Sean Curnow: Welcome to the sixth update for the UAE Charity Challenge Team.

CHARITY

The Dubai Centre for Special Needs PR Coordinator (Delhna Cama) was a special guest again on the third radio show we recorded with Dubai Eye 103.8 FM Speak Easy. We hope to have this uploaded to the website soon.

We are finally settling on our charitable project in Uganda. The UAE Charity Challenge is looking to supply mosquito nets to the people living on the edge of Lake Albert (Hoima District) in Uganda.

“Malaria accounts for more than a million deaths each year, of which over 80% occur in tropical Africa, where malaria is the leading cause of mortality in children under five years of age. Aside from young children, pregnant women are among the most affected by the disease. Depending on malaria transmission intensity, the main complications of malaria during pregnancy include maternal death, severe anaemia, and adverse birth outcomes such as low birth weight. Constituting 10% of the overall disease burden, malaria places a substantial strain on health services and costs Africa about US$ 12 billion in lost production each year.

In areas with stable transmission in sub-Saharan Africa, approximately 25 million pregnant women are exposed each year to malaria. Of these, about 10.5 million become infected with malaria in the second or third trimester. An estimated 10,000 of these women and 200,000 of their infants die as a result of malaria infection during pregnancy, and severe malarial anaemia contributes to more than half of these deaths” – WHO (World Health Organisation - 23rd June 2004)

According to the WHO (World Health organization), treated mosquito nets are the simplest and most effective means of preventing Malaria. The biggest problem previously with treated mosquito nets was that they needed to be retreated on a regular basis and this was not being carried out in an efficient manner. However new technology nets are now just being produced that have a slow release system that lasts for 6-7 years negating the need for regular retreatment. They cost about 5-7 USD / 15-20 AED each.

We estimate that we can potentially procure in the order of 10,000 ITN’s (Insecticide Treated Nets) for distribution along the Lake.

We have recently approached the Ugandan Ministry of health with the objective of working with them to assist their current Malaria Control Programme, focusing on the Hoima District on the edge of Lake Albert.

More to come on this in future updates!

TRAINING

The month of July is recognised as being one of the hottest months on the UAE calendar. However, the UAE CC team have still been out in the desert training every weekend. The heat has pretty much reached boiling point with midday temperatures inevitably +40ºC and sometimes climbing as high as 45/46ºC on particularly hot days. We are continuing to train in the mornings (up at 4:30am) to take advantage of the milder temperatures but even then the temperature may already be 34ºC.

MEDIA

Monday 7th July 2008 / Dubai Eye 103.8FM – Jonathan and I appeared on Dubai Eye 103.8FM Nightline with Jeff Price for a third time to promote the UAE Charity Challenge. We announced our charitable plans to supply ITN’s (Insecticide Treated Nets) to the people living in Uganda. We also discussed the training techniques and riding equipment for the UAE Desert Challenge.

Jeff ran another great show with calls to Delhna Cama (Public Relations Coordinator for the Dubai Centre for Special needs) and Matt Wilson (UAE CC Website Designer)

Delhna Cama again gave the listeners a brief explanation of the role the Dubai Centre for Special Needs plays in the community and explained the reasons behind our challenge of raising enough money to purchase a new bus.

Matt Wilson gave a great recount of his recent first off road bike riding experience that resulted in a spectacular summersault over the handle bars. He also talked about his ever increasing involvement in the UAE CC Team.

The show will be on the website shortly – feel free to listen in.

Monday 7th July 2008 / Timeout – Timeout wrote a feature article on the UAE Charity Challenge Team. A copy of the article can be viewed on the Timeout website at the following URL The Heat is On (http://www.timeoutdubai.com/dubai/features/review.php?id=3389) - TimeOutDubai.com.

Sunday 20th July 2008 / 7 Days – 7 Days wrote a follow up article on the UAE Charity Challenge Team highlighting the progress the team had made in securing sponsorship. A copy of the article can be viewed on the 7 Days News website at the following URL - Bikers blazing a trail for DCSN (http://www.7days.ae/en/2008/07/20/bikers-blazing-a-trail-for-special-nee...)- 7 Days.

