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How will South Africa keep up the tremendous spirit of goodwill, ubuntu and patriotism … the morning after?
Now that the dust has settled after the final match at Soccer City last Sunday, and Spain have emerged victorious as the new world soccer champions, many South Africans are feeling a little bit at a loose end. Like something’s missing. Almost as if your charasmatic best friend has left the country …
But South Africans are definitely ‘a boer maak ‘n plan’ (a farmer makes a plan) type of people. And already resourceful and forward-thinking South Africans are finding creative ways to keep the momentum going.
One of these is “Keep Flying the Flag” - a campaign that launched on Friday 9 July 2010, and already has the support of more than 60 local businesses - from giants like Vodacom, Toyota, Sasol, ABSA and Primedia to smaller alternatives like eBlockwatch (SMS-based community crime prevention) and Dial-a-Nerd (phone-in IT support).
The campaign calls for individuals and businesses to incorporate the Keep Flying logo into their advertising (which can be downloaded from their website - www.keepflying.co.za); buy Keep Flying buttons to hand out to staff, customers, family and friends and a customised email signature to use on your correspondence. A manual is also available on the Keep Flying site - which details how companies, brands and caring South Africans can join in the campaign.
The campaign is the brainchild of advertising agency, DraftfcbSouth Africa, in an attempt to stave-off any ‘post-World Cup depression’ that has affected other host nations. So far, the site has received over 8 000 hits and they have responded to more than 200 emails from companies wanting to get involved.
As Draftfcb’s Group CEO, John Dixon, said: “I am amazed and delighted by the response our call to action has prompted and can only encourage more and more companies and fellow South Africans to embrace the flag in this manner.
“The FIFA World Cup was our chance to show the world Africa’s potential; now is the time to maintain that momentum, to show them that we can achieve, and will. Let the end of the World Cup be our beginning.â€
Another great initiative is the “Fly the Flag Fridays” campaign organised by the International Marketing Council who are also responsible for Brand South Africa site. This campaign calls for South Africans to wear their country’s colours and fly the flag on Fridays. It continues the spirit in a similar vein to their earlier campaign during the build-up to and the duration of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, “Football Fridays” - which called for South Africans to wear their favourite teams football colours (hopefully those of Bafana Bafana!) every Friday. The campaign which was a big hit all around the country - especially with corporates like banks, supermarkets and stores where you’d be sure to greeted by staff sporting Bafana-yellow shirts on Fridays.
Any more ideas you can think of? And c’mon South Africans - keep the flag flying high!
It’s a tad confusing for locals - so can only imagine how confusing it is for visitors. But there are a few things common about the transport to the games in all the host centres:
* Most of the precincts around the stadiums are pedestrian-only zones - so only accredited and emergency vehicles will be allowed near them - no private cars at all!!
* park & ride facilities offer safe parking with shuttles to and from the stadium
* park & walk facilities offer safe parking with a 2km or less walk to the stadium
NB: Tickets for park & ride/walk facilities MUST be bought beforehand from www.ticketbreak.co.za and www.computicket.com - you won’t be able to get tickets at the facilities!!
* while they are trying to keep these down to a minimum, road closures or restricted access on certain roads will be in effect for the duration of the World Cup - on both match and non-match days
* fans are advised to leave plenty of time to get to the stadiums - especially for the opening game, semis and the final (some are suggesting that you allow four hours to get to the opening game!)
There are so many sites out there offering good info, but there are also quite a few where the info is NOT up-to-date. Scouting around, these are the best/easiest we’ve found:
JOHANNESBURG: 2 Stadiums - Soccer City and CocaCola Park (Ellis Park)
Getting to the games
All the info you need about road closures, park & rides, park & walks, transport hubs, Metrorail, Sandton Metrobus, Rea Vaya BRT, traffic maps and parking tickets
Airport & stadium shuttles, park & ride, city wide services, fan parks with maps
The best mapping & direction site we’ve found so far is definitely google maps: try the local version maps.google.co.za
Click on the ‘Get Directions’ under the logo - you can also save these or email the links to a friend (or yourself). Next best thing to a GPS. And it’s always better on the ‘big screen’.
Hope it helps.
Of course, if you’re not lucky enough to have scored some tickets, the next best place to be is one of the Fan Fest Parks.
If you’re planning to travel to South Africa for the FIFAâ„¢ 2010 World Cup, then best you learn to play that B$@## Vuvuzela!
