10 years ago
Without bragging in any way shape or form, I have to say I’ve been in the same room as Lord Alan Sugar on two occasions now...
The first was at a far too posh hotel for the likes of me a few years ago. He was there for some important gig when I inadvertently bumped into him as I was rushing in off the street for the nearest gents so it might not even count, and the second was at The Cycle Show at the NEC in Birmingham. Obviously then too, we were there for different reasons.
He was there because he’s a keen cycling enthusiast who regularly rides over 60 miles a day. Meanwhile, I was only there because I was press-ganged by two friends who had recently taken up the sport and were constantly injured, ill or downright knackered as a result, but still felt that I should share their pain. I vehemently disagreed with them, of course I did, but because I had nothing more interesting to do, I joined them and went along to see what all the fuss was about anyway.
The first thing that struck me when we got there (apart from the gall of the powers that be at the NEC who charge you twenty quid to park so far away from the venue that you still need to catch a bus to get there), was the homogeneous nature of the attendees. Nobody was going to mistake this lot for The Good Food crowd. Male, pale and wiry pretty much covered it. And there were so many people with ginger hair, I began to wonder whether cycling was some kind of refuge for those victimised for a lack of melanin.
Anyway, as we entered the exhibition hall, Lotus the car people (who apparently also make bikes in their spare time) had one of their cars on display, and one of the aforementioned wiry ginger blokes, dressed in jeans and T-shirt and carrying a backpack, was stood admiring it.
Cars are much more my thing than bikes ever will be, and so I started looking at the sporty little Lotus too.
Almost straight away, someone approached the wiry, ginger haired bloke and asked for a photograph. Strange, I thought. Why would you pick this wiry ginger haired bloke to have your photograph taken with when there are so many others to choose from? And why would you want your photo taken with a wiry ginger haired bloke anyway?
But then it got even stranger, because soon there was a steady stream of people coming up and asking for a photo’ with the wiry ginger haired bloke, and some of them got him to sign their programmes as well.
Now speaking as someone who has only ever been asked for a photograph for security reasons, I felt a little left out to say the least, but as slow on the uptake as I am, I soon figured out this must be no ordinary wiry ginger haired bloke. It turned out to be Ed Clancy who further down the line went on to win a gold medal in the London Olympics. It also became clear why I hadn’t recognised him. I’d only ever seen him with his helmet on before, and didn’t fully know what he looked like. Maybe that’s why people with ginger hair take up cycling – so people don’t know what colour their hair is.
Anyway, after the excitement of almost meeting an Olympic Cycling Gold Medalist, I approached the exhibition stands with renewed enthusiasm. And if you have not looked at bikes and cycling equipment for a while like me, you’re probably in for something of a shock. The technology has come on in leaps and bounds since the days of my old Raleigh Shopper bike, but so too have the prices.
One of the unpronounceable Italian companies had their latest bike on display there... Only available to order and from just £9,500. What?
Obviously I searched for the engine you normally get when spending that kind of money on something with wheels, but there wasn’t one to be found. Yes it was a work of art in carbon fibre, but still, ten grand? … AND ... Get this ... You still have to pedal the damned thing too.
And that in itself is somewhat ironic, because for your hard earned ten grand you don’t even get any pedals! They are extras. In fact, there were no pedals on any of the bikes at the exhibition. If you want to actually pedal what you’ve bought, another big wallet wound is required before you can do so.
I was quick to learn that the basic bike is just the start of things – even when you’ve bought the pedals. You’ll then need a pair of shoes to fix your feet to the pedals… I saw a very nice pair for £385. Obviously you’ll need a helmet too (to hide the ginger hair), and will have no difficulty shedding a couple of hundred pounds for one of those. And when you’ve got all that, then and only then, you can start looking at Lycra shorts, tops, all-in-one suits, warm weather gear, cold weather gear, wet weather gear, pumps, spares, water bottles, energy drinks…
The list is almost endless. But it doesn’t end there either.
You see, when you have finally amassed all that stuff, pretty soon you’re going to decide that the reason you’re about an hour behind Lance Armstrong on a 30 mile ride is because your bike is simply too heavy. And once you’ve decided that, there are a whole host of specialist companies that will relieve you of a further sizeable portion of what’s left of your dwindling bank balance in return for lighter gears, lighter brakes and lighter wheels. I would have thought that a far cheaper option (and with extra health benefits) seems to be to become a lighter rider, but I digress.
