How to Maintain Adventure in Outward Bound

A report by Nick Dawson Churchill Fellow 2007

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Winston Churchill Memorial Trust

Introduction Adventure A risky undertaking of unknown outcome; an exciting or unexpected event.

“Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.”

Winston Churchill

Outward Bound

• Adjective going away from home.

• Noun (Outward Bound) trademark for an organization providing outdoor activities for young people.

The name of Outward Bound comes from the term that was used to describe when a ship was setting sail on a new journey and often a journey into the unknown. The students are starting a journey that takes them into unknown territory, both physically and mentally. Adventure has been a fundamental part of Outward Bound since it started in 1941 in Aberdovey. One of the challenges in today’s risk adverse society is to maintain a level of adventure that as well as being safe still gives a sense of risk and an unknown outcome for the students. I have worked for the Outward Bound Trust for almost 25 years. The core of the work that Outward Bound does is still based around the ideas that individuals will learn about themselves when involved in adventurous situation; and that this learning is transferable into their everyday lives.

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Outward Bound Singapore My first port of call was Singapore. Leaving Heathrow at 12.15 hrs on the 15th September I arrived in Singapore 08.00hrs local time on the 16th September. I had a day to settle in before the start of first course I was to work on. From the moment I arrived the friendliness of the Outward Bound staff was very apparent. I was made to feel very welcome and a lot of detail had been planned for me. By chance my visit happened to coincide with the visit of the Outward Bound International (OBI) safety review team. A meal had been arranged at a local restaurant for the visitors and some of the senior team from Outward Bound Singapore (OBS). This got the trip off to a very pleasant start and an introduction to the local food. OBS has a number of operational bases. Two of these are situated on the island of Pulau Ubin, which is situated to the northeast of the island (locals refer to it as the mainland) in the channel that separates it from Malaysia. The base was opened in 1993 and has some of the best facilities of any Outward Bound school in the world. The second base was formerly the main base and was closed after 1993. However it now operates as a mobile base for the increasing number of groups that OBS deals with. The third base is on the south side of the mainland and is set up for younger groups from 9 to 14. I would visit this base in the second week of my stay. The first course I was to work with was a 5-day outdoor discovery course with 4 groups (watches) from 2 schools. The students were age 14-15. The Instructor I was to work with was Faisal. He has worked with OBS for a couple of years having come through the training scheme that OBS puts most of its staff through. We were all to meet at the drop off point on the main land for a ferry ride to camp 2, the old base. The course start and introductions were very similar to ours and we were soon into a series of icebreakers and trust exercises. As the group would be camping out instruction were given into tent pitching and cooking. The group was issued with food for the whole course. Individual students were tasked with organising the food, the campsite, the stores, and the daily organisation. We started early in the morning with morning PT, this ended by the waterfront and then the students were given time for reflection and writing some thoughts down. After breakfast we started on a morning of climbing. This started with belay school, which used some simple frames to teach the techniques required to belay. We then moved onto the climbing wall. This took us though until lunchtime. This was the first such wall built in Singapore.

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After lunch we moved onto the water for a kayak session. First we did capsize drill and then did some skills introductions. We had packed up the kit we needed as we moved to camp 1 and then onto the expedition in the following two days. The kit was loaded into the powerboats that we used as escorts. After the introduction we set off for camp 1. On the way we continued with the skills input and that included capsize and rescues so that the students would be able to do this if needed on the expedition. The wind had picked up a little during the afternoon, which made for more interesting conditions but the groups coped well with it. The capsize recovery took longer than my UK water temperature mind thought it should but in the nice warm water of Singapore it was fine and in some ways was a cooling down from the high air temperatures. On arriving at camp 1 the students set up the tents just a short distance from the buildings. The students had the bonus of having meals in the centre dining room whilst they were here. The evening was spent preparing for the expedition. This involved two days of kayaking along the coast and over to the mainland. Camping at a place called Sembawang. The next day we would return and go onto camp 2 again. The four groups would do the trip together. The aim was to give the students as much ownership on the trip as possible. As part of this, two students from each group were chosen to be leaders. These eight came together to then organise the expedition. They were given a briefing and then went back to their groups to get the kit, food etc sorted out.