Beautifully crafted Vuvuzelas with beadwork covers in bold South African designs [Photo: Courtesy Vuvuzela.co.za]
Love it … or hate it, the drone of the Vuvuzela is going to be the sound you’ll associate with the 2010 FIFA World Cup - forever!
It’s a proudly South African instrument with a profound and ancient history in tribal lore and music. These humble plastic tubes are fashioned from the original majestic kudu (a type of buck/antelope) horns that were once blown to summon the people to gather for important meetings. (You can still get some plastic kudu-horn shaped vuvu’s - called ‘kuduzelas’, of course).
Blown together in their thousands at stadiums - they sound like a herd of angry bull elephants in mating season. Or like a fleet of furious tugboats blasting their horns in unison. Let’s face it, they’re seriously noisy.
But you’re not going to beat them during this decade. So join them.
It’s like any of those crazes. Yo-yos. Hoola hoops. Bakugan. Rubik’s Cube. They’re highly annoying and irritating items that you scoff at - until you own one. And then, the addiction begins …
The biggest trick about the vuvuzela is how to blow it. The best advice we’ve heard so far is to put your lips to the mouthpiece and make a ‘raspberry’-type sound, similar to playing a trumpet. Relax your cheeks and soften your lips so that they can vibrate. Let the action come from your mouth, rather than your lungs or stomach. Be as melodic as you like (yes, they can play several notes!) and blow as hard or as soft as you like.
The best thing is, the more you blow it, the less you’ll hear all the others around you!
Vuvuzelas are available all over the country - from shops and fashion outlets. They can be priced anywhere from around R20 to R100 (GBP 2 - 10), depending on the colour, cover and detail - some have the team or country colours complete with flags, emblems and badges. Some also have a handy strap so you can sling it over your shoulder on your way to the games.
So go on. You know you want one. Really, you do.
Here’s a quick video link on how to play the vuvuzela
From Saturday May 1 until Sunday October 31, there’s a bunch of stuff happening at the Cableway - with fun activities for the whole family. For every full-paying adult at R160 (return trip only), 2 x U18 kids go free (normally R80 each so you save R160!).
Offer valid over weekends and public holidays - and both the July & September school holidays ie : from June 10 - July 12 & September 24 -October 3 2010.
Over the unusually long July holidays (courtesy of the 2010 FIFAâ„¢ World Cup), there’ll be a special programme for kids. This includes loads of fun activities like a Winter Treasure Trail (maps available from the ticket office), spot prizes, magic shows, face painting and craft activities. Children will be entertained and taken on guided walks by the Table Mountain Cableway characters - Ernie the Explorer, Dale the Dassie and the Yeti. There’ll also be story-telling of the Myths and Legends of Table Mountain.
They also have the chance to win their own Table Mountain Cableway beanie and scarf. (Entry forms on back of the Winter Treasure Trail map).
The Cableway operates all year round - weather permitting. For more info, visit Table Mountain website & also click through to their blog for the latest news. You can also call +27 (0)21 424 8181 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +27 (0)21 424 8181      end_of_the_skype_highlighting.
Before you double, treble or even quadruple your normal rates for the upcoming 2010 FIFA ™ World Cup, please consider these few points:
* Germany didn’t inflate their prices hectically during the 2006 - especially for accommodation. Many of the visitors would just bus home again after matches so it was never really an issue. Besides, there was never a shortage of accommodation to begin with.
* Host nations experience a boom in tourism in the years immediately after they’ve hosted a FIFA ™ World Cup. This was especially true in Germany in 2007, although tourism slowed down in 2008 with the global economic crisis.
* South Africa - and Cape Town especially - is already perceived by some as ‘overpriced’. While we all know that South Africa is the most beautiful country in the world with the most exceptional, nicest people, potential visitors may easily be swayed by other destinations where they can get top accommodation and great scenery for far less than they’d pay here eg especially destinations like India & Asia. 5-star resorts cost around US$ 400 - 500 whereas a similar 5-star option in Cape Town costs about US$ 700 - 1100 - more than DOUBLE the price?! Surely, a room is a room is a room at that kind of level?
* South Africa is a ‘long haul’ destination - and the largest expense in getting here is the airfare. If people perceive it to be expensive on the ground too, we’re losing the battle!
* South Africans are known as some of the most hospitable people on Earth. Let’s nurture that - rather than become known as the most money-grabbing.
And lastly, please let us not lose sight of what the legacy of tourism can be like AFTER 2010.
The 2010 FIFA ™ World Cup is a once-off, amazing opportunity to give the rest of the world a taste for our rich and diverse smorgasbord of wildlife, scenery, culture, history, adrenalin and adventure.
