My Mr SA experience thus far...

Well all I can say is thank you to the Mr SA committee and organizers for putting this whole thing together. It has been a truly amazing experience. I was unsure as to whether I wanted to do it, as im the type of person when I am committed to something, I AM COMMITED TO IT ;)
So I dont do anything for 2nd place or plan to be an "also man", if I was going to do this competition, in the end I wanted to be standing on the final ceremony stage holding that staff as the new Mr SA!

So I was undecided, and then while chatting to last years runner up Jaco De Bruyn(on Facebook) he said to me that it was the best experience of his life without a doubt. So after that I was convinced! And so far I completely agree with Jaco, this competition is almost like something I feel that every man should partake in. My sons will be scouts and now they will also be entering Mr SA(or Junior SA).

The things you learn about yourself and others on this journey has been incredible. Like I always knew I wanted to make a difference, but I wasnt sure how. Doing this competition makes you focus all your collective energies so that you now as a man become focused and driven. And it really tests your metal as a man. Can you do what it takes, do you have the courage to be in the limelight and make things happen? These are the questions doing this competition asks you.

My fund raising for Ons Huis has yielded mixed results. My goal was to have 5 avenues or sources of charity. An avenue where everybody or any person could donate(the sms line). Avenues where money was raised in specialized events, and lastly corporate sponsorship. My charity auction and "Angels for Charity" show were successful. My charity serenades were slightly successful, the sms line not successful and the corporate sponsorship...well... up until an half an hour before the 5pm deadline I thought it was successful.

But such is life and there are hiccups or hurdles at every turn. People or companies will "let you down", but its nothing to get sad about as this is a part of life. And it is the struggle that makes something more worthwhile. However, I was a little disappointed in myself as I do feel a connection now to Ons Huis and even though we were given a mandate that its not the actual amount, but the effort and creativity that counts, things still cost an actual amount. For example lets say the cheapest they can get a new activity hall is R20 000 and I need to raise that money, raising only R10 000 wont get the hall built. Im not saying this to dis-credit myself, but I did set myself a target and I did not reach it. I sure as hell did try but life throws you curveballs and as long as you learn from your mistakes thats all that matters.

Its not about me being hard on myself, its about being responsible and being honest with myself and everyone. And this is what this competition has taught me, that a real man is responsible, honest and has integrity. Looks, body, money, business skills, charm all fall out of the window if he does not have these qualities. Thats why part of me taking responsibilty, I will be donating the charity line to Ons Huis and I am currently corresponding with the SABC as to getting radio advertising for Ons Huis and/or the charity line so that it is more effective, as I feel the charity sms line is a great idea.

I have learnt so much these last 2 months about myself and what my purpose on this planet is. And through people reading my blog or seeing related posts on Facebook, I have met some amazing people from all over the world who are also driven to make a difference. And through increasing my media profile I have gained more confidence and I now know that I am very well suited to the public eye, as I have the composure, confidence and inner strength to be in it.
And most importantly I have learnt the channels and the means through which change can be made.

So thank you to Mr SA itself, all the other competitors and to our beautiful country.
I know I have what it takes to be a great Mr SA and bring about positive change.
But even if I dont become a finalist, I am still so thankful as this has been a great experience and has set me on my path.
We can make a diiference.
You just need believe...
and eventually in your heart,
you will know.

2010 World Cup and The Environment

Like many fellow South Africans I am a soccer crazy man. I really love my sport and have been very sporty from a young age, having always played soccer. My teams are Bafana, Greece and Manchester United! When I heard that South Africa was the host for the 2010 Soccer World Cup i almost jumped through the roof! I could not wait to get my tickets and watch a match in my home city. I tried to get tickets twice in the draw but was super unlucky, now i have to drive past the staduim and know that i am not going to be going to see a match. All Cape Town matches were sold out within days. All I have is to hope that i am able to buy a ticket in the last minute sales in December.

I must say i am a bit worried about the World Cup though, we are spending billions on new stadia and infrastructure, but are we going to profit from it? Some Gurus say a new dawn will foster in growth and development in South Africa and that our world class cities will shine through. I am so so positive that we are going to do well! My concern is more what needs to be done in advertising the world cup to South Africans. Recently I have seen a little bun fight on TV, 1st we have the BP Castrol adverts that speak directly about the World Cup as sponsor then we have Engen who are not the sponsors but come across as true Nation Builders. I get goose bumps when I watch anyone of their "Africa Welcomes" you adverts. Congrads Engen on a campaign that appeals to South Africans.

The 2010 organizing committee should have launched a campaign that is Proudly South African that will help people get to know our country better to get ordinary South Africans to become brand ambassadors for our country. Only we can help build the country and make 2010 work. So it's about time we tell the world that we are one united South Africa. We need to greet the world with a smile and a "Sanibona" or "Welcome to South Africa", make conversations and help tourists on there way around South Africa.

