Very rarely in life does one come across occasions where one can stitch variables from ones personal passion and ambitions along  with his/her professional commitments and create the perfect marriage between the two.

Prem Joseph the Director of Sales and Marketing for the Marriott hotels located in Hyderabad, was amongst those lucky few who was able to find an occasion to do so.

Long before Prem joined the Marriott Hotels he was a part of the BOBMC brotherhood and has ridden along with clubs like the Inddiethumpers and the Madras Bull to his current club the RTMC in Bangalore. In fact Prem was amongst the fortunate few to attend the first Rider Mania in Goa.

Prem always kept his passion alive for biking despite his growing professional commitments. However, time was becoming scarce and between career with increasing responsibilities and a family with two dotting daughters dreams of doing an all India ride for Prem was fast dying.

It was then that everything fell in place to create the ride of lifetime for Prem. BOBMC approached Prem for sponsorship of a few vouchers from Marriott for Rider Mania in Chennai 2014. To ensure all Marriott’s participated and to create a long term relationship with BOBMC the idea evolved to support Marriott’s Spirit to Serve concept which is basically Marriott’s CSR initiative.

About Marriott Home & Rising Star Outreach

Rising Star Outreach fondly called as Marriott Home shelters the children of people who have been affected with Leprosy. Their mission is to help the Leprosy colonies become thriving, self-sufficient communities. They accomplish this through three major initiatives: Economic rehabilitation through micro-grants; providing medical care through mobile medical clinics; educating children by providing opportunities to become productive citizens of India.

The children there have a school, a community centre, library and playing ground where they spend time with each other studying, playing and growing in a spirit of peace and harmony. The joy they share among themselves is spread over to the associates at Courtyard Chennai who wait for their chance to go and spend time with the children.

Through their association with Marriott Home, the hotel team helps deliver vital services to people affected by leprosy in the nearby Bharathapuram colony. The team works to raise funds for the colony; provide educational opportunities for adults and children, focusing on English instruction and computer literacy; and introduce business training and concepts like micro-credit, which have helped turn the poverty-stricken hamlet into a thriving colony.

For more details log into – http://risingstaroutreach.org/

Prem and the BOBMC team came up with the win- win proposal. Every Marriott Hotel in India would sponsor a voucher for two nights stay inclusive of breakfast. 7 of these vouchers would be put up for auction to the BOBMC community and the remaining would be given away as gifts and prizes. The money collected from the auctions would be given to the Marriott Home which coincidentally is in Chennai as well.

With this plan in mind, Prem with the help of BOBMC members set out on  6700 Km solo ride (Delhi- Chandigarh- Gurgaon – Jaipur- Bhopal- Ahmedabad- Mumbai- Pune- Goa- Bangalore- Cochin- Trivandrum- Chennai – Hyderabad) with mission to not only collect the vouchers from each hotel but to also spread the word of the BOBMC community across India.  Prem started his journey on the 6^th of Dec and completed his ride on the 22^nd of Dec. Majority of the breaks were to interact with the Press and media.

Leveraging Marriott’s PR network, Prem was able to not only spread the word on Marriott’s Spirit to Serve ethos and the Marriott Home, but was also able to create impressive press coverage for BOBMC and Rider Mania.

[print_gllr id=969]

When asked about this best experience during the ride that was over 15 days, Prem’s pat reply was “ I started out thinking that this was a solo ride and obviously had my apprehensions about the same. Not long into the journey I realized that I wasn’t alone on this ride. The brotherhood was always with me. I had an electrical problem with the bike in Jaipur and really thought I was stuck. It was then that I realized the strength of the brotherhood. Help came pouring in from various sources, people I never knew nor did they know me. All we had in common was the bond of the brotherhood. Believe me when I say I finally had to switch off my phone at 2am that night because of the phone calls coming in to ask whether I received the help in wanted. And this was not just in Jaipur every city I went there was the presence of the Brotherhood willing to help and support you at any cost”

Would he consider this ride a success. “ Absolutely. At each hotel we were able to generate the desired publicity apart from the donations. I do hope the auctions work well and we would be able to forge a long term relationship with the Marriott. Equally encouraging , every hotel I went had Bulleteers who were keen and willing to do the ride the coming year. This could turn out to be a joint annual event between Marriott and BOBMC coinciding with Rider Mania.”