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Yes my gamble of buying finals tickets and associated flights for this week’s Rugby World Cup (RWC) final has paid off now that my beloved All Blacks beat the Aussies. I can now look forward to four days of travelling (there and back) to enjoy a weekend of entertainment the likes of which NZ has never experienced. Back in 1987 the inaugural RWC tournament was relatively low key. This time around NZ has embraced the event and has received rave reviews from the international press at its organisation and level of support by the locals for every nation attending… even the Aussies.
Four years ago my gamble didn’t pay off and I enjoyed a final between South Africa and England in Paris – my English wife made the most of it though and was kind enough not to gloat (too much) when we were knocked out by the French. This weekend I hope we don’t underestimate the same foe.
The fact I’m travelling such a long way for one ‘meeting’ made me wonder who else has travelled vast distances for an hour or so meeting. I look forward to your stories which I’ll be reading en route to (hopefully) a famous All Black win this weekend! Go the ABS!!!
Steve Blake, TMT, Interim Partners
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October 21st, 2011 at 7:00 am
I once completed a 22 page supplier audit with subject mater ranging from the last 3 years financial report and accounts to the amount of accidents within manufacturing to the type of keypad/swipe card mechanism used to enter restricted areas. Nothing unusual about this you ask yourself? Only I flew out to Paris to conduct this audit where only 1 out of the 6 people in the meetings spoke English (and only about 6 words). I spoke no French…the 22 pages were completed within 6 hours to the best of my ability and needless to say, I have not been back to France since. The memories are still too painful!
October 21st, 2011 at 7:52 am
I once spent 6 weeks visiting 3 US and European cities a day, each by air, to raise 40m USD for a NASDAQ flotation. I don’t think I could even give you the full list of cities we stopped in, as it really was a blur, but predictable places New York, Seattle and Zurich shared the trip with more random spots such as a remote horse-breeding ranch in Kansas…
October 21st, 2011 at 8:28 am
At one of my previous companies, my boss, Andrew Creese and I used to do what we called the “circumnavigation of the South Atlantic”, to review the business plans of our South African and South American businesses. London – Cape Town on Sunday, Cape Town – Buenos Aires on Wednesday, Buenos Aires – London on Friday night. With all the European and one US business to review, this was the only way to get around all the businesses in the 2 – 3 week window available.
October 21st, 2011 at 8:42 am
I was told by an associate that the board of one my client’s happens to have a factory in NZ. They aim to rotate their board meetings at subsidiary business HO’s… A long way to go to watch the French!!
October 21st, 2011 at 10:35 am
I once flew from the UK to Australia for a three hour visit.
Sadly, it’s not quite as exotic as it sounds. I was flying London – Sydney – Christchurch but the airline (don’t you love ‘em) could not or would not book my luggage through. So I had to go through immigration into Sydney sirport, collect the luggage and go back out again. It was a nuisance, but did lead to some interesting conversations: in immigration (“how long do you intend to stay in Australia?”) and emigration (“didn’t you like our country?”).
I have been back since, and stayed longer!
October 21st, 2011 at 11:29 am
When I was living in Singapore 1994 I went for a champagne lunch
in the Hilton and when talking to someone about a NZ guy we knew he said he had gone to watch the final lions test. So we went to the airport and bought tickets to join him
13 hours later we arrived in aukland with a hangover!!
Lost the match and got delayed coming back
October 21st, 2011 at 3:10 pm
When working for Nortel I was due to meet a colleague in Singapore for a few days’ work and then fly on to Atlanta for a Global Account workshop. I duly flew Heathrow – Bankgok, Singapore but at the hotel check-in was met with the news that he was in Seoul and could I meet him in Hong Kong? A quick look at the timings and I was back out to the airport to jump on a flight to HK. When I got there I was met at the office by a message that he had had to go back to Singapore urgently so could we scrub the meeting? Again a quick glance at the flight schedules and and availablility and it was a choice between being stuck in HK for a few days or out to San Francisco that night at 20.30 – I was pretty spaced out so I took off to San Francisco, crossed the date line so arrived at 17.30 on the same afternoon after a 13 hour flight – by this time I did not know what day of the week it was! London to SF via the Far East and no meetings to show for it! I stayed a few days in SF, got ripped off on my company BT calling card for around $11,000 (it got copied from the hotel I guess) then flew down to Atlanta for a few days conference. Kind of the long way round!