We visited one stand where the company sold nothing but wheels. My friend got in discussion with one of the people manning the stand. “How much is this one?” he asked “Fourteen,” was the reply. I was astonished… ”Fourteen pounds for a pair of bike wheels?” I said, being polite enough to move away from the vendor for once before expressing my amazement. “No, they’re fourteen HUNDRED pounds EACH,” said my friend. Nobody else seemed phased by the cost of all this, but they were all wiry ginger haired blokes, and I’m not. And that’s the point...
In every walk of life… in every market… there are wiry ginger haired blokes. They might not look like wiry ginger haired blokes, but they all behave in exactly the same way.
They are mad keen enthusiasts, and they are prepared to pay a seemingly ridiculous amount of money to get the best of the best of the best. On a more rational level, they know that they are all falling victim to massive diminishing returns. They know that they are getting little or nothing tangible and measurably extra for what they’re spending, but they don’t seem to care. They love the product or the activity, and will therefore spend beyond rationality on it. (Does Apple come to mind here?)
So who are the wiry ginger haired blokes in your market, and are they being properly served? Might they spend even more, if they were offered a product at an even higher level? If you were to shift the emphasis of your operation away from fat, dark haired blokes (who only want a bargain pushbike like me) to the wiry ginger haired blokes (who only want the best) might you have a more profitable business? And might you have a business which is more enjoyable and satisfying to run?
There certainly seemed to be plenty of smiling people at the NEC that Saturday.
Regular readers will know that my last post was about Batman and his strategically placed can of shark repellent spray. And many of said readers probably found themselves asking “Is there really any need for this?” Not so much the shark repellent spray, the actual post. But having said that, if 1960’s Batman was around today he wouldn’t need the repellent spray because the shark wouldn’t even come near him. He could keep the animal at bay with a new device called the Electronic Shark Defence System, a small box about the size of a pack of cards which attaches to the wrist of a swimmer, surfer, diver or anyone else going into the water. (Like a caped crusader dangling from a helicopter, for example). It emits an electronic pulse which is said to repel sharks by affecting the gel in their nose.
Ever since the film Jaws, the threat of being attacked by a shark has been very high on many people’s list of fears. And yet in reality, the risk is tiny (even less if you stay away from the water). Just 100 attacks are reported world-wide each year, and the International Shark Attack file based in Florida put the odds of an individual being attacked at 11.5 million to one. That’s not far off the odds of winning the UK National lottery! And yet despite this, I can see this device selling extremely well. That doesn’t sound logical does it? Well it isn’t but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
Let me give you another scenario which may explain why. When you fully understand this, it will give you a massive advantage in creating, developing and marketing products that make money to your consumers.
So you’re driving to the airport. Do you feel safer now, while you’re in the car, or will you feel safer later, once you’re strapped into your aeroplane seat? If you said you’ll feel safer once you’ve got on the plane, then you’re in a very small minority. You see, it doesn’t matter how many times we hear that air travel is the safest means of getting around – that the odds of being involved in an air crash are one in eleven million – on an emotional level though, most of us still feel like it’s much more dangerous than driving. Our experiences show us the difference between a minor prang in a car and the absolute carnage of a plane crash. And that’s still despite the fact that we have around a one in 5,000 chance of dying in a car crash, and are in considerably more danger driving to the airport than we are flying to our destination. Over one and a quarter MILLION people die on the world’s roads each year. The number killed on commercial air flights? Less than a thousand.
Can you see the anomaly here, and the conundrum faced by entrepreneurs in developing and marketing their products? The demand for a product often has little to do with the objective reality of a situation, because our perceptions are so skewed. If we just look at the raw statistics alone, a device designed to prevent shark attacks shouldn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance of succeeding. There’s just no real need for it. It’s a problem that only affects a hundred people a year, but the reality is that the market is infinitely larger than that. Conversely, thousands are killed on the roads each year so road accident prevention should be a red hot commercial market, but it almost certainly isn’t.
The key word in all of this is emotion. Emotion is what transcends boring old facts, figures and statistics every time. You can churn out the numbers all day long, and you can prove that there’s a logical need for a product, but if your target market doesn’t have any emotional reaction to your situation or problem, they’re not going to spend their hard earned money on it. Even being seriously injured or killed as a result of a fall in your kitchen is very many times more likely than being attacked by a shark. But which event do you think people will spend their money to avoid? One is highly unlikely but emotionally charged; the other is far more common but carries little or no emotional resonance.