The next morning after breakfast we set off on the expedition. Two students to a double kayak, sixteen students in each group, with four groups; and so sixty-four students in thirty two boats set off escorted by two safety boats. With some tidal assistance the groups made good progress. After a short distance we had to cross back over to the mainland. This involved crossing the shipping lane and required us to contact the harbour authority to permission to cross. A ship was identified and once it passed us we could then cross. We had a time slot of twenty minutes to do this. As the ship approached we headed out from the shore and although it appeared as if we were heading straight for it, by the time we got into the middle of the channel it was well gone and we continued across in plenty of time. We stayed very close during this, but once across we were able to give the students more control. We pulled onto a small sandy beach for a lunch stop, but did not spend too much time here, as the plan was to complete the journey before the tide had turned. Good progress continued to be made

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and we arrived at the camp. This was a small grass strip next to the shore. The intensity of the housing in Singapore means you are never far away from buildings, but this site did at least have some feel of remoteness as it was backed by trees. However not far along the coast was a major shipbuilding facility. The students got on with organising the camp and we set up near-by. We had a pleasant night with lots of local food being cooked; the staff were kind to me and made a not so spicy version first. Some of the staff were fasting during the day and so the time of the meal was set for after that. The next morning required a very early start to use the tide going back along the coast. It would be unlikely that we would make it all the way before the tide turned but we hoped to minimise the amount of time going against it. We were able to give the students more freedom on the return trip and they did an excellent job of keeping things going and getting back to camp 2 in good time. The tide turned towards the end and some students found it hard going, but overall it went well. Again camp was set up in the grounds of camp 2 after all the boats and kit had been sorted out. The evening activity was a short solo walk in the forest to the start of the tunnel system, which was also done solo. The tunnels were made from concrete pipes buried in the ground. This was an excellent activity for the students. At the end of the evening we started the process of thought and reflection to help with the transfer of learning. This we did down on the waterfront on the jetty. The next morning started the final day. Lots of things to get through, as well as sorting out the stores and kit, doing some final activities and rounding up the course. This again had a very similar pattern to courses at home, and it was not long before we were saying goodbye to the groups.

We returned to camp 1 for our course debrief. This followed a very similar format to ours in the UK. Looking at how the course had gone, things that worked well and things that could be improved. One of the ropes courses at camp 1 is built on a scale replica of the ship that Raffles first arrived on in Singapore. I was keen to try this out and two of the Instructors kindly took me on it. The elements of the ropes course were between the masts of the ship. I had to climb the rigging and cross the elements. The top element was a catwalk

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that was very challenging and in the heat of the afternoon was also very hot work but great fun. Saturday morning I joined in on a staff training session that was looking at the standards that Instructors maintain. Throughout Saturday a team-building day was being run for a local bank so I spent the afternoon observing how that ran. That type of work in the UK is now run by Outward Bound Professional but not at the centre that I work at, but it was interesting to see how it was done. Sunday was a day off, and I took the chance to have some down time with a relaxing morning. In the afternoon I linked up with one of the Instructors, Abidin, to have a look around some the sites of Singapore and ended up with some food in the evening and visit to a festival as part of the Hari Raga. This was an interesting day and gave me a chance to see a wider view of Singapore and I was very grateful to Abidin for his time with me. Over the weekend I had moved from Pulau Ubin to the East coast base, which was on the mainland between the main city and the airport. Between the main road that joins the airport to the city is a strip of land that is used for recreation with cycle ways, running tracks, and camping and picnic areas. This is a beautifully maintained area and is very popular with people out running, walking, riding and skating from early in the morning right though the day. The centre was located in this area and has been purpose built to cater for the 9 to 14 year old age group. Again the facilities were some of the best seen in Outward Bound.

The course I worked on was a school group of sixteen 11 year olds, on a three-day course. The programme was mainly based in the centre on the ropes and climbing structures. The Instructor I worked with was Elgene and again she was an experienced Instructor who did a very professional job. The groups each had a programme that rotated them around the various activities; one night was spent camping out in tents in the grounds of the centre; with the second night in the dormitory houses. All the meals were provided in the dining room. The activities were climbing wall, evening games, tunnels, high ropes course, and abseil tower. On the final day a coach ride took us to a local nature reserve called Sungei Burch Nature Park for a short walk. The programme kept the students well occupied with a range of challenges even though it was a relatively short programme.

