The newest member of the Big Orange Heart team, Carole Olinger has appeared on Torque Mags Doc Pop’s News Drop. You can view the full video interview at the bottom of this post.
Tell us about Head To WCEU
The #HeadToWCEU project was born out of a team brainstorming session at the 2019 WordCamp Europe. Inspired by the efforts of Marcel Bootsman, and his #WalkToWCEU challenge, where he walked more than 700 km to raise funds for DonateWC, the team decided to expand upon the idea. With WCEU travelling from location to location each year, the idea of travelling from one venue to another was discussed. This evolved into the idea of cycling the 3,000 km journey to raise awareness of positive physical and mental health within our community.
A team of Big Orange Heart riders, along with WordPress community member, will take on the challenge of cycling across 6 countries, covering over 3,000 km, in 30 days. The riders will be supported by a team from Big Orange Heart, to ensure the welfare and safety of all involved is at the forefront of all we do.
None of the riders are endurance athletes, or even regular cyclists, before taking on this challenge. All are WordPress community members with existing responsibilities. The intention is to demonstrate that over a period of time, making many small changes to our daily routines, can amount to big improvements.
We’re encouraging all the riders to make small adjustments to their daily physical activities and nutritional plans. Over time we will be publishing details for others to follow and participate, should they wish to. No rider is expected to make huge, life adjusting changes to take on this challenge.
You will be able to follow along with the progress made by team members in the coming months at headto.org and keep an eye out for a dedicated podcast series, along with many videos and posts, sharing the personal journeys.
In the build-up to riding across Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal, team members will be contributing to the filming of a documentary. The documentary team will also join the riders for the full 30 days. You’ll have a chance to watch the filming after the event. We will also be sharing live-streams on a daily basis, as we progress.
The Head To project is an initiative commissioned by Big Orange Heart to support the charities overall mission; to support and promote positive mental health within the WordPress community. The non-profit delivers free companionship, mentorship and support for those within the WordPress community.
How many Big Orange Heart volunteers are participating in the ride?
We currently have more than 20 community members that have expressed an interest in joining the project. An event of this scale, with such a high level of focus needed on safety, requires a huge amount of logistical planning. The final list of riders is not complete, in fact, we have just opened a call for others that are interested to join us at headto.org/go
We are developing a plan that will enable community members to join us at various stages along the route and for a various number of days. We’ll share more details via social and on our website very soon.
Last year Marcel Bootsman walked to WCEU in Berlin, will he be part of HtWCEU?
As we mentioned; Marcel has been an inspiration for the team. We made sure to reach out to him before this project was announced publicly. We wanted to ensure we could move forward with his support and offer an opportunity to be involved should he wish to.
If people want to get involved, what is the best way to help?
If anyone is interested in potentially joining the team as a rider, they can visit headto.org/go to register their interest. If community members would like to contribute in an alternative way, the team can be contacted via [email protected] or join in our Slack team via wpandup.org/slack.
Watch the full interview with Carole Olinger here:
Thank you to Torque Mag for featuring the #HeadToWCEU project.
Big Orange Heart