Dave Cornthwaite

Monday 20th February 2012
Leicester Square VUE Cinema, London
Tickets available on the door

Imagine throwing in your job and travelling around the world with your girlfriend and 8 month old baby. Mitch Stokes did that. Or rowing across the Pacific Ocean taking a route that nobody else had ever managed to complete. Chris Martin made it. Or howsabout a 30,000 mile circumnavigation of the planet, by wheelchair. Andy Campbell is about to set off on that one. What about spending much of your early twenties in the middle of an ocean, highlighting global environmental issues and become an expert on plastic pollution? Hello, Emily Penn. 

Not many people have travelled the full length of the Amazon, less than ten, in fact. Mark Kalch is one of them. Have you ever rented a Fijian island and set up a tribe there, and then done the same on a beach in Sierra Leone? Ben Keene has.  Or what about developing a sports car to drive the length of the Americas, but powering it purely by electricity? Alex Schey, Ladies and Gentleman. Second youngest person to the North Pole and the second fastest ever to make it there. Parker Liautaud, you’re only 17, slow down! Leader of the first female team of 5 to row the Atlantic, at the same time as campaigning against human trafficking. Julia Immonen is fresh back on dry land. And then, being told you have Parkinson’s Disease at the age of 36 and deciding that you’re going to deal with it by running 10 million metres. Meet Mr Alex Flynn.

Frankly, as the only world record-breaking skateboarder who would 100% break an arm if he attempted a go on a half pipe, I’m honoured to be presenting the 7th Night of Adventure on 20th February in Leicester Square’s VUE cinema. All in aid of Hope & Homes for Children, the speakers above will stand beneath an enormous screen and share their own personal take on adventure. 

It’ll be an inspiring, funny and memorable night. We hope you can join us.

> If you’d like to, click here to buy your tickets

On the 20th February 2012 a great line-up of speakers from the world of Adventure will descend upon Leicester Square’s VUE cinema for another night of high-paced drama in aid of Hope & Homes for Children.

Taking on a challenging format, each speaker has a total of 20 slides and 6 minutes 40 seconds with which to tell their story. Taking the most engaging and experienced speakers right out of their comfort zone, this is truly a Night of Adventure.

Buy tickets here

The speakers include:

Dave Cornthwaite (Host)
Dave is best known for his Expedition1000 project - 25 separate journeys of 1000 miles or more, each using a different form of non-motorised transport. Dave has broken five world records, crossed Australia on a skateboard, kayaked Australia’s largest river and descended the Mississippi River by Stand Up Paddleboard, but still thinks his greatest achievement so far is writing a book about dating. As Night of Adventure founder Al Humphreys is on holiday Dave will be hosting this event - here’s an interview with him about the Night of Adventure

Alex Flynn
In 2008 Alex was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, encouraging the formation of a life-changing endurance project. Before the end of 2014, the 10 Million Metres Challenge will take him more than 6,200 miles in races around the world (running, cycling, swimming or crawling the distance) to raise more than £1Million for research into Parkinson’s disease. The 10 Million Metres Challenge encompasses some of the world’s more interesting and dangerous races. Highlights include the 2010 Marathon des Sables, running across the Bavarian Alps and in 2011 traversing 1457 miles from London to Rome in 30 days. In 2012, Alex plans to cross 3200 miles of the USA in 24 days using five different disciplines, while all the time fighting against the relentless progression of the disease on his own body. A disease which currently has no cure!

Julia Immonen
Julia is 31 and comes from the world of media and PR. Julia was introduced to the injustice of human trafficking several years ago which started her journey towards helping fight the modern day slave trade. She has recently launched Sport Against Trafficking, which hopes to harness the positive power of community and sport to raise public awareness as well as funding for projects directly tackling human trafficking. On January 22nd Julia became the first Finnish person to row the Atlantic, as part of the record-breaking Row for Freedom team 

Ben Keene
How do you rent a remote tropical island and build an eco-community with no funding? That’s the question Ben Keene asked himself in 2006. A few months later he and his internet ‘tribe’ moved to Vorovoro Island in Fiji and began to live and work alongside the local fishing community to build a new kind of tourism village. 5 years later and Ben’s tribe has evolved. Having survived cyclones, fires and political coups in Fiji the project became well known locally for it’s promotion of cultural heritage. In 2010 Ben began a new community project - this time on the beach in the beautiful but scared Sierra Leone. The question this time was not of survival but how much could one village play a part in changing the image of a country? Ben’s adventure is one of turning an island dream into a social enterprise with significant potential impact, and as Ben is discovering it’s a journey that is only just beginning.