Let’s do whatever we can to make sure that it makes them hunger for more! Not leave with a bad taste in their mouths …
This year, why not get into the true spirit of Christmas? Give gifts that matter - and bring hope to a the millions of South Africans struggling for a better life.
It’s a great idea - and it is affordable. The gifts start from as little as R50 and then R100, R250, R500, R1000 (you can also buy several different ones or several of one kind) - and include a range of items that can make a difference to communities, people personally, education, health and environment. Like compost or seedlings for food gardens, educational toys and soccer balls, HIV tests, family food parcels, crutches and tractors.
Once you’re happy with your gift/s, you can send a personal message to the person you’re buying the gift on behalf of - to let them know you’re making Christmas matter for others - in their name.
It’s that simple. And it feels that good.
And you KNOW it’s helping to make a difference.
“Make Christmas Matter” is an online campaign that lets you choose a range of alternative gifts that make a meaningful addition to the lives of many South Africans - from social development to community upliftment and education.
As Communications Manager for GreaterGood SA, Roxy Mitchell, says through this campaign they want to let people know that there is an alternative way of giving - especially at this time of year.
“Everyone has something to give and many people have the desire to give to those in need, but don’t know where or what to give.â€
Mitchell says they chose 4 beneficiaries for 2009 from a shortlist of projects that had passed a strict evaluation process including site visits and peer reviews.
These are:
* an educational toy library for the Mbuba community in rural KwaZulu-Natal
* a food garden, recycling program and conservation field trips for Dargle Primary School in the Midlands Meander area
* new kitchen for the St. Josephs nursing home for chronically ill and disabled children in Cape Town
* mobility canes, signature guides and liquid level indicators for 96 visually impaired people in the Free State.
So far, this annual campaign has contributed over R2 million to 22 social development projects in South Africa since its conception in 2005. According to Mitchell more people are starting to think twice about buying into the commercialism around Christmas, and starting to think about those who have less than themselves.
Go on. Make Christmas Matter - and visit Gifts 4 Good
There’s no way you can begin to compare Halloween in South Africa to Halloween in the USA.
For starters, we don’t habitually grow those oversized, pregnant-looking orange pumpkins. If you do get them, they’re usually imported and cost the earth.
And ‘Trick or Treating’ is not really considered a safe practice because of our unfortunate high crime rate.
In one camp, there’re the sceptics who believe that it’s just one more American-inspired commercial rip-off where you’re coerced into buying scary costumes, plastic vampire teeth and kiddie-sized, play-play orange buckets.
In another, there’re the staunch Christians who believe it’s an evil, Satanic celebration and anything to do with Halloween should be avoided at all costs.
But there’s another school of thought: it’s the ONLY day/night of the year where kids are allowed to dress up collectively - AND get sweets. Do me a favour. And they are allowed to be scary! Which kids don’t get shivers of delight down their spines while scaring the pants off each other with ghost-stories after lights out? Or getting their fill of horror and teen-vamp movies when they’re a little older?
Perhaps it all comes down to intent. If you just intend to have some scary, harmless fun with friends and family, hey, what a pleasure.
And some of the complexes and safe, gated communities make a special neighbourhood thing of it - getting all the kids to go off Treak or Treating in safe numbers, while all the parents get together in the common for a bring & braai. Whether they’re in Fourways Gardens or Fancourt.
If you do want to do something this Halloween, there are loads of good happenings - from the usual family stuff at Randburg’s Brighwater Commons and the Johannesburg Zoo to the Horrorfest Film Fest at the Labia in Cape Town to Halloween Balls to Pink Train Rides to hectically horrific house parties.
Check out your local newspapers to see what’s happening in your area or visit What’s On website and search for ‘Halloween’. GOTRAVEL24.com also has a great list of festive Halloween ideas.
In the South African Earthwave challenge held at Muizenberg beach yesterday, more then 100 surfers road one wave at the same time at the Earthwave Festival - which breaks the previous record of 100 set by Earthwave Brazil last year.
103 surfers break the Earthwave Guinness World Record at Muizenberg Beach, Cape Town: photo Lee Slabber
“We estimated that there were more than 120 surfers on the fifth of the seven waves surfed at Muizenberg during Earthwave,’ said Paul Botha of Kahuna Promotions, the founders of the South African Earthwave, an event that uses this world record attempt each year to promote awareness of climate change and a better, more sustainable lifestyle for all.