One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is to build their products and promotions around cold hard logic. They see a problem, find a solution and expect the world to beat a path to their door. It’s an approach that would see you developing a device to prevent kitchen falls, rather than one which wards off sharks. The need and danger is perceived to be far greater. But it’s almost impossible to get any attention (let alone money) until you engage people on an emotional level. The manufacturers of the shark repellent device already had the job done for them by Hollywood. If that emotional connection isn’t there already, most of us lesser mortals have to find a way to create it through our advertising and marketing strategies.
This is because, contrary to what you may have been otherwise told, we don’t spend our money in response to our needs – we spend it in response to our wants. And for us to really want something, cold hard facts are not enough. We need to be engaged on an emotional level with a product, and the level to which we get engaged is often totally out of kilter with the severity and risks associated with the problem the product solves (My post on caravans for example). We always underestimate the dangers of travelling by car and of falls around the home, things we have probably already experienced and survived, but overestimate the dangers of air travel and shark attacks because they are totally unknown to our real lives and our experiences become based on the worst case scenarios we see in the movies. These perceptions affect us deeply at an emotional level, and in turn can have a dramatic effect on where we spend our money.
So if you want to make the world a better place with your products, by all means focus on needs, logic and objective reality. But if you want to make money, then wants, emotions and subjective perceptions should be the factors that guide your products and promotion choices.
Biff, Zap, Kappow!!! As Batman might say if he was ever to become poor enough to be doing his own sound effects (perish the thought).
Batman was a 1960s American live action television series, based on the DC comic book character of the same name. It starred two crime-fighting heroes who defended an unruly place... Gotham City. It aired on the American ABC network for three seasons from January 12, 1966 to March 14, 1968.
The show was broadcast twice weekly for its first two seasons and weekly for the third, with a total of 120 episodes being produced during its run. The program was best known for its upbeat theme music and delivering camp moral lessons, which included championing the importance of using seat belts, doing homework, eating vegetables and drinking milk among children.
It was one of my favourite TV shows as a child and it starred Adam West as Batman, Burt Ward as Robin, Cesar Romero as the Joker, and Frank Gorshin as the Riddler among many others. And during my obviously somewhat miss-spent youth, I had somehow amassed the Batcape, the Batcar, the Batcopter and just about every other Bat-thing available from the series as part of my toy collection. It’s sad I know and to be honest it bears no real relevance to my story here but nonetheless, it was true.
And later on in the mid seventies, we witnessed the birth of the trusty old VHS recorder/player and that meant we were now able to record this gem of television for our own personal playback later. I (well dad really) also had a VHS copy of the 1966 film ‘Batman’ that spun off from the TV series, and at the time, it was great entertainment to say the least.
One of the funniest scenes I can remember from that movie involved Batman getting lowered into the sea on a rope ladder attached to the Batcopter. I honestly don’t remember why now. He was probably just trying to save the world from total destruction as usual I guess.
But to cut a long story short (and without giving away the plot (which I can’t fully remember now anyway)), when the Batcopter later ascends pulling our hero Batman back out of the water, he had what was quite a large rubber shark hanging from his right leg. And undeterred by this seemingly minor inconvenience, he calmly reached down into his utility belt and pulled out a can clearly labelled ‘Shark Repellent Spray’, which miraculously, just happened to be there for him.
Anyway, a couple of quick squirts from this can into his assailant’s face and the fearsome fish quickly releases its grip of our hero’s leg and dutifully falls back into harmlessness as it re-enters the ocean, leaving our hero free once again to continue saving the world.
This to me if nobody else, bids a simple but at the same time, rather disturbing question... When Batman set off that morning for another day of ‘Super-heroism’, how the hell did he know to pack that shit?
I mean, whenever I leave for my day’s (insignificant by comparison) toils, I generally know what I’ll be doing that day. I also know what I’ll need to help me DO my doing. But I still bloody forget stuff!!
Maybe I need to refer to his manual.