The infrastructure development will bode us well however, that's if we have no black outs during the matches... Today I paid my Electricity bill and nearly fell over when it arrived yesterday, has anyone realized that we all of a sudden have had a massive increase in the rates? Yesterday's newspaper says that there will be another increase on the horizon. Wow are we being milked?! We are paying high electricity bills for the infrastructure development of companies, days after they release there annual reports with dividends to all the shareholders and directors, then they say "please the public pay us more cos we need to build more plants to generate power".

Has anyone heard of the Venus project? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWylckZ9G64
I would highly recommend everyone to watch this video and see that things dont need to be the way that they are now. The world IS self sustainable and is able to live off its own natural resources. Nobody needs to be poor, the world actually has enough! Technology has provided us with energy creating mechanisms that are 100% eco friendly. If you only do one thing I ask, its watch this video...yes its long and it will chow your bandwidth, but its worth it ;)

But people have been using eco friendly methods for generations around the globe. I'll use the Scandinavian countries as an eg. They build eco friendly homes that have inset doubled glazed windows that keep in the heat. Air ducts above the roof open and close to moderate the temperature so that it is not too hot or cold. They have solar panels that generate electricity that supplies the home and stores it for winter. A clever model is that extra electricity generated from the solar panels are fed back into the power grid allowing for small to medium enterprise to use it and pay the householder in return. What an amazing idea. In South Africa we have constant sunshine that this could bode well and help alleviate the electricity crisis.
In Germany buildings are built with double glazed glass to allow in as much light as possible so no lights needed in the day. All windows have solar panels that rotate with the setting of the sun to capture as much solar energy as possible this is stored in solar batteries for winter. Water in the buildings are even recycled and used to feed plants.

I was lucky enough to be given a guided tour of the BP Headquarters in Cape Town, a truly self sufficient building run on the Scandinavian model. The building is cooled through air vents and no air conditioning is used. What an amazing feat! We need to learn and implement. While visiting India i was amazed to find out that in the palaces, designers had fountains put into every bedroom, why because the cooling effect of the water was amazing. Condensation was used to cool the room. A modern day air con runs on the same methodology but uses valuable electricity. In Kenya people place copper pipes around all there ceilings and around the corners of their floors and pump water through it. The water moving through the pipes cools the room down.

Amazing what we can learn from our forefathers. The City of Cape Town has been a fore runner in getting Traffic lights powered by solar panels and some advertising companies light up there billboards with them at night. Great way to bring down costs. I, upon leaning about Solar panels and heating, was thrilled and thought now it's my time to put this into action. I called up a few companies and enquired about how I could use Solar Panels to electrify my home. I thought i was getting somewhere until i realized that it was exorbitant. I was advised that if i was building a new home that's the best time to get this done. So I, like you, will be paying an expensive Eskom bill for a long time to come...
But things can change.
And the only constant in life is change, after all.
I hope that when 2010 is here and its World Cup time, that I am Mr South Africa.
I know I will make this nation proud.

Charity serenades

So I wanted to put my singing talents to good use and raise money for charity at the same time;)

I thought it a very fun concept that would lighten up the office gloom, and the office would just have to donate any amount they pleased to Ons Huis.

In total I did 3 serenades. I would have done one everyday if I could have, cos its actually a lot of fun and it does lift peoples' moods. Like the second one I did for an employee at Ogilvy. The lady I was due to serenade, it was her birthday. She has a senior managerial position there, so obviously its a very stressful job but on this particular day she was more stressed and maybe the fact that it was her birthday compounded it.

It was a surprise serenade, and after she got up and walked away crying. I thought that maybe I had upset her. Other co-workers walked after her and i followed, and while she was crying she started smiling lightly. So they were not tears of sorrow or joy, but more of relief. She had been having such a stressful day, it was her birthday which compounded it further, so she was holding all this stress and tension inside instead of being happy to celibrate another year of life. So something during the serenade must have warmed her heart and relieved all the pressure she was keeping on herself. I did sing "Smile"(though your heart is breaking, even though its aching...) so it was an apt choice.

The other 2 I did were at SABC and DraftFCB, also ladies' birthdays. So I had brought smiles to some peoples' faces while raising some money for charity.

I will be auditioning for Idols again this year!

Jokes, Im destined for bigger things and singing is not my strongest point ;)

Recent Publicity

So there is that saying that all publicity is good publicity...well maybe if you are Paris Hilton yes! But if you want to be Mr SA you have to ensure that your name remains clean so that when people think of you the 1st thoughts are those of integrity and morality. This is very important as this is whta Mr SA represents.

