Fieldbase and the advance team

Yesterday we told you a bit about Costa Rica - but where exactly are we in this bountiful biosphere?

Once your wheels touch the tarmac in San Jose, it’s just two hours by road to the gorgeous mountain town of Turrialba. There are three things you need to know about Turrialba. Firstly, it has some of the best white water rafting on the planet. Secondly, it produces fantastic coffee. Thirdly - and most importantly - it’s the epicenter of Raleigh’s Central America expeditions! A couple of kilometers out of town, on the edge of a beautiful dairy farm, a collection of spick-and-span buildings known as FIELDBASE house the operations team. All the planning and organizing for food, equipment and transport for all the projects across Costa Rica and Nicaragua happens here. It’s a bustling hub of activity and communications – and it’s where everybody comes for their training at the beginning of the expedition, and for each changeover between projects.

Who are the fieldbase team?

Early in January, the first members of the 10B expedition arrived in Costa Rica to set the wheels in motion. This advance party has been beavering away getting everything ready for 10B to kick off on the 1st February. Meet the team below as they brush up their on- and off-road skills…

Ross: Country Programme Manager. Ross is our man of the people – he manages all the incoming Venturers and VMs, including training and development on fieldbase and all our project camps. He hails from Scotland and is an avid Hibs football supporter so head his way for a bit of footie banter.

Laura: Deputy Programme Manager. Lovely Laura runs the day-to-day events and entertainment for the whole expedition. She’s like a bouncy ball of positivity, spreading enthusiasm around the Raleigh camp and drawing up timetables of fun stuff like rafting, salsa and whatnot. She was a Project Manager on the last expedition so this lady really knows her onions.

Sarah: Logistics Manager. AKA The Logger. An organizer extraordinaire, The Logger loves counting things and making really long lists. She manages a team of two, Ashley and Katie, and between them they keep the expedition stocked up with everything it could possibly need. She first went on expedition with Raleigh to Ghana in 1999, then to Namibia in 2004 so she’s a proper expedition pro.

Katie: Logistics coordinator. Shopping in the name of the game for Katie – she scours the land for tasty edible options to keep us hale and hearty. Then she organises all the food and drink drops on projects. She’s lovely and friendly and fair and kind, but remember – she’s ultimately in charge of who gets what to eat. Cross her at your peril.

Ashley: Driver and expedition engineer. Ash pootles about all over Costa Rica and Nicaragua in a big Landrover, distributing all the kit, messages and mail to our project sites. He’s a brilliant engineer so can fix all sorts of things using only an old toothbrush and a bit of dental floss. His motto is “Make it happen!”

Annie: Administrator. This lady loves spreadsheets. She’s fastidiously organized and keeps everyone in order, reminding us about all the things we’ve forgotten, or never even thought about to start with. If there’s something you don’t know, ask Annie. She also runs the fieldbase shop and she’s pretty good at jump-starting jeeps too.

Christine: Finance Manager. Our financial wizard holds the purse strings of the expedition and makes sure we don’t spend too much money on sweets. She loves calculators and is very precise and careful. She came to Costa Rica on expedition at the end of 2009 as a Venturer but loved it so much that she stayed on to be a VM.

Keiner: Host Country Venturer Manager. Keiner is so infamous that we refer to him using a single letter – K. He comes from Costa Rica and manages all the local Venturers. Like the breakfast cereal, Special K is a great way to start the day – he’s full of local knowledge and stories, and you can practice your Spanish on him. He’s done lots of Raleigh stuff before so actually he’s a great person to quiz about pretty much anything.



Safety first at Raleigh - the VM team get stuck into a spot of mechanics...