I am writing today to tell you about something I first discovered as I took my seat on a Boeing 737 for my outbound journey to Australia back in the October of 2011…
Prior to that year’s Paralympics, I’m sure many aeroplanes were specially adapted to transport amputees to London as efficiently and needless to say, as cost effectively as possible. And just after the games, it appears that the great Thomas Cook travel agency had bought back all these aircraft, and were now using them to fly holidaymakers to their sunny destinations all around the globe.
But how do I know this? I hear you all ask.
Because that’s the only explanation I can truly offer as to why, on the outbound flight to Australia, there had been no provision made in any of my seating arrangements for anybody with legs.
In fact I’m pretty confident that if you were to transport sheep or cattle for 24 hours (yes it takes that long) in such confined conditions, it would have contravened a whole number of European directives and regulations... People with scruffy beards, coloured hats and thick knit sweaters would have been out demonstrating in the streets on behalf of our woolly livestock friends.
But this wasn’t sheep I am talking about, it was people – some of whom were Scousers (Liverpool folk) too – and me - so we were clearly far less important. And as I tried to wrestle the seat-belt from under my left buttock, the whole ‘safety demonstration’ and ‘friendly welcome aboard’ and ‘calm down because you're in safe hands now chat’ from the captain and cabin crew did little to lift my spirits.
Now I fully understand why they have to tell you about the much practiced ‘brace yourself for your instant demise’ position and all of the exercises it’s advisable to do to avoid DVT (and more importantly, mitigate an expensive lawsuit for Thomas Cook). But don’t just tell me about it. Show me!
Come and sit in the seat you have sold me at great expense, and demonstrate how I can adopt the ‘brace position’ without first head-butting the headrest on the seat in front.
Show me how I can flex and rotate my ankles and calves while my whole lower half is wedged firmly into position tighter than supermarket chicken thighs in a vacuum pack.
Show me how I can “Sit back, relax and enjoy the flight” when my arms are pinned to my sides and my testicles are locked in a mid thigh sandwich.
Don’t just talk about it. Show me… Here, in my seat!
Needless to say, nobody was ever going to show me. Nor were they ever going to explain why they were supplying me with a life jacket rather than a parachute, which to my simple brain seems far more useful.
And so there was really nothing else to do other than resign myself to several hours of discomfort and general irritation, only to be punctuated by the occasional interruptions from cabin crew selling us junk food, the exquisitely planned plasticised meals that were to constitute the airline's gourmet on-flight menu, scratch cards, cigarettes and all manner of other duty free crap I neither needed nor wanted.
Thank god it was only to be a one way flight is all I could say. And for the benefit of wifey, it was well worth the inconvenience. :)
Rain beating down on a rusting tin roof... Choking gas light and heater fumes... And add to that the sound of urine hitting the sides of an old plastic bucket.
These are the abiding memories of some of my childhood holidays.
It’s perhaps no surprise then, that my relationship with the caravan is not exactly an easy one.
I mean, can you really want your entire family to share in the aftermath of last night’s curry? Well if you did, you made the right choice with a caravan. Not only will they hear it, but they’ll get the full visceral experience as the entire structure resonates in sympathy with your digestive distresses, and the fragrant aromas waft gently into the adjacent kitchen space.
And have you ever wondered what it’s like to breath in some freshly exhaled air? Well you will wonder no more as you sleep in overcrowded conditions which are probably illegal for today’s farm livestock, never mind humans.
And if you want to know what it must feel like to be the target of rabidly focussed and universal hatred? Well you can easily have your curiosity satisfied as you hook up your pride and joy and dawdle along a single carriageway road at just 40mph with the boys from Top Gear stuck behind you.
I know things have moved on a bit since I was a kid, but I still don’t get it. I really don’t.
You could just as easily stay in a hotel or a bed and breakfast… or maybe rent an apartment, a house or a cottage. Something with more civilised facilities and a structural integrity that transcends that of cardboard.
But no, you have a far better idea for your holiday. You’re going to drag a tin box across country, park it in a semi-isolated field because you still can't live without a local shop, and voluntarily subject you and yours to the kind of living conditions that Sir Bob Geldof has been trying to stamp out for the past 30 years.
I would venture as far as saying that people who buy caravans can’t possibly own calculators too.
I would venture as far as saying that people who buy caravans can’t possibly own calculators too.
I mean if they did, they would quickly realise that for the same cost as this, possibly the world’s worst ever purchase, they could surely spend many weeks each year in a nice hotel where there are luxuries like proper beds, room service, toilets that work and the added bonus of walls to boot. Oh, and there's room to swing a cat.