This month I was in Get It magazine, a local Cape Town mag. They profiled myself and another Sea Pointer in the competition, Michal Mechant. Michal and I actually grew up together. We went to the same school and were both with the same scout group. So best of luck to him, I hope he progresses.


Then the other publicity I have is some great news which I am really excited about! I have been selected as the face of, or brand ambassador, for Stiaan Louw's new campaign. This cutting edge and genius designer burst onto the Cape Town scene a few years back and has been making an impact ever since. He likes my look, as he wants to go in a more "sexy", "manly" direction as in past his campaigns were quite androgynous. He also likes my connection to Mr SA and the fact that Im driven to make a difference.

As this campaign he wants to have meaning, he wants there to be more behind it than the obvious. I think I have converted him and he also wants to make a difference! There is planned to be a lot of media hype around this campaign, this is 1st media link http://www.cptstreetmag.co.za/newspage.html. The campaign is set to be amazing and create good exposure.
Fasion with a cause;)

Fashion, Charity and sms line for Ons Huis

From as long as I can remember Fashion and Charity have always been interrelated. from Gianni Verscace to Elton Johns Aids Trust. Giving back is something that people find difficult to do, that R 1 rand is easy to give to a car guard but ask for R 10 and people think twice. Coming up with an sms line that people can donate to charity immediately is a grand idea, however getting people to part with there money is even harder. I wonder sometimes how easily people will spend money on drinks on a night out partying or the expensive dinners... Don't get me wrong, I love a good party and nice restaurants. It's so much easier to spend on yourself than help others. Through being a semi finalist for the MR SA I have had numerous interviews on radio stations and TV and I thought as soon as I mention donate to a charity that people would all take out there phones and donate right away. I sincerely was hoping for Pavlov's law of pre-condition to apply lol!

However I realized that to get someone to part with there money is not an easy thing. To get people to be charitable you need to stop and talk to them individually and explain what the charity is all about, why the charity needs money and how you are involved in the process. It is more about spending a lot of time with people convincing them to donate. I know that when I become MR SA I am going to use my celebrity to impress upon people the need to give more, more easily. Giving, I do not confine to only money, it's also your time and effort. I have always wanted to make a difference in the lives of people, I want to see the happiness that beams on there faces when a little help makes there day. A friend of mine's dad helps communities with Sustainable Development, basically him and his friends physically build crèches in poverty stricken areas and build Tunnel farms next door, so the teachers fees are paid by the produce that gets sold. What a great iniaitve a small way to help build our nation.

Many south Africans are were they are today because of the Apartheid Legacy. Forcing people to live in area's with boundaries, not allowing them to own property, quelling their thirst for knowledge but not schooling them well. All these factors have contributed to our South African situation. It's time we all help to build a nation that is strong and self sufficient. Sometimes I wonder is it only the rich that feel charitable then I remembered my trip to India, a country of contrasts of extremely wealthy and most poverty stricken. While driving past some areas I would gasp at how some people really lived, how children would be running around smiling and laughing and playing on the sides of the road. I'd peer in at a small home that had a bed and some pots and was around 1m by 2m that housed 4 people, they were happy and content. I learned from my friends that the poorest of the poor never go hungry because it is in there culture to share, share their food and what little that they have. I think people with so little can get together and help each other imagine what we can do to help out fellow citizens improve. It's endless.

Someone gave me a very good idea, ask 10 of my close friends to donate R100 and get each of them to ask 10 of their close friends to donate R100 and so on and so on. I thought I would go one better by asking people to only donate R10 and instead of them giving me the cash or having to go to a bank to deposit it, all they would have to do is send a simple sms. It was so simple and effortless and I thought "well its only R10". I am always honest, so Im not going to try and hide the fact that the charity sms line has not been a success. The number of sms'es received is nowhere near where I thought it should be or where it ought to be. I punted it everyday on Facebook, i asked people to sms at all my events, I was even interviewed on Lotus FM where I asked people to vote and the DJ's mentioned it on 5FM and Good Hope FM. I could have put in more effort in advertising or marketing it, but I felt I had put in enough and I thought the novelty and simplicity of it would get people smsing. I mean people were smsing for all these "face of" competitions, I thought they would want to sms for charity, for a good cause.

But as with anytime you do something for the 1st time, its never going to be perfect 1st time and you live and learn. I guess R10 is too much, people obviously hear R10 and something says to them "too much!". Or maybe people thought the only reason I was doing the line was purely out of self interest, or that the money wouldn't go to charity. So that being said I have decided to donate the sms line to Ons Huis, so that they can learn from my mistakes and make it more effective. As I still believe it is a very good idea and is virtually hassle free. Honestly what is easier than sending an sms? Through this whole process I feel somehow now connected to Ons Huis and I want them to grow and strengthen. So they will have the charity line and it will always be something to remember me by. Even if I dont win or become a finalist they will still have it, and it will be something that lasts long after the competition has ended.
This will be my lasting contribution to them.
They are a great charity that shines light into the lives of others.
I commend them for making a difference and having the courage to look past their own selfish needs and actually think about others.
They strive to and do make a difference.
And this is their lasting contribution to us.