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On the Wednesday evening I returned to Pulau Ubin. This consisted of observing a staff training session in the morning followed by a presentation that I gave to the OBS staff about my time in Singapore. The staff would soon be starting a ten-day staff training sailing trip around the coast to Malaysia. As part of the preparation the staff would practice the capsize drill of one of the boats. This is not done very often and something we do not do in the UK so was of great interest to me. After a briefing ashore we were soon out on the water. I was in one of the escort motorboats. The capsize recovery from the boat on its side went well. When the boat was tipped fully upside down then problems occurred. This was sorted out, but took some time and was a good lesson for all concerned. Being an observer made it relatively easy to see what was happening and as I have a lot of experience on the water I could see the solutions but also knew that adding another voice would also add to the confusion, so I maintained my observer role. The clear up took a little longer than planned and so it was later on that day that I did my session to the staff on my trip and the things I had learned so far. My final evening I had a meal with Vincent who had done so much to make my visit to Outward Bound Singapore a success. I spent my final night back at the East Coast base with its better access to the airport for my flight early the next morning.

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Outward Bound Australia From Singapore I flew to Sydney and then onto Canberra. Again I was picked up at the airport then taken to Outward Bound Australia’s national base at Tharwa about one hour’s drive from Canberra. Due to the flight times and time zone changes it was around midnight when I arrived there and so pretty much went straight to bed.

Outward Bound Australia (OBA) has its national base near Canberra and then operates a number of mobile bases that are set up when programmes are run in a particular area. These include bases in Queensland, Western Australia, and Snowy Mountains. The vast majority of courses are mobile with the students camping out each night. The national base does have some dormitory accommodation but this is not used a great deal, and groups starting here tend to camp in the grounds at the start before going off on their journey. I worked on a twelve-day open enrolment course for 14-16 year old students. This was a mobile course that journeyed southwards through the Australian Alps. Open enrolment courses are run by two Instructors for the duration of the course and I worked alongside these. As in Singapore many of the OBA staff come through the training scheme that they run. This scheme is a recognised and gains educational credits upon completion. Both Tom and Claire had completed this; Tom had done this a few years ago and had progressed to become a Senior Instructor. Claire had completed this more recently and therefore had less experience at OBA but had a lot of experience from previous work with other organisations. The course was overseen by a Course Coordinator (CC) who did the briefing at the start and was involved in any support that was required in the field. Ally was from Scotland and at one point had considered work with OB in the UK before coming to Australia. The students were met at Canberra airport and arrived at the base at lunchtime. We had spent the morning sorting kit out ready for the arrival. The students were expected to bring most of their own personnel kit in terms of clothing, boots, and plates and mugs. This was added to with rucksacks, sleeping bags, cooking kit etc. Again the start of the course was very similar and things got going. One interesting difference came in the hoisting of the Blue Peter. This is the flag that a ship would hoist when it was leaving port, when it was outward bound. The students each hoisted the flag a little until it was fully up the flagpole and thus signified the start of their journey.

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The rest of the day was spent sorting out kit, introducing food, and putting up shelters. All of this preparation for the start of the journey the next day. The shelters were basic plastic sheets that were tied to the trees to make a flysheet style cover. The group was made up of 9 males and 4 females mainly 15 and 16 year olds, most of who were in school with a couple in work.

Day 2. The morning was spent in the ropes course area, first doing the beam, which is a group activity and individual high ropes and then the climbing wall. After lunch we then set off on expedition. After a short walk from the base we arrived at the local Ranger station where some community service had been arranged. An introduction into the work of the rangers in the national park was given to the group, and then they got to work weeding an area that had been planted with native plants and trees. After that we continued on the journey. We did not have far to go to the first nights camp. Near to the campsite a food drop had been arranged. This give us the supplies we would need for the next 3 days, which we sorted out after camp was set up. Routines were set up for locating water bottles, rubbish, and toilets. Also with having had a food drop a fire drum had also been dropped out for us, and so we went through wood collecting and fire lighting and then cooked on an open fire. One of the Instructors carries a UHF radio that is used to check in with base at the end of the day. Day3 was a full day of walking which took us over Mt Tennant and into the next valley. Most of the route was on defined footpaths. Introductions were done to basic navigation including bearings and pacing. The day went well and we arrived in camp in good time. The meal was prepared for the whole group. The food quantities were excellent and were a mixture of freeze dried food, fresh and tinned.