Spend $40,000 - $50,000 on your ‘home from home’ (assuming you currently live in an old shed) and you lose about half of that in depreciation the second the smirking salesman ushers you off his forecourt into your whole new world of self inflicted pain.
Just a random thought, but It just seems crazy to me.
Spend $40,000 - $50,000 on your ‘home from home’ (assuming you currently live in an old shed) and you lose about half of that in depreciation the second the smirking salesman ushers you off his forecourt into your whole new world of self inflicted pain.
Just a random thought, but It just seems crazy to me.
I was having a little read the other day when I happened along a term that was completely new to me... a ‘rider’. No it’s not a chap you can plonk on a bike with a helmet. Nor is it a horse passenger. In theatre (and musical performance), a rider is a set of requests or demands that a performer sets as his criteria for a performance. All modern day artists have what’s called a ‘rider’ – and this is basically a list of the things they need in their dressing room at an event.
On occasion, an artist's rider may be seen as somewhat unreasonable or excessive for a given performance. That is because it is often the case that such riders were devised for larger or more complex performances and in situations like these, the stage manager would liaise with the band manager to discuss alternative arrangements.
You may or may not have heard about the present day demands for hot and cold running prawn sammiches, diamond encrusted toilet seats, or even the odd troupe of kitten juggling trapezium artists to endow the backstage quarters of stars like Madonna or Lady gone Ga Ga during their performances. And even at the height of his career, Van Halen lead singer David Lee Roth became known for his strange and extravagant rider demands. When the band were on tour, Lee Roth’s rider was deemed particularly demanding.
Not only did he specify that there must be a bowl of M&M’s in his dressing room, but he also insisted that all the brown ones be removed. Not only that, he had it made clear that if there was even a single brown M&M remaining in the bowl, he would have the right to call off the whole concert without any financial recompense to the organisers.
At the time, this was put forward as the ultimate example of rock star excess – what happens when performers are given everything they want, and nobody dare say ‘no’to them. But in his autobiography, Lee Roth revealed a surprising and ingenious reason for his apparent Diva-ish behaviour.
The objective of this wasn't in fact due to any excesses on the part of the band, but it was simply a method to determine how much attention to detail the crew at a local venue had paid to the requests specified in the rider. Should the bowl be absent, or if any brown M&Ms were present, it would give the band members reason to suspect other, more legitimate, technical and safety issues were also being performed poorly or were outrightly overlooked. Let me explain...
Back in the 1980’s, Van Halen concerts were at the cutting edge of what could be achieved at the time. The band would typically turn up with nine or ten trucks packed out with expensive and complex staging, equipment and lighting. The norm at the time for many other acts, was just two trucks full.
Not only was the set complicated, but it was also extremely heavy. It was very important that the floor in the venue was capable of supporting everything and that it was all positioned and assembled in the correct way because if not, there would be a genuine risk to life if mistakes were made. And the instructions and requirements for achieving all this were contained within a thick contract for the event – the same contract that contained that excessive rider about brown M&M’s.
It turns out that this somewhat unreasonable request was made purely as a result of faulty workmanship at a venue on an earlier tour which nearly cost the life of a member of Van Halen's road crew. Le Roth added, that at one venue where he found brown M&Ms (the Colorado State University – Pueblo), the management's failure to read weight requirements in the rider resulted in the band's equipment sinking through the floor, causing over $80,000 of damage.
So here’s the clever bit. Whenever the band arrived at a new concert venue, they simply checked the bowl of M&M’s in the dressing room for brown ones. If they found any, they would dutifully take it as a direct indication that the contract hadn’t been read properly and assumed that this could be just the tip of the iceberg. Therefore, the appearance of brown M&Ms would prompt them to insist on a full technical check of the venue and more often than not this would highlight other lapses that could threaten either the show, or the safety of both the performers and audience.
I’m sure you get the underlying principle here – it isn’t always necessary to check on every aspect of a job to get a good indication of how well it has been done. Often, taking a very small, well-chosen sample can often tell you all you need to know. We might not all be rock stars, but all of us are in the position of entrusting work to third parties, whether they be tradesmen, contractors, professional advisors, employees or work colleagues. It’s not always easy or practical to check that everything has been done to specification, but perhaps with our own version of the dreaded brown M&Ms, we can get a good indication.
