This year marks the 10 year reunion of a group of Merewether Carlton diehards jetting off on a 23 day tour of Argentina back in February of 2011.

As part of their preparation for the trip an idea was born to take over some second hand boots to donate to children of Argentina.

Here is Stephen Hika Reid’s recount of the events…..

The Merewether Carlton Rugby Club had undertaken to tour Argentina in early 2011 to participate in the Tandil Sevens Rugby Tournament. Australian Group Travel (AGT) had issued a challenge for the tour group to gather useable football boots for donation to a charity in Buenos Aires as a “Hands On Humanity” philanthropic project.

I was Club Secretary and the time and a late sign-up to the tour. President Denzo had mentioned to me about the unfulfilled AGT challenge. The notional number was ten pairs per tourist however this was looking decidedly doubtful as the ‘challenge’ hadn’t really gained any traction.

We agreed that gathering and storing boots in any quantity was logistically difficult and with departure just over a month away to ‘mobilise’ a response was even more problematic.

The challenge gnawed at me as it was a very worthwhile cause and would be a great example and promotion of the Greens philanthropy. I recall that the campaign name “Boots for Buenos Aires” came to me when I was walking the dog one morning. Some may say it’s more likely that the German Shepherd thought of the name and informed me, however I digress.

Three major issues still presented.
Question 1: How to source the large quantity of boots in short space of time? Answer: Get public donations.

Question 2: How to collect the boots? Answer: Engage a sponsor who has a philanthropic purpose and a widespread retail presence that we can also utilise their premises as collection points.

Question3: How to get the public interested in donating boots? Answer: Run a media campaign (takes a little bit of work) and with no budget (I like a challenge!).

All daunting on paper, although not as difficult as it might seem providing you know the right people…

The Major Sponsor: NIB. It just so happened that I used to see Mark Fitzgibbon at the gym every few days and mentioned the campaign (read as ‘relentlessly pestered’) him about NIB getting on board. He deferred to his marketing team. Stephen “Lightning” Rich and I met with the Marketing Team over coffee a few days later and put the proposal to them.

Lightning might recall that when we were driving back from the meeting with NIB that we both thought that they wouldn’t go for the concept. We were wrong. I received a call later that day from NIB confirming that they would sponsor the campaign. To be honest money wasn’t the objective, gaining access to the NIB shop fronts across the lower Hunter Valley to use as collection points for the boots was the real aim.

The Advertising Campaign: Television – easy, ring Rabbs – he immediately jumped on board and committed to support the campaign. I’m not sure whether the decision was “global thinking” on Rabbs part or some unabashed indulgence as Rabbs just loves the Greens. He even managed to wrangle and put to air video footage from the back-blocks of Tandil of the Sevens final that the Greens won!

The TV advertisement was basic. I wrote and produced it and again to be honest it was loosely inspired by those wartime “Call to Action” recruitment pleas. I selected Sam Bright as the lead as I knew that Brighty would prepare like no other to deliver the opening lines. Shaun Rich, Bill Coffey, Jode Roach and Dan Neader all did superbly in hammering out the script with the finger pointing ‘catch cry’ “We Need Your Boots”. Stu McBratney shot and directed the ad at Empire Park.

The Advertising Campaign: Press – again easy, ring club stalwart Ross Taggart whose wife Rosalie was the Advertising Manager at The Herald. Rosalie kindly sorted the artwork and advertising space which she was able to get donated in return for sponsor credits.

The Advertising Campaign: Radio – simple, I was working freelance at NEWFM / 2HD at the time. Dean Bertsos and Bill Coffey cut the ad, the production and air-time was donated in full in return for sponsor credits.

The Collection Boxes: We needed thirteen boxes to go into the sponsor sites and into the NIB branches. Jode and Tom Wasley donated the Allied Pickfords boxes usually used for packing freight. Denzo used his printing expertise and numerous contacts to provide the large adhesive full colour artwork stickers for the collection boxes and the ‘point of sale’ signage, again all donated.

The Collection Campaign: The collection campaign ran for three weeks with heavy media support for the first fortnight. I scrounged three successive Fridays off work so that I could drive around the region and collect the boots from the Collection Boxes. The first week saw just 23 pairs of boots donated. Worrying times – is this idea going to flop?

The next Friday 135 pairs were in the boxes. By what was supposed to be the final Friday a further 160 pairs were in the boxes. That was programmed to be the finish of the campaign, but the boots kept coming in. I had allowed a week’s grace for sorting and packing the boots however I was still visiting sponsor sites and collecting boots right up until the day before we flew to BA. We packed 410 pairs of boots for transport to South America.

Unfortunately, Aerolineas Argentinas was for some reason was only expecting cargo of 100 pairs of boots – I’ll never forget the looks of horror on the faces of the check-in staff at Sydney Airport when we presented with bag loads and the negotiation that had to be done to get them into the hold of the aircraft – after all, they had agreed to transport the boots for free as part of the campaign!

The Charities: AGT had contacted the Botines Solidarios Foundation that was operated by former Argentine Puma fullback Nani Corletto to enquire as to whether they would like to take receipt of the boots. The foundation was set up to provide educational opportunities for youth in conjunction with rugby experiences: put in at school and the reward is rugby.

There had been some sort of communication issue and Nani had not responded, so with time growing short, AGT contacted the Hogar San Pablo Orphanage in Buenos Aires to enquire if they would like to be the recipient of the boot donation. The Orphanage agreed only for Nani to get in contact with us a few days later saying that he would be happy to take up the offer of the boots!

We contacted Nani and explained the situation. As it turned out the mis-communication issue proved to be a blessing. Nani and AGT coordinated a bus to transport the kids from the Orphanage to a recreation ground to participate in rugby skills drills and touch footy alongside the kids from his foundation with some food and drinks later on. Most of those kids from the Orphanage had never seen a rugby ball before let alone touched one. The Greens touring party helped out with the drills and we all had a good time on a hot BA afternoon (but where was that Quilmes in the one litre bottles when we needed it?)

We will never know what difference that visit ten years ago by those men and their odd-shaped footballs from the other-side of the Pacific Ocean had on the lives of those young people in Buenos Aires, but I’m sure we were, and still are much the better for the experience.

Hika

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