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Day 4 was another full day of walking but would be off the footpaths and into the bush. Navigation was more challenging as the views were restricted by the amount of trees. First thing was to fill up water bottles from a stash that had been placed out. Water was key issue in this region. The area had in effect been in drought for a number of years and many of the streams that were marked on the map did not exist. Each student had brought with them a drinking bottle and had then been issued with four others. The drinking bottle was filled from the other four, at camp the others were also used as the supply for cooking and cleaning. One of the four bottles was marked with red tape and this was to be held back in reserve in case of emergency. The going was slower today with being off the footpath. Route finding was much harder and a real test of navigation skills. It was harder to see where you were going and pick out a good route. We slowed as the day progressed due to an injury to one of the students who had twisted his knee in the morning. Having made it to lunch we stopped for a longer rest but this caused his knee to swell badly to the extent that he could hardly walk when we started up again. We were heading up a ridge to a summit that had an old four-wheel drive track that went up to the top from the other side. We used the radio to call in and some of the support staff could drive as far up the track as possible and get a stretcher up to us. We would endeavour to get up and over the top and down the track to meet up. The best way to achieve this was for Tom to carry the student and for me to carry Tom’s pack. I would also go on ahead to route find. This was slow going, but everybody pulled together and we soon found the track and then linked up with the other staff and soon we had the student on the stretcher and heading down to the minibus. By the time we did all this it was dark and we had also been told over the radio that due to the temperature and wind a fire ban had been imposed by the National park. This meant we could not have a fire and so would have to go onto cold rations. We set camp near to the parking area that the bus had made it to, right next to sign saying no camping but we felt justified in doing this given the circumstances. The high winds also meant we needed to stay away from the trees, due to the danger of blow downs. We had been given star pickets by the staff that had come out to pick the student up. These were basically metal poles that were hammered into the ground and then the sheets were tied to them. All these factors had come together at the same time and added to the pressure but everybody got stuck in and in some ways it added to the whole experience.

“Never, never, never give up.” Winston Churchill

Day 5. We got a good start and using some main tracks caught up the time we had lost on day 4. We passed a place called Honeysuckle that was the site of a former NASA / Australian Government run satellite dish that had been used to receive the TV pictures of the first Moon landing in 1969. The dish and buildings were no longer there but the floor and bases were still there with lots of information boards showing what the place used to look like. To the students and OBA staff this was just history but for me it was moment that had some family significance. I was 8 years old then and had gone to bed as normal but my Mam and Dad had decided to wake my brother and me up, as it was such a historic moment. We had once again to change campsite location due to the wind and used star pickets in the middle of a field. This made it difficult to get the shelters up, but in the end it worked out. The afternoon had been spent going through the rope work that would be needed for Day 6 big abseil. Again we were under a fire ban so more cold rations.

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Day 6. This required a very early start to maximise the time to complete the Descent. So we woke at 03.00hrs and were moving at first light just after 05.00 hrs. We had a short walk to the top of the Descent where we met 2 of the support staff. The students were briefed on the location and shown the kit and they then got into the task of setting up an abseil and a flying fox. The students went down the abseil and their rucksacks went down the flying fox. As much as possible was done by the group, with the staff mainly doing the safety rope on the abseil and checking. There were 2 levels to go down each one being around 80 ft. This descent took us into the Orroral valley, which was a fantastic place and would be our base of a couple of days. The students worked well that day getting down the 2 levels in reasonable time. After the second level we still had to walk down a steep piece of ground, which was a bit of a bush-covered scree slope. With the no walking in the dark rule we had to get to the bottom or spend the night on the slope, which apparently was not too comfortable. So it was with some relief and a sense of satisfaction that we made it to the valley floor in time. Another food and kit drop was near by and after getting that we soon had camp set up. At the start of the course as part of the packing the students had put a set of kit in another bag and this was available to them at this point.