The downer is that there’s only photographic evidence to show 103 surfers on the same wave. But it’s still enough to top the Brazilian’s record. Pics and videos have to be sent through to the Guinness World Record organisation in London to have the record ratified.
In a pearler of a Cape Town day, with sunny skies, a light offshore breeze and tame 0.5 to one metre waves, 443 surfers of various ages registered for the Earthwave attempt. Herds of spectators and well-wishers stood at the shore, cheering them on.
Visitors and surfers were also treated to talks about climate change, beach clean-ups, fund raisers, prizes and giveaways.
Metrorail also came to the party and helped to reduce carbon footprints and traffic congestion by allowing anyone with a surfboard to travel free on the train to and from Muizenberg on the day. Other visitors could get a 2-for-the-price-of-1 deal on the journey.
Recycling was also a big awareness issue with specially marked bins for sorting and collecting any of the day’s refuse. Another paper-saving idea is to send digital certificates to all participants (instead of traditional paper printed ones).
Other projects and programmes promoted by Earthwave Festival were the Shark Spotters programme, the Save Our Seas Foundation, National Bandana day on 14 October for the Sunflower Fund and Cape Town Tourism’s ‘Live it, Love it, LOUDER!’ campaign for the city hosting the FIFA World Cup next year.
To round off the day, an after-party was held at one of Cape Town’s favourite restaurant/bars - the Brass Bell at Kalk Bay Harbour. (Conveniently close to the station so party goers could spill back on to the train homeward bound!)
To find out more about Earthwave, its aims and objectives, visit Kahuna surf/Earthwave and on Wavescape.co.za, the event’s official digital media partner.
Cape Town Stadium (formerly known as Green Point Stadium) is nearing completion … and it’s starting to look really good. So if you’re in Cape Town, be sure to go to the stadium’s visitor centre for a comprehensive insight into the building of the stadium, its history and its shining beacon of hope for the future of sport in South Africa (yes, there will be life after 2010!).
School groups are also welcome. At the 2010 Cape Town Stadium Visitor Centre, every effort has been made to share and stimulate a sense of soccer and national pride in the build-up to the FIFA ™ 2010 Soccer World Cup.
There’s lots to see and absorb - a multi-media theatre performance, historical pics of South Africa’s rich soccer past, an official 2010 Stadium architectural model and a virtual tour of the 2010 Stadium.
Visit the Green Point Stadium website for the latest pics and more details …
Note: Unfortunately, the Visitor Centre has been closed to make way for a new athletics track post 2010. However, a new Visitors Centre is planned for the near future. See Cape Town Government websute for the full story.
Please also visit the Cape Town Blog for some a-Ma-Zing pics of the stadium - by day & by night, viewed from nearby, from Table Mountain and from Signal Hill: 2010 Green Point Stadium pics
It’s a story that’s certainly hit the global headlines. As it’s sure to do when there’s a natural phenomenon that seems so brutal and so pointless. So tragic and so inexplicable.
Why on earth would 55 pilot whales beach themselves? It’s like something out of a Moony mass-suicide attempt? At least when humans behave like this, there’s usually a way to kind of understand it - like fanaticism or religious/cultural zealousness. But what of these beautiful, silent creatures of the deep? How can we possibly understand what drove them to do such a thing?
Photo courtesy of News24 reader: Lee Slabbert
And it’s quite amazing at how humans behave at such times. The caring volunteers who rushed out to help, spending hours in chilly waters (some even in their pyjamas) doing what they could to try and save the whales, even though their efforts were foiled again and again, with the whales just swimming outwards to beach themselves further up the coast.
And what of the poor authorities who had to take the grisly and unpopular decision to euthanase these whales with shotguns, being abused by crying and grief-stricken bystanders who couldn’t process this final act.
Word is that the autopsies should provide a hint of why these whales behaved like this. It’s not the first time whales have beached themselves in large numbers. It probably won’t be the last, for whatever reason and no matter how disturbing and puzzling it is.
But it will be an event long remembered by anyone who bore witness or was in involved in any way.
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For every full-paying adult at R160 (return trip only), 2 x U18 kids go free (normally R80 each so you save R160!).
It’s a great idea - and it is affordable. The gifts start from as little as R50 and then R100, R250, R500, R1000 (you can also buy several different ones or several of one kind) - and include a range of items that can make a difference to communities, people personally, education, health and environment. Like compost or seedlings for food gardens, educational toys and soccer balls, HIV tests, family food parcels, crutches and tractors. 
For starters, we don’t habitually grow those oversized, pregnant-looking orange pumpkins. If you do get them, they’re usually imported and cost the earth.
