I've referenced this little talk I did to the DFTs in Birmingham this week, quite a few times in the blog, but one of the things I told them at the start of that talk is that I really believe that I have the second-best job in the world for me.
The best job in the world would have been had I managed to get the scholarship to Carolina to play basketball when I was 17 years old. There was an outside chance of that (far outside, I wouldn't like to overstate it), but there was a route that I could see. It was after Michael Jordan; it was just as Michael Jordan left Carolina that I would have arrived. Anyway, that never happened, but that would have been the best and coolest job in the world.
But the second best is the one that I have, the job that I have is so good for so many reasons, but one of the reasons it's really good is that it's given me this ridiculous and extraordinary opportunity to travel to different places and meet different people I would never have imagined I could have had.
I have managed to go to all sorts of places in the world and meet all sorts of extraordinary people. I remember sitting in Wuhan in 2018, in the hotel bar with a young Chinese dentist who was my interpreter for the following day. Just quite an extraordinary individual.
I remember the people that I met and the things that I did in Oman when I travelled there, or Singapore or South Africa. Places that I would never have imagined that my life would have taken me, either inside or outside of work, but earlier this year, I was given the opportunity to go to Tanzania.
I have worked with Bridge to Aid, a charity, for a long time, and the picture as part of this blog is the Unity Partnership plaque. That used to hang in the previous practice in the bungalow. The reason I've got it set beside my desk or my workplace at the moment is that I'm in a new house and I'm finding somewhere to put it up beside the Watt bike that I train on when the stuff that we're doing to the house is finished. But it shows that we have been deeply involved with Bridge to aid on and off for at least 13 years.
As I write more about the partnership with Bridge to Aid and the blogs that are coming over the next 6 or 7 weeks, I will find out how I feel about them, and a little bit of the history between us. But I've never ever been to Tanzania to see what they do.
I've been asked and invited repeatedly, but the time in my life was not right for me to go to Africa for almost a fortnight, to leave my family on some mission to feel good about myself without making any sort of impact or any sort of difference.
When I was invited again by the genius that is Sheena Loughnane earlier this year, I decided that the time was right. I hitched up together with Chris Barrow at the invitation of Sheena, and we decided that we would ride our bikes from Kilimanjaro, across part of Tanzania and then see the work that they do at the centre in Mwanza.
Again, I'll put more details of this in a blog going forwards, about how we worked with Doctor Chico for the past few years and the stuff that we've been able to do with Bridge to Aid over the past nearly 15, but it's enough to say that at the end of January, I will step onto an aeroplane with Chris and we will fly in the fancy seats, ( paid for by ourselves) to Africa. Clip our feet into the pedals and ride from the base of Kilimanjaro, which Chris has already climbed once, across the plains of Tanzania to raise money for Bridge to Aid, to fund the outreach system they run in Tanzania, which changes thousands and thousands and thousands of lives.
Your interest in charity, your efforts, the work that you do, the investment that you make, might be in a different direction and at the clinic we put it in a different direction too, in different places, but one of the things which has been the greatest joy of my work over the past 15 years has been just to see what happened in Tanzania and what Bridge to Aid were able to do, and feel that we were a tiny, tiny little part of that.
A tiny drop in the ocean of helping people that we'd never met and people that we'd never seen.
In February, I will see and meet some of those people and continue to be a drop in the ocean, but always remember that the ocean is just a collection of drops. What is the ocean if it is not just a collection of drops?
I'm going to want your money as part of a sponsorship thing. I'm not embarrassed or ashamed of that. I don't do that or ask for that very often, and when we have done so before, people have been overwhelmingly generous. At the bottom of every blog post from now until the end of the adventure in February, there will be a Just Giving link with a short explanation.
Again, I don't apologise for that.
As it gets closer, if you're in my circle, you'll be in a WhatsApp group asking for money. Just leave if you don't want to be in it.
But we will update this in an extraordinary fashion (you know what Chris Barrow is like for socials) with diaries and stories, but the last thing to understand is this.
This bike ride already has more than 20 people signed up to raise money for Bridge to Aid. It's still not too late to book onto this, and you definitely should; it's not a bike ride for elite athletes or alphas who are extraordinary cyclists (it has an electric bike option). It's a bike ride for everyone; you will be able to do this, and I promise you that if you do, you will never forget it.
A long time ago, I was sitting in my back garden with my next-door neighbour, Simon, in the first little house that Alison and I had. He told me to phone in sick the following day, on the Monday, and we would go and play golf. I told him I didn't phone in sick. He told me that if I phoned in sick and played golf that day, I would never forget it, and if I didn't, I would never remember it. I didn't phone in sick, and I have no idea what year it was.
If you don't book onto this to do it, the start of February 2026 will be a bit like the start of all of your Februaries that you've ever had.
If you did, it would be unlike anything you've ever done before.
I'll see you there if you want. If you don't, then click the link.
Thanks for your help.
Blog Post Number - 4370
Colin Campbell, Chris Barrow, and an intrepid group of dentists will be cycling across the plains of Tanzania from Kilimanjaro in early February 2026. If you would like to support the charity, Bridge to Aid, and this extraordinary challenge, please click here.
Thank you for your generosity.
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