Day 7 and 8. This was a 24-hour solo for the group. This would give the students time alone for thought and reflection. This was done in a very similar way to the solos we do on 3-week courses in the UK. We were based at the camp and able to check on the students. The solos ran from lunchtime to lunchtime and also gave us a chance to relax, enjoy a few goodies that had been dropped out for us as well. The fire ban had been lifted and we had a fire drum at this location so it was nice to sit around the fire. The days had always been hot, and then it would get colder as soon as it got dark. In fact the nights were colder than I expected and was glad that I had a decent sleeping bag. At one stage I had thought to bring a lighter weight bag. With no cloud cover the nights were cold but also gave a great view of the stars. This was particularly so in the Orroral valley. During the solo one of the students who had been struggling with the course finally left the course. A number of conversations had taken place to try to get her to stay and the CC was involved in this process. The parents had also been contracted but in the end the student left the course. After the students came back in from solo we had a great review session where we went through some of the stuff we had asked the students to think about and set the group up well for the final part of the course.

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The rest of the day was spent in planning preparing for the final expedition. With the starting point at our current location, a number of checkpoints, and a pick-up point the students needed to plan a route and then do it pretty much on they own. We would tag along behind just in case but leave as much to them as possible. Once the planning and preparation was done we got moving, camping at the end of the valley ready for a good start the next day. Day 9, 10 and 11. Most the route was through the bush and not on marked trails. The group would have to work well together to get good early starts and keep going throughout the day to get this trip done. We felt they were capable of doing it but it would be a good test. Unfortunately things did not go to plan and the group struggled with some late starts and poor decision-making. They gradually fell behind the targets and had to camp in some very poor places as it got dark before we made it to the planned location. They had not made as far as the water drop so use of water was very limited. We did not have our bedtime hot chocolate which had become a bit of a highlight at the end of the day. We even did a mid expedition review to try to improve things. This was not normally done, as it should have been up to the group. But they continued to make slow progress and again camped where we were when it got dark and in the end had to shorten the journey by moving the pick-up point. Some of the individual students had put in a lot of effort but as a group they had not worked together well to achieve their objectives. The time lost between late starts, navigation errors, and poor time keeping during the day would have made the difference to them completing it. Still we returned to the base for the afternoon and the final morning. With still lots to do it was important to keep the course going. The beam was done again and a problem solving task which got them some goodies at mealtime. Lots of kit to clear up and a bush cook evening meal, which was a great final evening meal.

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Day 12 This was very similar in style to our final day in OBUK. Kit to clear away, final reviews and discussions, with the addition of the first shower for 12 days. The group looked very different all clean and tidy and ready to return home.

It was important to focus on the great learning that the individuals had got from this experience. Most Australians live within a stone throw of the beach and do not know the outback or bush, so having 12 days in this environment was a real adventure. Although perhaps as a group they did not fulfil some of their potential, individually a great deal had been gained.

After the students left we had time to clear the kit away into stores, replacing any kit that was needed to have it ready for the next group that would use it. We then did an end of course review that followed a similar format to ours in the UK, in terms of the details and the format. I then had a couple of days around the base and site seeing in Canberra. I then made my way back to Sydney for a day’s site seeing before my flight to New Zealand.

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Outward Bound New Zealand The first part of my time in New Zealand was spent visiting some friends that I had not seen for many years and combining that with visiting some beautiful locations was a real bonus to the trip. I ended up in Christchurch and took the train up to Picton for the start the Outward Bound International staff symposium. This is run every 2 years at one of the centres and is a mixture of workshops and activities. The meeting point was the ferry terminal in Picton and many of the delegates had opted for using this train to get to the pick up, so the train became the starting point of meeting up.

At the ferry terminal the delegates were gathering and signing in. Our kit was put in a truck and we got onto a ferry that had been hired for the short but spectacular journey through Queen Charlotte sound to Anakiwa where Outward Bound has its centre. On the ferry we were briefed about the protocol of the welcoming ceremony that would be done in the traditional Maori format of a haka. The staff of Outward Bound New Zealand do this at the start of the 3-week courses that form the backbone of their work. After the welcome we were divided into watches to stay in the dormitories. The symposium was to be run in a way that would give us as much of a feel of the style in which OBNZ runs its courses. The rest of the first day was spent settling in and an evening meal cooked in the traditional Maori way, which is called a Hangi. After the meal we had the first guest speaker who was Norm Hewitt an ex All Black who now works with young people. In keeping with the OBNZ way we were up early each morning for PT and then run and dip. The PT consisted of some warm up exercises and some aerobics style routines. The run was 3.2 km along the road and back. Once back at the jetty we walked into the water and then dipped under. This was springtime in the south island of New Zealand so the water was still pretty cold but most entered into the spirit of it.

