The Shackleton Foundation The Shackleton Foundation celebrates the legacy of Sir Ernest Shackleton: leader, explorer, adventurer. The Foundation believes his life is an object lesson for what any determined individual may make of their own. Our mission is to seek out and assist individuals or teams who embody the spirit of Shackleton. Bold, Innovative & Useful The Foundation will fund projects that match our major criteria with one-off or repeat grants of up to 10,000 disbursed on an annual basis. Bold: Daring ideas are big ideas. The Foundation will be launched on the back of a trip to the Pole, but that doesn t mean we intend only to fund arduous physical adventures. We believe anything worth doing means taking a calculated risk, and then having the determination to see it through. We have three major requirements for offering financial support to applicants. We ll explain what these are in a minute, but for now you should understand: we re different. Innovative: Shackleton s own expeditions were the most technically advanced undertakings of the day, equivalent to an Edwardian moon-landing. Nobody had been where Shackleton was going. Similarly, we expect recipients of Unlike many charitable foundations, we are not tied to one grants to be pioneers in their own fields. research area or activity agenda. By the same token, we have no age limits for applicants, and we re not interested in where you come from. Useful: The Foundation is here above all to improve the lives of people who need it most. We keep a deliberately open brief, from low-tech innovation to high-tech medicine, from It s where you re going that counts. youth education to hands-on aid. All you have to do is show us how you intend to make it happen, and who will benefit. Accordingly, if you ve got an idea that won t let you sleep, Please find more details online at shackletonfoundation.org and will directly benefit those who most need help, then perhaps The Shackleton Foundation can help you. Lastly, Thomas Pynchon once wrote a line that tells you almost everything you need to know about The Shackleton Here s what we expect to find from potential applicants: Foundation, and about us. It s this: Everyone has an Antarctic. What s yours?
Project #1 Midday in Midwinter, EA Wilson (1902) We, the trustees of the Shackleton Foundation, then asked ourselves a simple question: what next? Where the the original team was forced back by hunger and cold, we hope and intend to continue onwards. We have defined our goals, stated our intentions. So how do we get there from here? How best to launch the Foundation? The modern team will be comprised of descendents and relatives of Shackleton's own adventurers. In this project, we are honoured to have the kind support of both HRH The We sought an idea to capture the imagination of the public, an idea to match our ambition. We further sought a project that would make a significant contribution to our funding goal of 10M, and thereby place the Foundation on a sound Princess Royal and Robert Swan OBE, the only modern explorer to have followed in Shackleton s footsteps in Antarctica, and the first man to have conquered both North and South Poles on foot. footing for the future. On our first mission, we intend to set down a marker. We In short, we needed money, awareness... and a big idea, to feed our bigger idea. honour the courage and determination of our forefathers, who struggled in the Polar storms at the dawn of the last century, and whose efforts inspire us to return to the ice. The We are now pleased to announce our answer. Foundation will continue to nurture that spirit in those we support next, whatever their field of endeavour. In 2008, we will go back to where the business started. We are confident that our new organisation's future will be To Antarctica. both an exciting and unusual one. We will send a team to finish the task Shackleton and his men set out to achieve, one hundred years (to the day) later. This knowlege makes each and every step we take towards the Pole a tangible sign of our commitment to the Foundation. So now it's up to you. Are you ready to help? We will conquer the Pole, on foot. We will take the route taken in 1908, and we will complete the mission. Join with us.
The Team Expedition Patron: HRH The Princess Royal Fundraising Patron: Robert Swan OBE Henry Worsley MBE Team Leader Henry Worsley has been in the British Army for 25 years, and is searching for a link with Frank Worsley, Shackleton s skipper on the Endurance. He has wide expedition experience, and has completed the Haute Route and Yukon Arctic Ultra. This journey will fulfil a lifelong ambition. Will Gow Will Gow works in the City. He has raised over 100,000 for charity by completing the Himalyan 100-mile stage race, and is related to Shackleton by marriage. The Centenary Expedition combines his desire to travel in the last great wilderness and reunite Shackleton s descendents at the Pole. Henry Adams Henry Adams is a shipping lawyer and the great-grandson of Jameson Boyd Adams. He has trekked extensively throughout South America and Africa and is a passionate kitesurfer and sailor. Since boyhood he has dreamed of reliving his great-grandfather's Polar experience. Patrick Bergel Patrick Bergel works in advertising. He is the great-grandson of Shackleton. Patrick will support the fundraising effort and intends to meet the ice team at the Furthest Southerly Point reached in 1909, from there to complete the last 97 miles to the Pole. Tim Fright Tim Fright is an MA student at Kings College London. He is the great-great-nephew of Frank Wild, the only explorer to accompany Shackleton on all his missions. Tim counts skydiving and marathon running amongst his hobbies, and will also complete the final 97 miles from the Furthest Point. David Cornell David is the great-grandson of Jameson Boyd Adams. David was an officer in the British Army before entering the City, and spent several years in Norway leading Arctic warfare exercises. He heads the fundraising team.