Mark Kalch
A professional Adventurer for over a decade, Mark will be kept busy for the next few years by his 7 rivers, 7 continents project, to paddle the length of the longest river on each continent. In 2007/2008 he rafted the length of the entire Amazon river, and in 2012 he will kayak alone the entire Missouri-Mississippi River system.. In 2009/10 Mark walked from north to south across the Islamic Republic of Iran, solo.

Chris Martin
Chris Martin is one of the World’s foremost Ocean Rowers and an ex-international oarsman. Rowing for Great Britain he won a medal at each of the 6 World Championships where he raced. Subsequently he became the 30th person to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. In 2009 he set the record for being first to row from Japan to San Francisco across the North Pacific Ocean. A hurricane, electrical storms, 60ft waves, onboard fire, secret US Naval base, whales and near starvation all threatened the success of the trip. The 189 day voyage across the Pacific became a titanic struggle for survival on the world’s largest ocean.

Andy Campbell
In eight years Andy has unintentionally gone from soldier to adventurer, exchanging the thrill of military operations for the exhilaration and frustration of exploring the world in a wheelchair. Paralysed in a climbing accident, discharged from the British Army and forced to re-evaluate life. Andy set off to test his new limitations and expectations for adventure and discover where determination, stubbornness and a healthy dose of rebellion could take him. His resulting adventures, from making first ski descents of Alaskan peaks, paragliding over Africa or trekking through the Himalayas have all formed a motivational catalyst for his next adventure. In June 2012 Andy will set off from the UK to push himself 30,000 miles around the world in a wheelchair.

Mitch Stokes
In 2010, with an ever increasing need to scratch the “Wanderlust” itch, Mitch dropped out of the “rat race” to travel around the World with his girlfriend and one rather “precious” piece of luggage, their 8 month old baby daughter. When not away traveling Mitch works as a Telecommunication consultant. Also a keen long-distance cyclist, in June Mitch will be dodging volcanoes and cycling around Iceland in aid of Hope & Home’s for Children. 

Emily Penn
Emily, 24, has sailed around the world in several different guises. As the Operations Manager for the world record-breaking biofuelled powerboat, Earthrace, she co-ordinated events promoting alternative fuels in 120 international cities. Then, living on a remote island in Tonga, Emily organised one of the largest clean-up operations in the Pacific, which led to her joining the first expedition to discover accumulations of rubbish in the South Atlantic Gyre. Awarded Yachtsmaster of the year by HRH Princess Anne, Emily is now Programme Director for Pangaea Explorations, leading sailing expeditions around the world studying micro-plastics, coral reef biodiversity and toxic run-off.

Parker Liautaud 
Parker Liautaud is a 16-year-old polar adventurer and environmental campaigner. In April 2011, Parker completed his second North Pole expedition (his third polar expedition overall), becoming one of the youngest in history to walk to the North Pole - and in the second fastest time ever recorded.

Alexander Schey
While studying Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College, Alex found his passion in energy and the future of transportation. He realised that the technology for sustainable transportation was already present, but that the public were ill informed about its potential. In January 2009, Alex set up Racing Green Endurance; a project aimed at designing and building the world’s longest range electric car, and then proving this technology to the world by driving it the 26,000km long Pan-American Highway from Alaska to Argentina! Documented by the BBC, the project was well received throughout the world, and helped change public perception about electric cars forever.

Buy tickets here

Facebook: Friday at 22:06
Dave how do I go about getting job doing similar to what you guys get up to? Do you need somebody to carry your bags? 

Reply: Friday at 22:10
I’m not the bloody Queen! The recipe is simple. Spend five years earning no money, spending 20 hours a day in front of a laptop teaching yourself all manner of skills, occasionally disappearing off down a river or something, and at some point someone will decide you have enough experience to warrant a meagre fee in exchange for talking about yourself for 45 minutes. Did that help? ;)

Of course, popping six years of adventure-chasing into four lines on Facebook never quite paints the full picture. ‘How do you fund all of this’ remains a pertinent question, one that seems to confuse the living daylights out of anyone who isn’t quite au fait with the poverty-stricken rigours of your typical non-TV personality Adventurer. 

