Matrix Shackleton Centenary Expedition
A Place at the Pole Competition
The short-list has been announced!
Matrix Group and the team of the Matrix Shackleton Centenary Expedition would like to thank everyone who has shown an interest in our Place at the Pole competition.
We had almost 3,000 applicants, all of a very high standard, and although we would have really liked to have given more people this opportunity, we could only pick 20 people to go through to the next stage. These 20 then had to complete a fitness test, psychometric test and finally a panel interview. The 5 that managed to get through to the next round and the selection weekend in Wales were:
Janice Clark
Daniel Doherty
Andrew Ledger
Nicola Morton
Matthew Smawfield
If you would like to follow the progress of the Expedition over the next few months then please check this page regularly www.matrixgroup.co.uk/shackleton We would also appreciate your longer term support of The Shackleton Foundation.
Information about the competition
Matrix Group are the title sponsor of the Matrix Shackleton Centenary Expedition.
Matrix is offering one individual the adventure of a lifetime and the chance to join an historic expedition to the South Pole this winter.
Matrix has one place alongside a team of six intrepid adventurers that will recreate the famous Nimrod Expedition 1908-9 polar assault launched by legendary explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. They’re large boots to fill.
Polar history has immortalised the words that Sir Ernest Shackleton, legendary explorer, allegedly used to recruit his team of intrepid voyagers.
“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.”
Now, a century on from the Shackleton’s first polar expedition, the call to men, and women, is being repeated…though this time with no wages.
The Matrix Shackleton Centenary Expedition will recreate history by crossing Antarctica precisely 100 years after Shackleton attempted the same feat. The journey saw Shackleton fall short of the Pole by 97 miles, at which point he turned back to preserve the lives of his men.
Now, a team of descendents of Shackleton and his 1908 ice team are retracing their ancestors’ footsteps to finish the job. It’s an exclusive club, closed to all but one candidate. The successful candidate will join the expedition party with three other team members exactly 97 miles from the South Pole and go the distance that Shackleton did not.
While no previous Polar experience is required, the seventh team member will need to be active, healthy, fit and passionate about Shackleton’s vision and achievements. Interested ‘explorers’ will undergo a series of questionnaires including fitness and medical surveys followed by psychometric testing and panel interviews for shortlisted candidates and a final elimination round of endurance training in North Wales. The successful applicant will then be put through their paces with a crossing of the Arctic landscape of Baffin Island, Canada, under the watchful eye of polar explorer Matty McNair.
The successful applicant will depart the UK at the end of December 2008 and travel to meet the expedition team to start their Antarctic journey on January 6th 2009 at the 97 Mile Point – the date and spot where Sir Ernest decided to put the lives of his team ahead of glory exactly 100 years earlier. Accompanying them will be Shackleton’s great-grandson, Patrick Bergel (36), a great-grandson of Jameson Boyd-Adams, David Cornell (38) and Tim Fright (24), the great-great-nephew of Frank Wild, the only explorer to accompany Shackleton on all his missions.
These four explorers will be greeted by three team mates who, having begun their own Antarctic journey on October 29th 2008, will have already covered 803 miles from ‘Hut Point’. Using Shackleton’s personal compass to navigate the icy wastelands, this team will already have crossed the vast Ross Ice Shelf and ascended the formidable Beardmore Glacier.
This trio is being led by Lt Col Henry Worsley (47), a descendant of Frank Worsley (Shackleton’s skipper). Accompanying him is Henry Adams (33), another great-grandson of Jameson Boyd-Adams and Will Gow (35) who, inspired by a desire to unite Shackleton’s descendants at the Pole, first came up with the idea of re-creating the voyage. Gow is related to Sir Ernest by marriage.
Together, the combined team of seven, will finish the journey that their ancestors began and “Close the Pole” on behalf of the 1909 Team.
The successful candidate will need to be prepared to endure -35°C temperatures and 50mph headwinds, to haul their own 100lb sled and to camp on the remotest landscape on earth. It’ll certainly be an adventure to tell the grandchildren.
Best of luck,
David Royds
Chairman, Matrix Group Ltd
