I am Kelly Pearsall, an environmental scientist & town planner from Sydney. Happiness for me usually involves a combination of chocolate and the sporting arena, be it basketball or boxing, yoga or skiing, along with a passion for the environment and a love of the ocean. I can't wait to challenge myself on the mountain and during the organisation of the fund-raising event for this year's expedition, and am honoured to be able to experience the beauty of Ladakh with the girls in the GOT 06 team.

The planning for my event was a no-hold barred “dunking” into the organisation of a fully-fledged fashion show – all except a generous expense account!! For the three months prior, I was living, breathing the 17 million things that had to be organised and the 300-odd tickets I needed to sell. In typical fashion-show style, I was busily organising right up until the start of the show…

The day began with me at the spray-tan salon at 7am (just to give me the ‘sun-scorched’ look we’ll be achieving in Ladakh..), then on to the fashion-designer girls’ house where they whipped up the final 6 garments in 3 hours… We then chocked the car literally to the brim (I had to stick my head out the window to tell Jo if she could change lanes through the airport tunnel..) and headed into the Establishment.

We had access to the Ballroom from 2.30pm in the afternoon with the show set to start at 7pm… Our lighting guys kept telling me that they’d usually be set up by 7am in the morning and this was a really tight timeframe!! Thanks guys, but it wasn’t helping! I assured them it was ok, and that we’d just get it done… Coz I was the one who’d never put on a show before!?! They were great, and busted their butts to get it all right and spectacular in time. They only had three days notice too after a heck of a lot of back and forth with too-huge quotes, swapping lighting guys, ringing friends of very new friends who new a guy who’s dog could possibly do the lighting for us for only a mild-heart attack price…

After battling the service lift up from the loading dock our DJ ‘Chad’, Dexter (our very generous pseudo floor manager) and I raced to assemble the steel and timber stage and nail down the skirting so that the lighting, sounds and final rehearsals could begin… With only one model falling off the stage during rehearsals, we were good to go!
The hair was high, the celebrities were needy, the MC was cutting it fine, but the guests began to pile in, the headsets were in place and I was on a roll. As Jade said – I looked (and felt) so calm for what was about to take place! It was a near sell-out with 400 guests…
The night began with Alex Ward a young singer/songwriter playing an acoustic set as guests arrived (only her third ever gig!). Our MC for the night, the effervescent Shelley Sykes – The Happiness Guru – then launched us into proceedings. There was a huge buzz in the room, filled with family, friends, clothing labels, judges, colleagues, GOT girls and well-wishers. There were so many people streaming in I can’t remember many of the faces – the night took on a life of its own. I was on the door being given wads of cash from late ticket-payers as they streamed in and stashing it into my dad’s pockets for safe keeping!!

I was introduced by the MC and got up on the catwalk to make my speech – but where I would usually be nervous, I was excited and spurred on by people’s support and amazement at what we were about to pull off – I started to believe in it myself…
The running order for the night included three colourful fashion shows on the hour – interspersed with some impromptu modelling by guests (invited up on stage by Shelley), which was a blast, raffle sales, the DJ, and an awe-inspiring speech by our fearless but nervous leader Jade – it captivated the audience and clued in a few more people about what I was actually getting myself into.. We played the powerpoint show on the big-screen in the room, and I saw people staring in awe as we did in the Blue Mountains. The night even inspired a few into looking at becoming part of next year’s team…

The two Nisuoc designers, Jo and Jack, are amazing seamstresses and a knack for immersing others in their dream – I couldn’t have done it without them! The night was so successful on so many levels – the guests had a great time, the designers had a huge launch of their label, three aspiring models won fantastic modelling prizes, and I raised the $5000 for ISEC pretty-much bang-on. To achieve a professional show, though, brought some professional costs! Tickets sales raised near to $13K, raffles $1500 and clothing sales $500, but our expenses (food, drinks on arrival, venue, lighting, material, prizes, supplies etc) were around $10K… We had A LOT of great pro-bono help – around 15 hair and make-up artists, and a 4-piece girl band RAEN to close the show just for starters… Wonderful people and models who believed in the girls and myself and who helped make it all happen…

The night ended with me signing my life away for the bar tab, flying through directions on how to pull the stage down and having a well-earned champers!
It seemed like a blur, it went by too quickly and I didn’t want it to end!! I received so much great feedback and welcome disbelief from so many people who said they were amazed, impressed, inspired, proud, happy, and that they had a fantastic time, which was humbling and very unexpected – but awesome!