"Angels For Charity" Lingerie show

On Saturday 26th September, my 2nd event took place...my "Angels for Charity" lingerie show. This was to be my pinnacle show, the accumulation of all my efforts. I wanted to create awareness for Mr SA and Ons Huis, raise funds for the charity and also showcase some of Cape Town's up and coming modelling talent. While melding beauty and charity together.

I had approached many sponsors for this event, as well for the Mr SA itself, and I was hoping to get Ola Magnum(something sweet), Moet(something bubbly) and Lamborghini(something sexy) on board. Moet was a no, Lamborghini an almost(they liked the concept, but were worried bout possible damage), but Ola really liked the idea and were a go. I organised French Knickers to provide the lingerie, and Finger Clothing would use the event to launch their new swimwear range.

So everything was set...except I needed wings for the angels!
Nothing an hour drive to Stellenbosch couldnt fix ;) So my angels had their wings, I had my sponsors and the marketing machine was in motion. I really needed the wings as they would amplify the meaning of the concept behind the show. The concept was based on a paradoxical antithesis of the 7 deadly sins. Except now my 7 angels would represent the opposite of sins, all that is good and from heaven. Everybody needs an angel in their life, someone to shine some light in when things are down. All of you reading this have had "angels" in your life, be it your parents, friends or family members. But there are a lot of people who have not been this fortunate, and they have no-one looking out for them, no-one to shine "light" into their lives. Ons Huis are like angels, shining light and hope into the lives of the less fotunate.


I spoke to the crowd about this, but it was a little lost on them as they were quite young and superficial. But a few people did listen and they came up to me after to say that they also "care". But the point of the evening was to raise money for charity and put on a good show and party at the same time. And the place was packed! 12 o'clock came and the crowd was getting restless, they wanted to see some beautiful girls in lingerie...

It was show time! 1st the models came out in Finger's new swimwear range, just to warm the crowd up. They went backstage to put on the lingerie and wings and just before they were to come out again, the lights went off...and then back on and the angels appeared on stage to a roar from the crowd. They looked really gorgeous up there and for a second I felt like I was in heaven;)

On a serious note though, the event was a great success. The venue was packed, I was able to get the message of charity and Ons Huis across and some money was raised for Ons Huis. After the show 3 Ola girls handed out some ice cold Magnum ice creams to the crowd, to cool them down after the "hot" show they had just watched.

I would like to thank Ola Magnum, French Knickers, Finger, FTV Cape Town, Ons Huis and the Mr SA committee for making the event possible.

We all need angels in our life.

Someone to shine some light.

Together we can overcome any darkness.

Lets make a difference.

31st annual Loeri Awards

The 31st Loeri Awards took place after the last weekend, and for the 1st time in the events history it was going to take place in the mother city, Cape Town. The venue was the Good Hope Centre. The bars were fully stocked, as there is a joke that advertising executives love to drink, well they work so hard...so they play so hard!

And you could see that their hard work had definitely paid off. I was lucky enough to have 2nd row seats in the packed auditorium, and what I saw was very impressive and made me proud to be South African.


The whole setup of the award stage and the background visuals was the stuff of a sci-fi movie, with the visuals making you feel like you were in a Star Wars ship. John Vlismas was the host and he did a very good job. Then it came time for the awards. The Loeris celebrates and awards excellence in the advertising industry ranging from website multimedia to radio and television commercials. The 1st awards were for digital multimedia. I had no idea that South Africans produced such amazing websites, with their user interactivity being the most impressive things.

There were other industry related awards, and then it came time for the television commercial awards. This is what the crowd and I had been waiting for. There is just something about South African commercials that maybe only we understand, but I think they are just universally funny. For me personally the Nandos commercials steal the show, combination of humour and controversy.

The big winners of the night were the big players in the industry, with Ogilvy, DraftFCB and TBWA/Hunt/Lascaris taking home most of the awards. The event was a very good experience for me, as it opened my eyes as to how creative South Africans can be. And how important creativity is. It keeps things fun, people excited and it gets people spending. This is why creativity is so important in charity fundraising and sponsorship accrual, and even in everyday life. Sometimes I let people dampen my creative spirit, but no more. My mind is awake and through our creativity we can influence people and thus improve things that need improvement.
No idea is ever a bad one, make sure it gets heard ;)