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Days 2 and 4 consisted of a number of workshops from invited guest speakers. We had given in our preferred options during the first evening. Workshop 1 by Dr Brian Wattchow entitled Sense of Place. An interesting start to the workshops with a spiritual feel to the basic human need of having a sense of place, with links to culture, history and nature. Workshop 2 by Matt Bennett entitled Taking OB home. To be honest I did not get a great deal from this workshop. The transfer of learning is a fundamental part of Outward Bound, if the students are not able to take the learning home and use it in their everyday lives then we are not achieving one of the main goals of Outward Bound. I hoped that I would learn some new ideas from this workshop but the speaker mainly said that the longer the programme the more likely they was to be transfer of learning. To me this is obvious but does not help if your main market is in short courses. Workshop 3 by Ian Culpan entitled Olympism. This was an interesting workshop that compared and contrasted sport and the Olympic movement with Outward Bound. They was some interesting comments about sportifaction of society in terms of clothing and culture at the same time as the de-sportifaction of sport in terms of the views on elitism etc. And how the same may happen to adventure with the growth of ready-made easy access adventure. The workshop also looked at the work that was being done with the New Zealand All Blacks, in what he called the story that cannot yet be told. This was because the work that was done in terms of preparing the team with a wide range of concepts to make them the best ever, was then lost to the fact that the team got beat by France and the nation was shocked by the loss and could not yet see the value in the work that was done. Workshop 4 by Rob Maclean entitled Unaccompanied Students. Rob works for an organisation called NOLS, which uses the outdoors in similar ways to Outward Bound but generally on longer programmes with a focus on leadership. These courses will lead to an unaccompanied journey. In the UK such journeys are only accomplished on three-week programmes, which used to form the backbone of our work but now are a much smaller amount. He had some statistics around the fatalities at NOLS over the years that did not show a link to being unaccompanied. He also had some interesting ideas on autonomy and preparing students in terms of their judgement and decision making skills.

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Workshop 5 by Dr Andrew Brookes entitled Letting go of False Beliefs. Dr Brookes works at a University in Australia and in some ways was very brave to come to Outward Bound and discuss some of his ideas on personality trait and his belief that adventure programmes do not change these, because he was talking about some of the fundamentals of Outward Bound. He suggests that any change seen is a situational change and not a real personality change. This led to some great discussion and certainly had him on the back foot defending his ideas. Questioning the true value of your work is a valuable experience, but I felt that some of this was about the use of particular words around personality and behaviour but it did not change my view that the work of Outward Bound does lead to change. I have seen that and have spoken to enough people who have experienced it to know it happens. Day 3 was a chance to experience some activity. I opted for the sailing so after morning PT, run and dip; and breakfast we took our kit to the jetty to load up the boat we would sail. The boats were similar to our cutters with a dipping mainsail, but with a jib rather than a mizzen. The forecast was not very good with rain and wind but we were lucky and the day started sunny with no wind, so we started by rowing the boat away. The session again was run in the same style that it would have been if we were students on day 1 of a sailing scheme. One member of staff was with us in the boat with another staff member following in an escort motorboat.

As the morning progressed the wind picked up and we were able to sail. The skies stayed clear and we had a great day. We had lunch on the move that was a bit of a feast by our OBUK standards. We went ashore for a short time at a house that had been donated to OBNZ and is use as another base. At this point we also took some time to talk through the types of work and programmes that the various countries use sailing on and how the sessions are run. We headed back to Anakiwa and as we headed to the top of the sound the wind began to drop. In order to keep to the timings we had to take a tow. We off loaded the kit at the jetty, rowed the boat out to its mooring and then swam back to shore. Even though the sun had been hot all day the water was still pretty cold. On the final evening we were entertained with live music from a band made up of OBNZ staff members who were excellent. The next morning was the end of the symposium and in keeping with the end of OBNZ courses we would do a final run. The 3-week courses do a 22 km run but we would do the 1-week course distance of 12 km. This required us getting up at 05.00 hrs for breakfast then getting in the motorboats for a ride up the Sound for the start of the run. It took us along the Queen Charlotte Sound trail back to Anakiwa. It was a nice undulating trail with some great

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views over the sound. I teamed up with Will Ripley who is the Director of Learning and Adventure of OBUK to do this run together and support each other. It was Will who I had approached about doing the trip and his permission and support had been the first step on this great journey. As always we ended the run with a dip. The rest of the morning was spent clearing up and the final closing ceremony. Some of us would be staying on to take part in some activities but for others it was time to go with lots of farewells to the many new friends we had all made.