SPONSORSHIP

It has been a good month for the UAE CC in terms of securing further sponsorship. In the month of July we managed to secure two more Gold Sponsors.

MI Swaco and Boma Pipe have joined the UAE CC as Gold sponsors.

MI SWACO is an Oil Service Company, with locations in more than 75 countries around the world, MI SWACO is a vital part of the world’s hydrocarbon exploration and production industry. They are the leading supplier of drilling fluid systems, engineered to improve drilling performance by anticipating fluids-related problems, fluid systems and specialty tools designed to optimize wellbore productivity, production technology solutions to maximize production rates, and environmental solutions that safely manage waste volumes generated in both drilling and production operations. M-I SWACO is committed to the continuous improvement of its global health, safety and environmental processes while supplying high-quality, environmentally responsible products and services to their customers.

Boma Pipe was established in Aberdeen Scotland in 1991 and subsequently opened a branch office in Jebel Ali Dubai in 2000. Boma Pipe are a worldwide supplier and stockist of Oilfield Country Tubular Goods (casing and tubing) in sizes from 36’’ to 2.3/8’’ in various weights and grades and in both API and premium gas tight connections. Primarily they supply/target oil and gas exploration companies requiring ex stock tubular’s on short lead times. Stock locations in Aberdeen, Holland, Houston, Singapore and Dubai are all located on major shipping routes enabling quick delivery times. Our customer base includes major and minnow exploration companies as well major trade houses purchasing on behalf of clients.

We welcome MI Swaco and Boma Pipe to the UAE CC team and thank them for their charitable support.

We currently have just in excess of 350,000 AED in committed sponsorship from our corporate and individual sponsors. We remain committed to achieving our final goal of raising 500,000 AED.

We are also in negotiations with some additional sponsors and hope to make some further announcements in our next News Update.

As always, we would like to thank our corporate sponsors for their continued support and all those people who have contributed personal donations to the UAE CC. (see your names listed in the Sponsors page)

TECHNICAL

Gecko Motorcycles continues to carry out the necessary modifications in stage to get the bikes ready for the 2008 UAE Desert Challenge.

Our bikes have now undergone a few more alterations which have had a direct impact on the bikes performance. All four bikes have been fitted with new heavy duty chains which, in theory, should see us up to the race and past the finish line. These heavy duty chains are a necessary addition, ensuring none of us will be forced to abandon the race due to a relatively cheap, yet significant upgrade in chain strength and durability.

The gearing of each bike has also been revised to match the predominantly fast paced nature of the race. The huge expanse of salt flats and high speed tracks located in and amongst some of the largest sand dunes in the world will enable us to open up the throttle and get us back to camp before sunset…in theory. These adjustments in front and rear sprockets translate into huge variations of the ‘power vs speed’ ratio… which in our case has resulted in a massive increase of top speed. However, more speed does sacrifice power. Jonathan and I have noticed this the most as our bikes which are still fitted with the existing stock exhausts lack those few extra horses, needed for the softer dunes.

Thanks to Gecko Motorcycles, Steve has been able to test out the new high performance HGS exhaust with this new gearing and has been more than happy with the results. Combined with the new jetting this new set up seems to make life a little easier for both bike and rider. On several occasions we’ve noticed that the bikes fitted only with stock exhausts have overheated in the softer dunes and lost a substantial amount of radiator coolant, which could easily prove to be a race-ending situation that all of us are naturally keen to avoid. A restriction in power from these stock exhausts leads to the rider having to consistently shift down a gear to transfer the required power to the rear wheel. The bikes are therefore constantly operating in the high rev’s which results in an overheated engine, and ultimately a mechanical breakdown.

Consequently, we’ve all decided to have these high performance pipes installed.

There are still a lot more changes that need to be made. We will keep you updated and also look to capture these upgrades in the ‘Technical’ section of the website.

VOLUNTEER WORK

Matt Wilson (Wilson Griffin Design) continues to carry out his volunteer work keeping the website up to date and making improvements. Changes for the Month of July are as follows -

•The 6th News Update has been added to the ‘NEWS’ page
•A ‘MEDIA’ page has been added where we will load links to all the media exposure generated by the UAE CC.
•The ‘GALLERY’ page has been upgraded with a new look.