Letter writing is a dying art nowadays, which is why it is all the more special to receive a thank you from somebody who has actually taken the time to put pen to paper. Below is a selection of some of the "lovely letters" we have received over the past few years.
Dear everyone at quest,
Well done with the award! I was in the Villa Maria group 1 (i think)
in 2001 and really enjoy hearing Quest going from strength to
strength. We are currently in the process of trying to organise our
second (third if we include the one Quest organised) reunion and
really looking forward to it. It is a tribute to Quest that I have so
many close friends from our group nearly 7 years after our travels.
Best of luck with everything,
Rad
"We members of the staff of Kibugumo Primary School, have decided to send you this note in order to thank you for the rehabilitation that you have undertaken to our school. The renovations i.e. painting of the classrooms, chipping of the outside walls have left our school looking one of the best schools within Temeke municipality. We would also like to thank you for the supply of textbooks, ball pens etc. For all that you have done to us, we therefore, thank you all."
Staff Members KPS
Dear Michael,
At our recent Lubombo Conservancy Committee meeting, we informed members of the generous donation by Quest Overseas for the purpose of game introduction. The involvement and project work carried out by Quest in Swaziland, and specifically in the Lubombo Conservancy has been of great value to us, and on behalf of all involved please accept my grateful thanks. Apart from the material contribution made by your group members, they have set a wonderful example to the communities within which they have worked. Everyone who has been involved with them has enjoyed their visits, and we look forward to many more. Please always feel free to contact me if you have any problems, or special requests regarding your visits. The Conservancy has made substantial progress in winning hearts and minds for the cause of Conservation and the success of the Shewula Mountain Camp has been particularly pleasing. We have a long way to go to get it operating at the level required to assure it's future, but they are on their way. Cooperation between Swaziland and Mozambique is now beginning to move to the forefront of our efforts, and the initial steps in setting up cross border initiatives have been taken.Once again our grateful thanks for your support.
Kindest regards,
Peter HughesChairman - Lubombo Conservancy
Hi Michael,
It's Kat from Swazi 1, we had the most amazing time ever! Thanks so much for setting this all up (with the help of Lucy, Jenny and all the other leaders). Our team got on so well and we all miss each other lots, we also learnt so many new things about ourselves and the world! Sorry just gushing there!Jonny and Jenny are fabulous leaders (as I'm sure you know but it doesn't do any harm to tell you that us students thought they were great!) and we had so much fun and lots of hard work with them.
Hope to hear from you soon
Kat (Harrison)
Dear Michael,
I have just returned from visiting Elaine in Cuzco. It was great to meet some of her Quest friends and hear all about their adventures. It was obvious they’ve had lots of fun, their leader Dan and Jon seem to have made a lasting impression!! Everyone I spoke to said the trip more than fulfilled their expectations. It was obvious they will have memories to last a lifetime and hopefully friendships. I just wanted to say thank you and congratulations – Elaine’s gap year adventures will stay with her forever.
With regards
Jean Hake
PS. I loved Cuzco, Machu Picchu, will return one day!
Thank you both so much for such a wonderful evening on the 15th Sept for the Quest Reunion. It was brilliant to meet up with all the Questers in such a different environment, and The Atrium was certainly different! It looked so smart and served as a perfect location for the party. I can’t go without mentioning the food, which was absolutely delicious. The whole evening was such a success, thank you so much for all the time and effort you put into it, especially with the slide show which looked brilliant. Wishing you the best of luck with this year’s teams and hope it works out as well as last year.Thank you again for a fantastic evening.
With love
Rebecca Finch
Michael – I have to congratulate you all at Quest - this trip that Daisy Bird was on and has just finished sounds to have been an outstanding success – they all seem to have gained a lot from it and I could not praise you all at Quest more highly for the organisation.It will certainly be talked about amongst our friends in similar positions – please consider us as referees in the event that you may want an independent view – perhaps wait for that until Daisy arrives back in UK on 25 June but am sure she will be full of praise!
Kind regards
Michael and Carola Bird.
Dear Michael,
I just wanted to write and thank you all for organising such a lovely evening on Friday 15th September. The reunion was (as all things organised by Quest) a great success and it was great to see everyone from so many different groups all dressed up and on such good form. Whilst the football the next day was not so appreciated by me personally due to my ‘delicate’ state that morning, that too was such a fun day. I head off to Edinburgh on Saturday week but hope to keep in touch with you all and visit The North-West Stables soon.
Once more, thanks so much for a great evening.
All the best
Luke.
Dear Michael,
Dominic has returned safely from his travels in South America. He had a wonderful time with Quest: Thank you all. He thoroughly enjoyed all the three aspects of the trip: the learning in Quito, the project with the children of Villa Maria and the final expedition. Judging by his tales and photos much of what they did would not have been possible without the backing of an organisation and the guidance of Pippa and Kate who seem to have been tireless and great fun! Dom has made good friends in the group and they seem to be having plenty of reunions as they re-appear in England! The whole three/four months was a fantastic experience and he is the envy of many for all he did and saw! Please could you thank everyone involved with Villa Maria Team I and we send good wishes to all at Quest for many more successful trips.
Richard and Caroline Heaton-Watson
Dear Sir,
I enclose a cheque for Piers Freke-Evans of £500.00 to be transferred to him through your network. For which very many thanks. May I also take the opportunity to congratulate you on running a safe efficient but exciting operation which will be a golden memory to Piers for the rest of his life. I will have no difficulty in recommending your scheme to the many other pregap year parents that I meet.
