My letter this week has almost nothing to do with inward investment but almost everything to do with how well people can work together - if they have a mind to - and how much they can achieve. And, by the way, the \'if they have a mind to\' is not simply a flippant, throwaway line; the people to whom I\'m referring had to have \'a mind to\' because their bodies were probably not the first ones you\'d consider for the adventure that was called, Around the World in 80 Ways.

I have just returned from an evening where the after dinner speaker was one Robin Dunseath who took a small team of adventurers around the world with the challenge that they had to use eighty ways of travelling. That, in itself, might be considered remarkable but when you add into the mix that Robin, the teamleader, has a poorly heart, one of his companions had lost his legs (and been paralysed from the chest down) in Bosnia during the Balkan war and that his other two companions were both blind, you can see that the challenge is considerable. I do not intend to tell you of their adventures, you can find that story on http://www.aroundtheworldineightyways.com . I will simply tell you that they galvanised business folk and others in the countries through which they passed around the world to devise ever more challenging ways for them to traverse the distance for their epic journey. In return, those people donated over £500,000 to  more than 100 charities.

OK. I\'ll just give a couple of examples from the eighty ways in which they travelled: from rowing a cardboard boat down the Liffey in Dublin, to racing a pair of high performance cars around the Grand Prix circuit in Kuala Lumpur - with the blind team members driving; from one of blind team members pushing the disabled and paralysed member across the Red Sea, on the sea bed, in his wheel chair, to that same disabled member being velcroed to his mount for an Ostrich Race in South Africa.

And now they are planning another round the world journey, this time with people from the who have been injured in more recent wars: a journey around the world in another eighty ways timed to complete as the 2012 Paralympic Games open in London and designed to raise money for scores of charities in the countries through which they will pass as well as to raise funds to support the improvement of sports opportunities for disabled people.

Wherever in the world you are reading this, if you or your organisation could assist in the 2012 venture, do log on to the website http://www.aroundtheworldineightyways.com .

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