My original plan had been to take part in a 4-day trip that would involve 2 days of sailing up the Sound followed by 2 days mountain biking. However just before the start of the symposium I had been informed that they was not enough people to do the trip. The only trip I was able to get on was a 5-day white water rafting trip. This ended up being a great way to end my trip. After saying goodbye to the others we loaded up kit for the long drive to the top of the Clarence River, picking up the rafts and trip leader Ben on the way. We arrived after midnight, it was cold, raining, and we were not far from the snow line. We quickly got the tents up and into bed hoping for better weather in the morning. We woke up to clear blue skies and set off down the grade 2/3 river. They were 12 of us on the trip, with representatives from New Zealand, Canada, Australia, USA, and me from the UK. At the end of each day we pulled up on the riverbank and made camp. Cooking on open fires and with the ability to carry lots of kit on the rafts we even had chairs and a table and loads of food. This is one of the few rivers in the world were when you need a drink you just dip the mug in the river and drink the water. The scenery was breathtaking and the group of people fantastic.

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I spent some time with the trip leader, Ben who ran the rafting company but had previously worked with OBNZ. I was able to learn a lot from him and he let me have a go at guiding the raft under his guidance. The evenings around the fire were a great opportunity for us to talk, with lots of swapping of stories and information about Outward Bound and the world in general. We did have some added excitement on the final part of the river we the raft I was in nearly capsized while we were trying to surf a wave. We entered the wave at the wrong angle and the raft got pulled sideways across the wave and then going up on its side. Two of us fell out at this point; the raft stayed upright but got held in wave for a brief moment. I was washed down river towards the other rafts and was fine, the other person who fell out was held under the raft for a very short time but in trying to get out he dislocated his shoulder. We all got to the riverbank to sort things out. Within a group of OB staff we had a great deal of medical/first aid skill. Tyler was strapped up and we continued the short distance to a point where a vehicle could meet us and take Tyler to hospital. We then continued again a short distance to the end of the river as it went into the sea. If this incident had happened on the other days it would have meant a helicopter evacuation, as they was no roads into this area. We cleared the kit away and then headed back to Anakiwa, picking Tyler up on the way who now had his shoulder back in. I will certainly have great memories of this river and a great final part of my trip. I spent the night at Anakiwa and then a night in Auckland again with friends and then flew home.

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Conclusions The first thing to say about the trip is that it reaffirmed my belief that there is something that is Outward Bound, something that is recognisable and stands it out. It includes the obvious like the name and the badge and the type of activities that are used. But it goes much deeper than that in terms of the attitude and professionalism of the staff; their approach to the students and the courses. At its core it is about people and those people making the most of the opportunities that life presents.

“We are all better than we know” Kurt Hahn

We in the UK are clearly doing things very well. Many of the elements of courses I saw had their roots in the UK. The staff who work in the UK would thrive in the places that I visited, they skills and experience being up there with the best. Outward Bound Aberdovey has a special place in the Outward Bound world in that it is where it all started. It was mentioned in all the places that I visited and links made to its history and development. Working in that place it becomes possible to forget that history. Remembering where we have come from is important as you cant get to where you want to go if you don’t know where you have come from. Taking the core of what is Outward Bound each country/school adapts it to suit its own people, climate, facilities, and markets. That is important to make it relevant. We cannot do the same old thing and that is not going against anything that the founders, and particularly Kurt Hahn would have said. Hahn was looking at new ways to solve issues that he saw at that time and I am sure if he were still here he would continue to look for new ways to solve the issues of today. However with so many Outward Bound schools now all learning and developing we do have an opportunity to learn from each other and not re-invent too many wheels. Without it being a specific learning point the fact that OBS had gone from running mainly centre-based courses to now running mobile courses proved that it could be done. The 5-day course I worked on was on paper very similar to many of the courses in the UK, but this was different in that it was a full on course with big activities that had a journey concept, giving the students a much higher level of responsibility. It was adventurous in their terms but had a strong thread of learning and development. Even given our climate and temperature a more journey-based concept can increase the level of adventure and keep the learning without having to be based in a room. I am keen to test out some thoughts on responsibility. At OBS the students were given responsibility as a structured part of the course. In the UK we do not do that in the same way. Is that because we know or because we think they cannot handle that responsibility? Courses in Australia are primarily mobile. The concept of the journey is very strong. The amount of different activities is relatively small. However you could say that less is more in the results that come out. OBA run courses mainly for the education age range as we do, but the courses are generally longer usually around 7 to 9 days. This links in to some of the things I found in Singapore.