So what form might our brown M&Ms take? Well with written instructions to professional advisors, it could be a ‘deliberate mistake’ in the text. If they draw your attention to it, then they’ve done well and read your instructions in detail. If they don’t, then ask yourself how much have they really read? Or with verbal instructions to tradesmen, contractors or colleagues, it could be insistence on a seemingly inconsequential detail. If that has been complied with, there’s every chance the rest of the instructions will have been followed too.
meanwhile, back in real life, I once heard of a homeowner who used to test out new cleaners by leaving a little cash under the rug. If the cleaner produced the cash he could be sure she was both thorough and honest. If she didn’t, he knew she was lacking in at least one of those attributes. Either way, she didn’t get asked back! See how it works?
When I was growing up, Robin Williams was already a huge star. I didn’t know him. Of course I didn’t, definitely not. After all, when you’re a teenage boy trying your best to be cool, you’re not going to be divulging the fact you spend endless nights in front of the telly now are you? And even if you did, not many of your peers would choose to believe you anyway would they?
Well Robin Williams died this Monday at the relatively tender age of 63, by which time I’d had several decades to grow up and realise that you can enjoy all film genres without caring a jot what anyone else thinks. And that there are few finer comedians / actors that stand in the same class as this man once did. His passing though has triggered a few thoughts which could just help us make our business or private lives a little bit better.
Over the next few weeks, sales of Robin Williams movies will no doubt, go through the roof. His films will start appearing in the Top 10 again (if there is such a thing for movies), and a brand new audience will inevitably discover him.
There’s an old joke that Robin may have used himself that says “death is a great career move,” and it certainly seems to be that way in our media driven world. Every major artist sees a massive surge in sales when they die.
And while some of the increased sales will be down to the fact that the artist is no longer around to be making movies, I think most of it is simply down to the extra media exposure generated at the time. They are in the public eye once again, their life is being broadcast / discussed and their talents are once again being re-played. Their old audience is given a fond reminder, and a new audience is given an in depth introduction.
Waning artists found appearing in gutter television’s celebrity versions of reality show benefit from exactly the same effect. Exposure on its own is often enough to have a monumental impact. After all, it’s a numbers game, and the greater the exposure, the greater the impact will inevitably be.
So what does this mean for the likes of you and I? Well it means we should really take hold of every opportunity we can to get exposure. Many of us, myself included, spend an inordinate amount of time deciding what and how we will ‘say’ and not nearly enough time planning on how we can get the maximum number of people to hear it. This will mean different things to different people, but hopefully you get the point.
Simply put, a massive audience trumps a perfect message every time. A great film title means little on its own and while Robin Williams’ acting will be no better this week than it was last – it will, thanks to extra coverage, generate many times the revenue. So in short, if you want to maximise your profits, you have to maximise your exposure.
Although often captured in manic mode, Robin always came across as a laid-back and affable character, and it seems this was not just an act. That was simply the way he was. When you watched Williams’ off-camera he was seen to be exactly the same as when the cameras were rolling – maybe a little off the wall, but always courteous, fun, friendly and highly respectful to the many people working around him.
Few of us work in the media, or perform in front of cameras for that matter, but the way we perform ‘off-camera’ is no less telling or relevant. Off camera in this context means times when we’re not the centre of attention or at the heart of a conversation or events. This is a key opportunity for people to discover what you are really like. And if you haven’t paid attention to this, I’d urge you to start thinking about it now.
When the conversation or attention moves away from someone you’re uncertain about, stay with them for a while. And what you will often see is a highly perfected veneer that dissolves in an instant – apparent friendliness instantly replaced by hostility, feigned interest replaced by boredom, smiles switched off faster than a fifty watt bulb. Many have a performance for ‘the camera’ which isn’t in keeping with their true feelings or persona and knowing this can save you an incredible amount of time, money and heartache. And it is information that’s there for anyone to see.
So the question you need to ask yourself, of course, is this – what will others see when ‘the camera’ is turned away from me? It’s easier if we can look back on a life filled with excitement, adventure and achievement than one characterised by apathy, routine and missed opportunities.
Thank you Robin Williams, despite the troubles you faced on your own personal journey, you taught us well and with all due respect to one of the world’s finest, there’s no better day than today for us to be taking some positive steps towards ensuring that happens.
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