Had a call, last week Thursday, to help setting up a stall for the Getaway show at the dome in Johannesburg and while I was busy it just struck me, this was a perfect opportunity to put those collection tins to work
.
Come Friday morning I was there bright and early armed with 10 empty rhino anti poaching collection tins, ready to intimidate unsuspecting stall owners in to assisting the HRs in their drive to help stop this poaching scourge. As luck would have it the first stall I ran in to was the SANParks one, Manned
(and wommaned) by the west rand region of the honorary rangers and some of Sanpark's permanent staff members. Persuading them to take a tin was a mere formality as we bat for the same team and the first donation came from them. In all 10 tins were handed out to various stalls and it was only the Cape union mart that refused to take a tin to support the anti poaching drive, I guess I would also refuse to support them in future
Looking at the smiling faces one could almost see the enthusiasm of these folks and the weekend promised to hold a few surprises. 10 min after dropping the tin for Alpine health I walked past the stall only to be called back and told that her tin had already had R 180 in it.
I do not know how much has been collected over the weekend but when I picked the tins up on Sunday afternoon they weighed enough to make my arm that was carrying the box quite lame by the time I reached my vehicle.
Of all the stalls I must single out one that went way above what I had asked from them and that was the team at
Lumeno LED lighting. They
insisted on having two tins and went so far as to place R10 for each torch of R60 that they sold on the show in to the tin and then still challenge the customer to better that, the result was two tins that had about 5X the weight and paper of the rest.
A massive big thank you to Les and his team, the lot of them were super in responding to my request and came through for the rhino. And yes I did take down their details as I am definitely going to do more business with this lot, we speak the same language even if they say it in English and I in Afrikaans
The next step is to find permanent homes for these "slightly" used tins where they can spend the rest of their hopefully short lives before being ripped open and their full bellies helping in the national fight against rhino poaching.
Being part of the SANParks Honorary Rangers empowers one to make a difference. Contrary to popular belief it is not just standing at shopping centres and collecting money or manning the gate at a park, it is a most rewarding experience to get involved with various projects and get to see things that the normal public never does, meeting the passionate staff and management in various parks and assisting them where it matters.
If you feel you can make a positive contribution and would like to be part of the solution and not the problem why not consider joining the virtual region of the HRs, our region is open to like minded folks
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a couple of books and a new Drimac. (My old Drimac is so old that not even thieves wanted it) 
But what I can promise you is a much better understanding of nature and conservation and a whole new range of people skills 
