22nd January 2010

My friends,

Never too late to say a Happy New Year to everybody! Hopefully 2010 will be a “roaring” year for all of us.

It is not surprising that when we finished our last Course for year 2009 on 24^th December, which was the Petronas Scholars 9/2009, most Instructors including me were down with a flu bug or something. So we had to take our break whether we like it or not…..after handling over 300 kids for the CAC & YAC in November and December, what do you expect? BUT the reward of seeing those kids’ faces (including their parents and guardians) at the end of the courses was enough to “heal” our tired mind and body!

The first course for 2010 started on 9^th January with 79 participants from Petronas Scholars 1/2010 on their 7-day Whaler & Kayak programme.

We also had the Alumni 1/2010 activity on 18^th January and at their request, a very tough Whaler programme where they went to Pantai Shawal & later to Pulau Rumbia (almost 20km in a straight line!) & back…all within three days! The team was led by Mohandas Mohan (our Malaysian Mr. Everest), his able assistant Kaynis and all together fifteen Ex-Bounders (including five females). As I said in my earlier write-up, Ex-Bounders are crazy (but nice) people!

On a more serious note, namely after the Gopeng-Kampar Bridge and Dragon Boat tragedy recently, we cannot but stress that SAFETY is of top priority when doing ALL of our activities. That is why sometimes our participants complained of too much emphasis by us on supervision, preparatory briefing & exercises plus countless reminders of safety procedures and drills whenever we do wall-climbing, belaying, repelling, abseiling, trekking, camping, kayak (capsized drill & escort of Safety & Speed boat), and whaler activities (a ratio of two Whalers to be escorted by one Safety boat), and even during the morning exercises. Of course there is already an inherent risk whenever we do any outdoor activity but due care & diligence must be exercised at all times. We have Risk Analysis assessment on EVERY activity and it has to be evaluated & approved by management before we can do that activity.

For your information, Outward Bound Malaysia (in fact all Outward Bound Schools) are audited biannually by a team of experts from Outward Bound International on our adherence to the Safety Management System and may have our license revoked if there are serious breach to recognized International Safety Standards. At the same time, we are in close contact with the relevant authorities and abide to their directions and advice.

Always remember that Nature is the perfect “classroom” & the best “teacher” is Mother Nature, as long as you follow its rule, and if you break it, it will be very unforgiving!

Whatever it is, just go out and do it  “A ship in harbor is safe – but that is not what ships are built for.”

Hello Everybody,
A Happy New Year to all Muslim (Ma’al Hijrah) today and as usual let’s open
a new page in our Book of Life.

The Children Adventure Course “CAC”, the Youth Adventure Course “YAC” & the Overseas Youth Programme “OYP” are ongoing now till just before Christmas. The CAC 70, OYP 12 & YAC 24 completed about a week ago and currently the CAC 71 & YAC 25 are ongoing. In fact, the CAC 71 consisting of 78 kids ages ranging from 10 to 12 years old are now camping at Teluk Sekadeh Pulau Pangkor for the two nights while they carry out their rock climbing & trekking!

Frankly, it always baffles me when I see the smiling albeit darkened faces of these kids when they completed their 10-day course and trying to convince their parents that they want to come back for the YAC so that they can kayak to & from Pangkor!

I must quote here the case of Nigel Low Tze Xi (12 years old), a participant of CAC 70 recently, fractured his wrist on the second day while doing the Wall Climbing at base and was advised to stay in the Medical Bay. When I saw him crying that night, it was not tears of pain but sadness that he may not be able to join his newly found friends to do all the other activities. Without a second thought, we allowed him to follow on condition that his friends support him all the way – of course our Instructors had sleepless nights monitoring his progress! Special compliments to his parents when they told me “He is a tough boy..Please carry on”. Please see his handwritten letter to me received after the course. THAT is the “magic” of Outward Bound!

Commercial – Please note that we have updated all the Enrolment Forms.

More than likely, we will meet up again in 2010 and would like to wish everybody……
A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all of us at Outward Bound Malaysia, Lumut!