Connie's Diary: 14th Feb (Part II)

3:00pm:   Launch day planning meeting with Tanya Singleton from The Village Agency who volunteered her whiz bang Event Management expertise to help us bring the launch together. OK, this is exciting, we have Molly Meldrum and Brigitte Duclos hosting, Claudia Karvan, Deb Mailman, Totti Goldsmith, Katherine McClemments and Jennifer Hanson and Jo Stanley attending. A chopper is flying overhead to take aerial shots of the heart tunnel Samuel will ride through, and a 40 piece drumming band from Mornington high school. AND – I have to make a speech, with 21 hours til launch, which is pretty important! Jitters, nerves, butterflies, how will I address hundreds of people? Will there be hundreds of people? Oh, how is this going to happen?

6:00pm:   Eat, then cook for the boys. Thanks to the beautiful and ever helpful Sarah Hallam, Sam’s right hand lady and best mate, and Sullivan Krueger, our nephew, a striking and thoughtful young man, who cooked two big pots of Bolognese sauce and Chilli con carne for the caravan.

Meanwhile Ley Ley and Jonno are tirelessly working on packing the van, everything from a flint in case they need to make a campfire if they get stranded somewhere, to flashlight, bike tools, not to mention 2 bikes, a motorbike, and 5 unicycles. Huge thanks to Mercedes for providing the sprinter van, I believe it is the biggest van on the market in Australia, and we need every square inch of space it has to offer. Jon Bon Jonno and Ley Ley have been custom building shelving and bike and ramp storage for it, as well as frames for the motorbike and bikes etc.

And I am working with Tanya on making boxes to store the merchandise in for the van, and to sell it from on the trestle table when they stop. After much debating we worked out our pricing and made signs, with the help of Willoughby and Hamilton who contributed some Jackson Pollock style splash painting to the equation. And Tanya Singleton is worth her weight in gold for the contacting job she did on the boxes.

10:00pm    Cook more, honey mustard chicken and beef stroganoff for the caravan, and pack the caravan. Everything from toothbrushes and deodorant (a must with three young men on board) to toaster and chopping boards, generously donated by Gail Hislop. All of it eventually found a home and the boys should have most of their needs met in the first week or two, and will work out the rest once on the road. I tried to think of everything, but I presume they will not even be in Bacchus Marsh before they are writing a list of more things they needJ It’s the nature of the beast.

11:00pm    Night before launch photo shoot with the Ferne, 32 weeks pregnant, going to hang out of chopper tomorrow to photograph LYS from the air, what an amazing spirited woman.

2:00am   Iron on transfers onto T-shirts for Willoughby and Hamilton to wear at the launch, I promised them, and if I don’t deliver I would never forgive myself. I can’t wait till we have official t-shirts, and I can stop making temporary stop gap measures! We have been asked by so many people, in person and online where they can buy them – at the moment we are making most of them, and the Bendigo Bank had 50 made for volunteers at the launch, but we need more, and watch facebook, we will put a notice up when they are available for sale. It should be within a month or so.

3:00am   Pack everything I need for launch day, clean up a little bit, try to write speech, too tired

3:49    Bed!!!