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The length of courses is of interest. In the UK our courses are mainly up to 1 week in length. We also run 3-week programmes, which have a huge amount of development and learning and are by a long way our best course. We have not been very successful at selling or running courses in between these lengths. Stages of group development have a group at some point “storming”. On a 3-week course this is recognised as a mid-course dip. When we have run 12 day or 2 week courses in the past they have often ended at the time of that storming and therefore end on a negative rather than positive feeling. Some research in Canada backs up what I have often thought is my own perception of this. At OBA a lot of courses run at the 9 to 12 day length. I discussed this idea of course length with a number of staff and was told it was not an issue they recognised so I was keen to see how this would work out. As I point out in the section on OBA the group did not quite reach their potential and some of this I thought was that process happening but that may have been because I was thinking about it. The OBA Instructors felt that what happened was unusual. I therefore came away with mixed feelings about the length of the course. It is often said that an army marches on its stomach. Getting the right sort of food that students will eat and that is cost effective has always been a challenge in the UK. The 3 schools that I visited are way ahead of us in the food department. We have a lot to learn from them. The food was generally healthy, cooked for the group rather than a tent group, came in large quantities. It was more bulky to carry and cooking for the group in the open will no doubt be effected by the weather. Looking into the food provision is on my list of things do. Working at the East coast base in OBS that is set up for younger groups reinforced my belief that Outward Bound and me in particular is not at its best with younger students. It does however show that if you are going to work with that age group you have to set up for it and not try to mix the two. Solo is a part of most courses in OBA and OBNZ. From 3 days on the longer courses, to perhaps a few hours on the shorter courses. The framing of these sessions was very similar to how we do it. In today’s busy noisy world the value of some quiet time to think and reflect should not be underestimated and something we should consider on a lot more courses. With our generally shorter courses a full solo is not possible but the idea of a very short solo of say one hour is something that if set up in the right way could be of value. The big Descent at OBA was a great example of doing activities as part of a journey. The students had a lot of ownership over the day; it had very real consequences for them, and ended up being one of the best days for the group. It also took us into the Orroral valley, which was one of the most memorable places of the whole trip. Some of the smaller things but never the less noteworthy included. The hoisting of the Blue Peter at the start of the course to signify the start of the voyage. Use of readings in the field. The use of easy to use and carry logbooks. Use of campfires. Star gazing. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Winston Churchill

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Appendices

Thank You’s

Will Ripley Director of Learning and Adventures Outward Bound UK Andy Jeffrey Head Of Centre Outward Bound Aberdovey Nick Barrett Chief Executive Outward Bound UK Ian Wade Outward Bound International Nicholas Conceicao Executive Director Outward Bound Singapore Mohammad Ridzuwan Deputy General Manager Outward Bound Singapore Vincent Wong Heng Choy Deputy Head Training Outward Bound Singapore Abidin Instructor Outward Bound Singapore Everybody else at Outward Bound Singapore Andy Carter Operations Director Outward Bound Australia Ali Rose Course Coordinator Outward Bound Australia Everybody else at Outward Bound Australia Phil Johnston Symposium Coordinator Outward Bound New Zealand Stephanie Bowis Symposium Coordinator Outward Bound New Zealand Everybody else at Outward Bound New Zealand

Big Thank You’s

These are the guys I worked with out in the field. They are a credit to Outward Bound and I cannot thank them enough for our time together and in making this such a special trip for me. Faisal Instructor Outward Bound Singapore Elgene Instructor Outward Bound Singapore Tom Walker Senior Instructor Outward Bound Australia Claire “Bear” Saunders Instructor Outward Bound Australia

Big Big Thank You

Winston Churchill Memorial Trust