Long-time BNP Paribas Securities Services NZ chief, Doug Cameron, is about to go on the ride of his life.
Cameron formally wrapped up an eight-year stint as NZ head of location for BNP last week with just another month smoothing the transition to successor, Iain Martin, before signing off on 20 years work for the global custodian.
But he won’t be off to an idle retirement of gardening and golf – not yet, anyway – with a planned end-to-end cycling trek of the two main NZ islands slated to start on November 4.
“I thought it would be a good way to book-end 20 years at BNP,” Cameron said.
And while the grueling 3,300km pedal over just 30 days has been on his bucket-wish list for some time, he said adding a charity fund-raising target has brought an extra sense of purpose to the countrywide ride.
“I did a lot of research of various charities and landed on the Make a Wish Foundation of NZ,” Cameron said.
The Make a Wish charity enables terminally or critically ill children to achieve life-long dreams.
“It’s not just about going to Disneyland or Gold Coast theme parks,” he said. “For instance, the foundation helped one child achieve his dream of meeting Barack Obama – who kept in touch with them afterwards.”
Cameron said personal experience of the sudden deaths of close relatives and meeting children and families whose lives had been transformed by the Make a Wish program also helped cement the charity as fund-raising target for his upcoming journey.
“The Make a Wish NZ foundation only has an annual budget of about $5 million – and most of that is from one-off donations rather than recurring income,” he said.
Cameron has set an initial fund-raising target of $15,000 with some industry figures already pledging donations: but more’s good – anyone interested in donating can check out his Justgiving page for further details.
He sets off from KeriKeri on November 4 before heading up to Cape Reinga at the tip of the North Island ahead of zig-zagging ride down to Bluff scheduled to end 30 days later.
Equating to just over 100km of riding each day on average, Cameron’s longest daily pedal will cover 220kms in a desolate flat stretch of the South Island.
Overall, his ride includes 25,000 metres of ascent in what ended up as a meticulously planned journey.
“Originally I was just going to ride as long as I felt like each day and sleep wherever I ended up – kind of the opposite to working in custody,” Cameron said. “But eventually I realised the ride would need some planning.”
As noted above, please visit the Doug Cameron Make a Wish fund-raising page for further information.