After Dinner Speakers
Explorer, Scientist and Author
In 2012 Felicity became the first woman in the world to ski across Antarctica alone. The 1084-mile journey took her 59 days skiing unaccompanied through a monotonous and hostile landscape. Describing her record-making expedition she reveals - with astonishing honesty - the fear, the doubt and the loneliness of the experience, reflecting issues many of us face on a daily basis. Felicity examines the sources of motivation that drove her forward day after day and talks about the importance of perseverance, sharing with her audience ways to cultivate this most vital of qualities when vulnerable and under pressure. Through her thought-provoking, highly relevant and often poignant talk, Felicity provides an insight into recognizing and developing the innate resilience within us all.
B.I.G. Arctic research expedition
Felicity recounts how failing to reach the North Pole enabled her team to forge a multiyear, pan-Arctic project far more ambitious in scope and impact than anything they would have dared propose at the outset. The expedition faced unexpected challenges as they ventured into an Arctic environment that is changing faster than anywhere else on the planet to collect snow, ice and water samples for crucial scientific research. Discussing issues around failure, resilience and sustainable achievement, Felicity explains how the team consciously adapted their mindset to navigate setbacks and tackle vulnerabilities while also cultivating flexibility, innovation and ultimately, successful outcomes. Failure, it turns out, need not be permanent.
Call of the White
It is not unusual in today’s world for a team to be scattered over multiple timezones, incorporating a variety of cultures, levels of expertise and systems of work. How do you manage such diversity effectively? Felicity answers this question in her account of selecting, training and leading a team of women from countries as contrasting as Jamaica, Brunei Darussalam, Cyprus and New Zealand to ski to the South Pole in 2009. Many of the women had not spent a night in a tent or seen snow before joining the team. With refreshing insight Felicity presents a compelling story of adventure as well as a valuable perspective on modern leadership and dynamic team management.
Polar Exposure
How can you prepare for what you don’t know is coming? In April 2018 Felicity led a novice team of ten women recruited from across the Middle East and Europe on a ski expedition across the fractured and constantly shifting sea ice of the Arctic Ocean to reach the Geographic North Pole - the top of the world. Complete with exhiliarating photography and film footage, this thrilling account of the team’s experiences on the ice and during the more than two years of preparation, explores risk management, decision-making and adaptive leadership in a fast and high-stakes environment; an environment in which the only certainty is change.
Pole of Cold: A Journey to Chase Winter
'What does winter mean to you?' This was the question that Felicity and her team sought to answer as they travelled more than 35,000km from the UK across Scandinavia and Siberia in a Land Rover Defender. Using images, stories, film footage and sounds gathered during the expedition, Felicity describes the people and places the team experienced as they headed into some of the most extreme winter climates in the world including the Pole of Cold, the coldest inhabited place on the planet where temperatures plummeted to almost -60C. What is the best form of transport when it is so cold that fuel becomes solid? How cold does it have to be before children stop going to school? And is it possible to hear your own breath freeze....?
Living in Antarctica
Have you ever wondered what it feels like to stand in the coldest place on Earth or to live without the sun for months on end? Packed with stunning images, this presentation creates a tangible impression of what it is like to live and work in Antarctica. Sharing her own experiences over-wintering, Felicity describes life on an Antarctic Research Station - the wildlife, the scenery, and the science. Completely isolated from the rest of the world for 7 months of the year, Felicity and her colleagues not only had to overcome the challenges of living in the most hostile environment on Earth but also of living with each other.
Crossing Greenland
The plan was simple. A 560km ski from the western edge of the Greenland ice sheet to the mountains of the east coast. Once there, specially adapted power kites would be used to harness the power of the wind and return across the ice. Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas. This presentation tells the story of the first British women's crossing of the Greenland ice sheet. Dragging food, fuel and equipment and travelling unguided, the Arctic Foxes skied over 1100km in just 31 days. Packed with high drama and nail-biting anecdotes, Felicity describes how the journey turned into a desperate race against time and resulted in a close shave on thin ice...
Racing to the Pole
Whatever our background and situation, each of us has our own personal aspirations but not all of us turn those ambitions into reality. In 2005 Felicity's aspiration was to take part in the Polar Challenge, a 360-mile endurance race across Arctic Canada. Before her 3-women team could start the race they had to become fitter than they ever thought possible, learn new and complex skills, bond together as an efficient unit and raise enough money to cover the race costs. This is not just a tale of adventure but a demonstration of how clear goal-setting, the right attitude and perseverance can help everyone achieve their own life targets.
Siberia: Kate Marsden and the Miracle Herb
In 1891 a young British woman set out on horseback into the remote taiga forest of north-eastern Siberia. Kate Marsden wasn't an explorer but a nurse on a mission to find a herb that was rumoured to cure the most feared disease of the age - leprosy. 115 years later, Felicity and National Geographic journalist, Bernice Notenboom, travelled to Siberia to investigate the story of Kate Marsden. Using photographs and audio clips, Felicity describes their journey along the frozen Vilyuy river and their encounters with biologists, traditional healers, historians and shaman in an attempt to unravel the mystery of Kate Marsden and her miracle herb.
Siberia: Old Man Baikal
Holding one fifth of the planet's fresh water, Lake Baikal is the deepest and oldest lake in the World. Over 1,800 species of flora and fauna living in its waters are found nowhere else on Earth and during winter its surface freezes to form a thick layer of beautifully transparent ice. Hidden deep in the Siberian wilderness, close to the Mongolian border few people live along its 700km length. Those that do, the Buryats, know the lake as Old Man Baikal and revere it as a living being, a centre of shamanic energy. Felicity Aston walked the length of Baikal across the ice, visiting lake shore villages along the way to learn more about the myths of the lake and the Buryat culture. Her talk uses unforgettable images as well as film footage and audio clips to transport her audience to this most ancient of wonders.
