motorcycles doesn’t stop there though; they are also providing the UAE CC Team with advice on training techniques, training runs and just about anything you can think of to help us prepare for the UAE Desert Challenge. Our thanks go out to the Gecko team for their invaluable advice and support.
VOLUNTEER WORK
Matt Wilson (Wilson Griffin Design) has been hard at work as usual keeping the website up to date and making improvements. Changes for the Month of April are as follows -
- The 4th News Update has been added to the ‘NEWS’ page
- Matt has added updated the ‘SPONSORS’ page to include all the latest sponsors (Baker Hughes, AGR, Weeks, Target, Wood Group, Weatherford, Smith, Corpro and MT Clothing) to join the UAE CC team. Thanks again for your generous support.
- Go check out the ‘Training’ page to see the various training runs we have been using to prepare for the UAE Desert Challenge. The routes have all been captured using GPS and cover the main training rides. However, we are now also moving into bigger dunes in Liwa / Al Ain to better prepare us for the worst the 2008 UAE Desert Challenge has to offer.
