Gauteng, South Africa – On Thursday, 15 November Forever Resorts South Africa hosted their annual Charity Golf Day, this year in aid of the Foundation for Children with Hearing Loss in SA at Blue Valley Golf and Country Estate.   

The Foundation aims to improve the quality of life for people with hearing loss, creating a sustainable future for people with hearing loss, inspire, educate, develop and empower an entire community, create fresh perspectives and innovative solutions, promote social welfare, encourage poverty alleviation and generate a lasting change.  

The Forever Golf Day raised a total of R189 093.01 and the funds were paid over directly to the foundation to help three children (Haley Smit (4 years), Ronisha Malander (4 years) and Mulweli Makhuva (9 years)) with funds to pay for their cochlear implants. Mulweli underwent his operation on Monday, 19 November 2018 and will now be going through the process of slowly training his brain to hear again as he lost his hearing due to illness some years ago.  

“On behalf of Forever Resorts we would like to thank our wonderful sponsors who participated in our annual Golf Day, without you, your passion and your selfless generosity this would not have been possible. Oranje Drukkers, Bravo Group Sealy, Backgat Braai,  Adams&Adams, Pam Golding Nelspruit, Beeld, Birchwood Hotel, Unlimited Events Group, Forever Warmbaths, Forever Badplaas, Forever Gariep, Forever Centurion, Forever Loskopdam, Forever White River, BDT Accountants, AirlinkVictoria Falls Rainbow Hotel, Wild Horizons Tours, The Good Oaks, Pentagon Security Consultants, FNB, Valorem, Agri SA, Rockwood Theatre, Delheim Wines, Levati Water, Rhino Clothing, Work Front, Dairymaid, Pretoria FM, Decimal Agency and Zebula Golf Estate and Spa”, said Heidi Halgryn, Marketing Executive at Forever Resorts South Africa.

Afritrip, the holding company for the luxury online tour operators faced legal action from South African National Parks who own Kruger National Park. This was due to Afritrip owning the Krugerpark.com domain which SANParks had a legal claim to as it was the name of their business. Losing the Krugerpark.com domain would cost Afritrip nearly 80% of their business.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place , Afritrip had to search for an alternative domain,when  then CEO Ric Meulemans came across Safari.com. COO Alexis Boshoff said: “It was just this dormant placeholder website with a few safari listings. Nothing had changed on the site since the ’90s."

Afritrip decided to buy the domain but was now faced with the challenge of finding the owner of the domain and harder yet convincing the owner to sell.The domain first registered in 1992,  has since then turned down offers from Apple - whose web browser is called Safari - and Ralph Lauren, which makes Safari cologne for men.

Afritrip enlisted US private investigator Dan Hurley to conduct a further investigation, to track down the owner and start negotiations for Safari.com. Negotiations went on until March with an improved offer of R5-and R10-million and a fully paid safari holiday sealing the deal. The sale took effect in June.“We took ownership of the Safari.com domain about a week before we had to give up Krugerpark.com,” said Boshoff

“The purchase of the Safari.com domain will allow extensive operations to all parts of Africa and is no longer focused primarily in South Africa; this allows customers who are arranging trips to book any and all African Safaris with Safari.com.”

The company has grown from bringing visitors to the Kruger National Park and South African National Parks properties to bringing visitors to all national parks in Africa in 2017.

The Koekemoers on the Telly

The Koekemoers, a brand new miniseries from the ATKV which will be broadcasting on Wednesday mornings at 07:00 (staring on the 18th of May 2016) on the popular Die Groot Ontbyt on Kyknet, will have households ready to burst into laughter within three minutes before they hit the road to work. 

Family holiday shenanigans will be depicted with this tongue-in-cheek show which many viewers will be able to identify with."We would like to offer the Afrikaans viewer and our holiday goers content that will draw attention to typical family holiday events that most of us may have experienced. Some of the scenes are slightly dramatized, but the "tongue-in-cheek tone" will ensure a bit of healthy early morning humour. Think of the then short stories in the mornings just before everyone left for work like Het Jou Katvis! "Said Reinard du Plessis, General Marketing and Communications Manager at ATKV Business. 

Although the show is produced to entertain viewers, this production was a far cry from being a joke. The miniseries was carefully planned to ensure that a strong storyline developed with each episode. Each episode is only three minutes long and broadcast spans across 12 weeks - which is an indication of the sharp and explosive humour of the show. 

The main role and father, Johan Koekemoer is played by the well-known Afrikaans singer Joe F. The rest of the family includes the mother and anchor of the family, Marguerite Koekemoer (played by Lizé van der Walt), Megan "Viper" Koekemoer - the difficult teenage daughter (played by Danielle Du Plessis) and Johan Junior Koekemoer (played by TJ Day) - the apathetic boy who cannot stop playing with his electronic gadgets. 

But the series is not built merely to provide viewers with a weekly shot healthy humour. There are also valuable holiday suggestions and tips each week on the ATKV resort's Facebook page (www.facebook.com/ATKVOORDE) that link onto that week's episode. Viewers should also be on the lookout for attractive prizes from May to August 2016 as part of the ATKV resort's Winter Promotions, because the goal is to pull each viewer into the show making it a real ATKV friendly experience, Du Plessis added. 

ATKV

For more information about the ATKV Resorts, feel free to visit their website: www.atkvoorde.co.za