If you’re looking to book your expedition with Camps International this month we have a fantastic prize draw on offer for anyone who confirms their place by the end of the month.

Book any Life or Gap trip with Camps International this month to be in with a chance to win £100 Cotswold Outdoor gift vouchers!

Save yourself £100 of essential travel equipment. Just choose your Gap or Life destination and book before the end of May 2012 (5pm GMT on 31st May 2012) to be included in the draw.

As usual with our monthly prize draws, we will choose the winner from a hat and post the video on our Facebook page so that you can see the draw. The prize draw will be held on the 1st June 2012.

So what are you waiting for? Enquire now to find out more about the trips available to you, or book online now! You can also give us a call on 0844 800 1127 to have a chat with one of the team. This prize draw only applies to new Gap and Life bookings made during April 2012.

Ok so we are not quite at the end of the year, and are currently hosting several Australian school teams in Borneo,  but this week we staged our end of year party for all staff.  Its an annual tradition to get together and have some fun, usually centred around some dancing (both cultural and “modern”) and some singing (normally a mix of dreadful and amazing karaoke renditions).  This year there was the added twist of fancy dress (super heros meets cultural attire) – more about that and some embarrassing pictures in another blog I am sure!  So we managed to get nearly all our camp staff down into Kota Kinabalu (which is no mean feat!) for the evening and had circa 60 people present.  Normally the gathered crowds have to endure a speech from yours truely and this year was no exception – although i thought this year i would keep it simple with a summary of the year in numbers.  I have copied it here for people to see the size of the operation we are now running in Borneo:

Total number of pax coming through Borneo = 764

Total number of days spent in our camps = 14,936

Total number of days spent working on our projects = 7,613

Total different nationalities = 19

(Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Belgian, Australian, British, Pilipino, American, New Zealand, Botswana, Ghana, German, Bruneian, Japanese, Indian, Taiwanese, Singaporean, Malaysian, Korean)

Total welcoming and leaving dances danced = 117

Litres of water drunk = 59,744

Meals cooked = 44,808

Rubbish collected from beaches on Mantanani = 320 kg

Litres of air used doing scuba diving = 98,600

Trees planted = 8600

Money spent on our community projects = RM 97,300

Money spent in direct support to these projects & locally within Sabah = RM 2,850,000

There are some pretty juicy numbers here and it illustrates the hard work the team have put in this year as well as some of the great achievements we have done.  And whilst the figures are impressive my main message to the team was not to loose that little special something that everyone experiences when they come to Borneo – that special feeling of being part of the family, part of the community, mucking in and sharing those great little moments with people.  Thats what makes Borneo such a special place and the staff we have such mind blowingly awesome people – they work hard of course but they are willing to share and welcome people into their lives and families.

One of The Best things in our line of work at Camps is the people we meet. People who makes the effort to travel thousands of miles away and volunteer to make a difference. NINA CAPEK, came out to Borneo a year ago this month and she explains it here, on her return…. This time [...]

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