Yours sincerely
Patrick H Freke Evans
Our son Edward has just recently completed his time with you and I want you to know how pleased we all were with the experience. I say 'we all' because it is clear to my wife and I that the time was extremely well spent and was a great experience for Edward. It has set him up for the further travels that he plans which all in all will be a life changing experience. We are most grateful to you.
Our best wishes for your future success
Bridget & Stuart Lewis
Dear Michael
Just a small note to say thank you very much for such a brilliant night at the reunion. It was wonderful to see everyone and catch up again, plus…the food was exquisite. But really, on a serious note, I genuinely did have an excellent night, and I though the venue/food/music and company were wonderful. THANK YOU! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and well done in your speeches…very touching!
Take care Michael and thanks again
Clare Hartley
Dear Michael,
Just a quick note to say how useful and enjoyable the training weekend was. It is certainly a load off my mind to know that I will be travelling with a thoroughly decent bunch of people.
Kind Regards
Chris Geary
Dear Michael,
I have just returned from my four months in South America, which began with my 13 weeks with Quest. I am writing to say thank you for an incredible three months. Thanks to Quest, I have seen breathtaking sights, been to unforgettable places, had amazing experiences and made lifelong friends. Quest has inspired me to do so much more travelling and thanks to having Dan as a teacher I know that I can do it well. Please could you send me a copy of the new brochure as I am doing a presentation on Quest at my school and it would be very useful. Thanks again and I will see you at the reunion.
Yours sincerely
Andrew Jones
Dear Michael,
I am just writing to thank you for the wonderful experience Jenny had with Quest in South America. Looking at her photographs it’s amazing to see the variety of experiences you were able to pack into those three months. As parents, we appreciate the professional way the whole trip was organised, and we’d like to thank Jonathan especially for his skilled and thoughtful leadership. You were able to offer challenge and excitement to the teams and give them a real sense of achievement – how on earth they managed that 5 day Inca Trail with those huge packs on their backs, I can’t imagine! We have already recommended Quest to Katy Lomas who will be in the Villa Maria Team next February, and would not hesitate to recommend you to other friends. Many thanks again for all you and the Quest organisation have done for Jenny
Yours sincerely
Sue and John Bloomfield
I have only ever been on one trip round Southern Africa which was with Quest Overseas, so I have no alternate experience with which to compare it. However - everyone on my trip loved it, best time of their lives, amazing etc. But I am sure you hear that about every trip offered by every specialist firm like this.
Instead, let me tell you the 2 things that I believe are different about Quest Overseas compared with other such organisations:
1) Quest Overseas encourages an active role from YOU;
2) Transportation is generally by means of public buses or privately hired vehicles etc.
This means that like every other organisation you are able to see & visit the various parts of Africa. But it also means that there is the opportunity to really get involved talking & participating with the locals, whilst occasionally taking on some responsibility for the expedition. This for me is the main attraction. It allows a huge amount of additional personal development over any other such expeditions e.g. how to organise days / dealing with locals / making friends with people you might normally not etc....
Really the decision for you is:
Do I just want to see Africa from a comfortable window OR do I want to get stuck in and make all my weeks abroad count double?
Kind Regards,
Jack Garrett
Ex-Quest Volunteer
Michael
Congratulations on the last 10 years, if I manage to achieve a tiny fraction of what you have in the past decade, with my crazy ventures, I’ll be a very proud man. But then again, I’ve had the advantage of a great apprenticeship. Thanks to my time working with you, I now know that it is possible to keep moral standards in business and still stay alive, that excellence and perfection are worth working for, that generosity does pay off in the end (although it can take a while!) and most of all, that the ideal that one can make a difference doesn’t have to disappear with age.
I enjoyed learning with and from you, from the interview in your Warwickshire field and the never-to-be-forgotten journey in the Clapham Mansions hoist on my first day in the office, to Borde Hill and almost becoming blasé when receiving “best 3 months of my life” letters from students because there have just been so many of them! Of course, every employee thinks they know better than their boss at some point, that they could do a better job - if only they knew.
Congratulations again, and thank you - I’ve been inspired.
Jonjon
Jonathan Cassidy
UK Manager, BOLIVIAN MOUNTAINS
Michael
Happy tenth birthday to Quest Overseas. Seven years ago, I left a perfectly good job with a company car and a pension for a 4-month contract with Quest. I still haven’t managed to get another company car but working with Quest Overseas has been an adventure I never anticipated.
As you know working for Quest Overseas has taken my life in directions I could not have anticipated and helped me have experiences and build friendships that have been really significant in my life - and I suspect I am not the only one Quest has influenced like this.
There are many things that make Quest Overseas a special organisation, but for me it has been the constant drive to take an ethical and principled stance in an industry that is increasingly commercially focused.
I look forward to Quest's 20th anniversary barbeque and hope I will still be involved, putting my oar in and generally meddling from the sidelines.
See you soon
Dr Kate Simpson
Ethical Volunteering Expert
Congratulations on ten years of success, I can already tell after not even a full year that this is a company run by the highest guiding principles and providing benefits to all counterparts whilst providing a very high quality gap year and travel experience for all team members.
Chris Williams
Expedition Leader
Dear Michael,
TEN YEARS! I can hardly believe it - that means we're only two years older than you - and 12 years feels an eternity!
We've both had some amazing experiences and frustrations along the way and I feel that in many ways Quest Overseas and Rainforest Concern have the perfect partnership. But I'm quite sure we can still make even more of it!
Ralph, Kirsten, Briony and Yalda join me in wishing you the very best for the next ten years and the next and the next...
I wish you much success for the future. Times can be tough but I'm sure you will take a lesson from natural selection: "Adapt and survive", although I would add "and conquer!"
Many congratulations to you and the current team!
Un abrazo fuerte,
Peter Bennett
Director, Rainforest Concern.