Most of you should know that I am doing another Jacob's Vision blind
motorbike riding event this weekend, to both raise funds and awareness
for Guide Dogs South Africa, as well as for what we are referring to as
the biker reactivation programme.
We're right now busy with final preparations for tomorrow's event, with
all the facilities, stage, beer garden furniture, etc. getting dropped
off at the smallholding today, and, this afternoon, we'll be arranging
the layout for the food vendors, awareness stalls, etc. etc.
And, besides all the general guys, like the food vendors, my bike club
guys who will be running the bar for said beer garden, friends from
other bike clubs that will be handling car and motorcycle parking and
security, etc., there will also be two blind/visually impaired NPO's
running their own awareness stalls here, and, I found out this week
that, besides the bikers, and general public who will be attending, a
blind support group, or school for visually impaired youngsters will be
bringing through a small bus of their students to the event tomorrow,
which is a form of a pat on the back for me in terms of my efforts at
promoting mainstream awareness and interaction, but anyway.
We have had some coverage in the forms of mainstream media, with 3 short
radio interviews leading up to the event, some local community
newspapers printing forms of promo's for it for free, with 3 of them
planning to cover the event tomorrow, and planning to produce write-ups
of it, and, there were also two local motorcycle magazines that printed
full page advertisements for it in their July issues, and, they've
arranged a ride through for a whole group of offroad riding guys to
attend, including the guys who run quads for quads, which is related to
a form of support group for quadriplegics.
In other words, we're expecting quite a large turnout tomorrow, and,
part of my reason for posting this here, besides just sharing what I
have been busy with, is that during tomorrow morning, before the actual
offroad bike riding, I will be moving around this largish outdoor area,
interacting with all sorts of people, and I plan to wear my vision-800
glasses implementation of the vOICe - which have the Egyptian mythology
symbol of the eyes of Horus sort of drawn on them using a silver koki
pen, partly to invoke interest and questions, as well as since I will be
using them when I demonstrate some of the blindfold challenges to the
mainstream guys - yes, I will be cheating, since I will be able to 'see'
more than the sighted guys will be when they're wearing the blindfolds,
and, for example, the one challenge will be to make them try hit a
brightly coloured balloon pinned to a tree, using a throwing dart.
However, I will also be carrying around, and demonstrating things like
my talking android phones, an iPhone, and some other gadgets, a braille
20-sided role-playing die, etc. etc. to people, in terms of awareness,
and, there I just need to decide, sort of on the spur of the moment,
what forms of software, etc., I will demonstrate to them.
Along the lines of that, the challenges we came up with have been given
slightly humourous names, and, to attempt them, the sighted guys will
have to pay a small donation fee, and then try the following activities
while fully blindfolded:
Peas off - pick up a pea using a fork
Big bang theory - hit the baloon with the throwing dart
Spillage - pour a glass full of water out of a jug, using only one hand
Imagination - feel an item and then attempt to redraw it on a piece of
paper with a pen
shot in the dark - form of beer pong, where you throw a ping pong ball
into an empty glass to win a free drink, but, we will only be handing
out candy treats to children that manage to get it right
Night rider - blind motorbike riding
And, the last challenge is only for motorcycle riders, and, this is
partly just to prove to them that I am not lying about managing to ride
100% blind, and we've taped the whole viewing visor of a motorcycle
helmet closed with duct tape to make sure noone will be able to see
anything at all, and there, after my two riding sessions, where I'll
probably do roundabout three laps of the dirt track each time, with my
friend who recently lost his lower right leg riding a bit inbetween
them, as representation of the biker reactivation programme, we'll let
brave sighted guys don the blind riding helmet, along with offroad body
armour, and then we'll see who can make it the longest distance around
the track while also being guided by my friend via the wireless rider to
rider intercom, at a slow speed, and the sort of cut off point will be
if they seem to be almost running off the track.
There will be various prizes getting handed out on the day, based on
entry into lucky draws being covered by both attendance as well as
having taken part in the challenges, and, all of these prizes are being
sponsored by some vendors who will also be running stalls here on the
day, and they range from motorcycle accessories, water coolers, general
lifestyle accessories, and, for the winner of the night rider challenge,
we will be providing them with a GPS tracker unit for their own motorcycle.
We will also have the visually impaired daughter of another biker friend
of mine moving around the site, with some fully sighted companions,
selling raffle tickets for another decent prize, based on people
guessing what slogan is embossed on a coffee mug in braille.
Besides another friend of mine, who does professional DJ work at public
events playing music during the day, we will have a form of
professional, slightly comedic master of ceremonies talking to people
inbetween, and then handling the prize handout near the end of the day,
followed by the band of some friends of ours playing a couple of sets in
the evening.
Not exactly sure of numbers in terms of how many people should be
attending, but, think it will be quite a lot of people, from both the
biking fraternity, as well as just normal mainstream people, along with
some other blind/visually impaired people - again, interaction and
awareness is my primary motivation here - besides using almost any
excuse to get to ride a motorbike...<smile>
Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
"...resistance is futile...but, acceptance is versatile..."
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