Every time an expedition comes around I set out on a letter-writing and networking crusade and I don’t stop until everything is in place for a journey to start. Don’t ask me exactly how I do it (although if you do ask, I’ll try to tell you), but the beauty of taking a clean sheet of paper and turning it into not just an idea, but a big old content-rich extravaganza with charitable and philanthropic aims and a feast of tentacles each reaching out to new possibilities and rewards, well, the simple thought of that is enough to start the ball rolling.

Ask, and you have a chance of receiving. Don’t, and you may as well stay in bed without dreaming, which kind of defeats the point of bed, if you ask me.

Although I have some successful projects behind me which make sourcing supporters easier, I’m not yet in a position to click my fingers and instantly cover all equipment/ costs of any trip, even the cheapest ones. But there’s a great wealth in perception, even if it’s not tangible. I know that from the outside it seems like I’m doing well, but all too easily there’s a direct assumption that ‘doing well’ means ‘earning a lot.’ And that’s the key, in order to do well in a vocation driven and motivated by individual (or group) passion, money cannot be the end goal. From Day One I believed that nurturing my passions and talents was the key to a happy and fruitful life. I didn’t know how exactly, but I knew that if I wanted it enough, somehow a living would come from it.
 

I didn’t realise, however, that as soon as I appeared to be doing well that I’d become the hopeful benefactor for other adventurers. Three emails I’ve had this week, from brilliantly motivated young people hoping to embark on their virgin adventures, each one hoping that I’d be able to fund their trips. 

Sadly, all I can offer at the moment is advice, and maybe the odd contact. I’m assisting over ten adventures throughout the world through my Adventure Consultancy, with no means other than my time at stake. It’s worth it, I’ve had plenty of people help me achieve my goals in the past and it’s nice to be able to trickle down my experience. But they didn’t come free, those lessons, so I always ask anyone wanting more than a snippet of advice to take a look at these simple guidelines, otherwise I might just find myself on the back foot when it comes to planning my own adventures.

> On Wednesday 30th November Dave and Tribewanted’s Ben Keene are speaking for Escape the City in London, a lecture entitled ‘How to make a living from your passions.’

With a book to write and more expeditions to plan I’m not speaking as much as I usually would for the rest of the year, but as I can’t completely keep my mouth shut here are the events I’ll be speaking at over the coming weeks, and also there’s one TV appearance to watch out for, too….

Wednesday 19th October
Event: Union Bar, Chiswick. Lecture 
My first public London lecture since returning from a descent of the Mississippi River. I’ll be using the Mississippi journey as the basis of this talk, as well as sharing anecdotes from other projects big and small. If you need to get motivated, this is for you!
> Details here 

Saturday 29th October
Event: TV. Live n Deadly, BBC2, 9am
I’m the guest on the show for a WHOLE hour. This episode will be filmed in Plymouth and will feature a couple of little interviews as well as a challenge against the mighty Steve Backshall. But what will be racing, an Aquaskipper? Or Stand Up Paddleboards? You’ll just have to tune in to find out…
> Details

Wednesday 2nd November
Event: Plymouth Explorers, Lecture 
An hour-long talk for the adventurous folks of Plymouth. Always good to speak in the South West.

Thursday 3rd November
Event: Bristol Explorers, Lecture 
Always a great night and a chance to chat to other adventurous souls. I’ll be discussing the essence of what adventure is for me, showing some slides from the Mississippi Expedition to try and back it all up!
> Details 

Thursday 17th November
Event: TEDx Youth @ Bath
TED is the foremost lecture platform in the world, bringing together motivation, humour and thought into a colourful mix designed to inspire. I’m delighted to be opening Bath’s first ever TED conference and am especially excited as the audience will be in their late teens, all preparing to burst out into the real world. There are no tickets available for this event, but it will be streaming live on the website
> And here’s the website

Wednesday 30th November
Event: Escape the City, London
For the first time I’ll be joining Ben Keen, founder of Tribe Wanted, in delivering a joint lecture all about how to make a living from a passion. Exactly what it says on the tin. If you’re in London and thinking about making a change, don’t miss this
> Escape the City
> Tribe Wanted 

Sunday 5th February 2012
Event: Destinations Travel Show, Earls Court
This one is still quite a way off, but I’ll be interviewed in front of audience as part of the Meet the Experts panel at 1pm on the penultimate day of the show. There’s nothing like a live interview, keeps you on your toes!
> Website