Oxfam TRAILWALKER 2008 (Melbourne)

Hello friends, relatives and well-wishers

Welcome to my Blog!

My name is Venki Prathivadi and the purpose of this section on my blog (Web log) is to capture and share our experience relating to the Oxfam Trailwalker 2008, 100 km walk in Melbourne on April 11th 2008.

Oxfam TRAILWALKER is the world's greatest team challenge. And it's also one of the toughest. The challenge is to get our two teams across 100km of Australian bush in less than 48 hours - and, collectively, to raise at least $8,000 to help to overcome poverty and suffering around the world.

Our two teams are called "Satyam Snails" and "Satyam Slugs". We are all IT professionals working in Melbourne, Australia with Satyam Computer Services Limited.

Here are our teams and the trailwalkers:

Satyam Snails

1. Venki Prathivadi
2. Vijay Athar
3. Harish Singla
4. Debra Block
5. Subbu Pithani
   
   

Satyam Slugs

1. Gurpreet Verma
2. Kathy Gatti
3. Anand Vyas
4. Julie Biasotto
5. Ananthan Mukundan
   
   

Our Team Note:

We are ten ordinary, average, middle-aged IT professionals representing Satyam Computer Services Limited. We feel compelled to make a difference to the world in any small way that we can. So we decided to walk and run 100 kms on 11th April 2008, to raise funds for charity. We have never walked more than 20 kms before in our lives, let alone run it. We may not exactly breeze through the 100 kms. We may bleed through our feet, drag ourselves through exhaustion and hopefully limp our way through. But we will do it slow and steady. That is why we are the "Snails". Our pain will seem trivial and temporary when compared to the prolonged trouble and long-term suffering of so many needy, poor or underprivileged people in this world. So please support us if you can through donating money to Oxfam. Although we have signed up to commit $8,000 through this fundraising initiative, we would love to get close to or surpass the highest amount raised by a team at the Oxfam TRAILWALKER event last year ($80,821). Please donate to this worthy cause. In all humility, we thank you sincerely for your donation and support.

Thank you to all our donors. We are very grateful to you for supporting Oxfam, through our teams.

To donate to Oxfam, through our teams, please follow these links:

Satyam Snails

Satyam Slugs

Please do provide your feedback on this blog. We will regularly update this blog with the experience and insight gained from our training sessions.


Forthcoming articles in this blog:

1. The 100 km Trail
2. Our donor list
3. Our training plan
4. Training sessions experience
5. The gear and preparations
6. Our Support crew
7. Lessons learned (Parallels between work teams and this walk team: management, team dynamics and individual psychology)
   

Please do visit this site regularly.

Have a great day




Venki Prathivadi