Last weekend I flew down to Cape Town to surprise George Scola.

He had been walking the distance of 2300 km's from Beit Bridge, in the far north of South Africa, to Cape Point, in the far south over the last 6 months to raise awareness for the Stroke Survivors Foundation.

Rod the Frog, Jonathan, Marli and I joined him on the N1 highway and walked 14 km with him, through Cape Town. I take my hat off to George because he averaged 18 km every day for 6 months, and I was exhausted and starving after just 14 kms. (Thank goodness George introduced me after our walk to Jack at Cape Town's best pizza spot: Ristorante Posticino).

George finished this walk, a massive 2437km today and is celebrating at a banquet tonight. Jolandi, Mongezi and I share our wishes for him here.


(view youtube video here)
Rod joined George and Ray Chaplin (his support vehicle driver) for quite a bit of his walk- so you can read about his adventures with George on his latest blog post here.

The Stroke Survivors Foundation is playing a vital part in helping survivors with their recovery, adjusting to life and staying informed, motivated and positive. They are creating a national network that provides the much needed post-discharge rehabilitation and support for stroke survivors, their families and caregivers.

If you would like to support George on this mission, then please get in touch!

I'm on a mission of note to finish my tenth trade by the end of February, and the ideas have been flying in of how to reach the 158 people I still need to meet to trade with, for my last 158 Springleap T-shirts!

You'll have noticed the "Stash or stack the Castles" idea, and the onematchstick Bachelor and Bachelorette reality-internet-projects that are underway, and today onematchstick took part in 555Tshirts. I've got a few more ideas up my (t-shirt) sleeve, and those you'll see taking shape over the next few weeks.

Today though is about Jonathan Kapelus wearing a 555Tshirts' T-shirt sponsored by onematchstick. I'm experiencing such support of my dream, that it is always a privilege to be a part of someone else's dream (and I do so enjoy it too!)

555Tshirts is a "socially responsible marketing experiment". Jonathan will be wearing five hundred and fifty five sponsored T-shirts over the next 2 years, and will be giving away over R3 million to worthy causes! Each person or business that sponsors a T-shirt, gets to have what ever they want on the T-Shirt for the day, and Jonathan will also be promoting whatever the sponsor wants for the day. The sponsor also gets to nominate a charity for the day, which gets exposure too, and its share of funds raised through 555Tshirts.

I managed to nab T-shirt number 002! And so Jonathan has been wearing a T-shirt with onematchstick on it all day. He's also been handing out my matchstick business cards, and tonight is at the Silicon Cape networking event to help me find more people who will trade with me.

The Charity that I nominated is the Stroke Survivors Foundation, which my friend Ray Chaplin (Adventurer, campaigner and educator) introduced me to. Ray is the support for George Scola, one of the founders who is walking 2400 km's for his "Bring it on" campaign. George has survived a stroke, and has now walked 2000 km's of his goal to raise awareness for the Stroke Survivors Foundation.

Rod the Frog (my second trade) even joined George and Ray for a few weeks and on his trip he helped them with a few fundraising ideas and he found his soulmate, Antoinette.

If you'd like to sponsor one of Jonathan's T-shirts, then get in touch with him via his website or twitter!

I'm calling all cyclists! And friends and families of cyclists!

For two reasons.

Reason One: to tell you about a ray of sunshine in the form of Ray Chaplin.
Reason Two: to remind you of an opportunity to spoil yourself or a loved one while making my day!

Reason One:

Ray is one of those guys that some people call crazy, others might say courageous, and others inspirational. To me he's all three.