Following intensive ice training in Norway, Baffin Island and Greenland, with fitness programme assistance from the OMI (Olympic Medical Institute, London) the team will follow the same route to the Pole as Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition of 1908-9. We fly in from Punto Arenas, Chile. Having refuelled at Patriot Hills base, we will be dropped on Ross Island, at the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf. As befits a modern expedition, our trip will be entirely carbon-neutral, with all CO2 emissions offset. The team will first climb Mount Erebus, the world s most southerly volcano. We then intend to depart from the Shackleton Hut at Cape Royds on October 29 th 2008 at 10am, exactly a hundred years to the day since Shackleton and his men set out. Travelling unguided on skis, we will cross the Ross Ice Shelf, individually hauling our expedition supplies in sledges. We then ascend the seldom-crossed Beardmore Glacier, en route collecting blue ice samples for scientific analysis back in the UK. Then it s on to the Polar plateau, 400 miles towards the Pole itself. We will keep the outside world notified of our daily progress wherever we find ourselves, via video and journal entries to be posted online at shackletoncentenary.org It will be a long, hard march from here to the 97-mile point, which we intend to reach exactly on the centenary of the original team s achievement. Instead of turning back, as they were then forced to, we will reach the South Pole, and thereby complete unfinished business. The total distance we expect to cover is 900 miles, and journey time is around eighty days.
Endurance, Drew Webster (2007) Corporate Sponsorship The Shackleton name is known worldwide. After a recent surge in interest by film-makers, documentarists and writers, the profile of one of Britain s greatest explorers continues to grow: inspirational as a leader, aspirational as a hero. Feature films, TV dramas and globally successful books have cemented the reputation of Shackleton as the man to have with you in a crisis, and a powerful example of unflinching determination and selfless team-building, for business-people and explorers alike. The Shackleton Foundation, the new charitable trust behind this unique and unprecedented adventure, now seeks a limited number of bold organisations to become Founder Members. We expect Founder Members to gain continuing benefit in these areas: Identification with the Shackleton name, through a Foundation dedicated to bold and innovative charitable initiatives. Opportunities to use examples of Foundation activities to underscore your company's values, internally and externally. Active participation in selecting projects for support by the Foundation. During 2008/2009 Acknowledgment and exposure from global coverage comprising: Foundation literature, national press & radio, television, daily web feeds live from Antarctica, educational and schools links. We re going to the South Pole. Will you join us?
On the 27 th December 1908, the party reached the windswept polar plateau, some ten thousand feet higher than their start point. Exhausted, low on food and pulling the sledges themselves, they continued on through bitter winds towards their goal. But on 9 th January 1909, The Boss as his men called him, was to make one of the greatest and boldest decisions of his life. The Nimrod Expedition 1907-09 Barely a hundred miles short of the Pole, he took the decision to turn back, after planting the Union Jack at 88º23. Had he been prepared to sacrifice the lives of his team, Shackleton Ernest Shackleton returned to Britain from Captain Scott s would have claimed the Pole. Discovery Expedition of 1903 determined to mount his own assault on the unclaimed South Pole. On 3 rd August 1907 Shackleton set sail aboard the Nimrod, bound for Antarctica. According to his plan, after having endured the fiercest winter on Earth in huts built on Ross Island, on 29 th October 1908 Shackleton, Frank Wild, Eric Marshall and Jameson Boyd Adams set off due south across the Ross Ice Shelf, with four Manchurian ponies pulling sledges. By December 1908 the party had passed Scott s furthest point and were now pioneering new ground. Their route through the Transantarctic Mountains took them up the 140 mile long Beardmore Glacier, named by Shackleton after one of his most generous backers. This was to be the most dangerous and risky part of the route. The smooth glacier surface concealed treacherous crevasses which claimed the life of their last pony and very nearly killed Frank Wild. The return journey to Ross Island was equally demanding. The same perils of crevasses, hunger, injuries and sickness took their toll, but the four men successfully reached the rest of their party on 4 th March 1909. On his return to England Ernest Shackleton was greeted at the docks by crowds and subsequently knighted in recognition of what he had achieved: the furthest South. But not yet the Pole...
Help us launch The Shackleton Foundation We can t get there without you, so we re asking for your help: any support you can give is warmly welcomed. If you d just like to be added to our mailing list, please send us your contact details and we ll keep you posted. If you d like to make a donation online, you can easily do so via www.justgiving.com/shackletonfoundation First name Last name Organisation Job Title Address State/Town Postcode/ZIP Email Payment Details I enclose a cheque made payable to The Shackleton Foundation, Registered UK Charity No. 1118686 I would like The Shackleton Foundation to treat the enclosed as a Gift Aid Donation. I wish to make a one-off donation to The Shackleton Foundation by credit card, to be charged to the following: Card Type: Visa Amex Maestro Delta Mastercard Diner s Club Card No. Start date Expiry date Security Code Issue No. Your security code is the last 3 digits on the signature strip on reverse of card, AMEX holders use 4 digits on front of card. Amount ( ) I am a UK taxpayer (tick if applicable) Signature Return address: The Shackleton Foundation, c/o The Lansdowne Club, 9 Fitzmaurice Place, London W1J 5JD All general queries and corporate sponsorship enquiries can be directed by email to info@shackletoncentenary.org