People Outdoors and abseiling for the first time

A couple of weeks ago (sorry for delay in posting this) I had the privilege of attending a People Outdoors Camp to Stringybark Lodge Camp.

The photo is of part of our group at the hut building activity. I am standing on the left in the very flattering beanie behind the camper I was looking after that week - Matthew.

Matthew is a great guy and had a fantastic time and pushed himself out of his comfort zone to have ago at activities like the flying fox and low ropes and climbing wall.

I also had an experience of pushing myself out of my comfort zone when I experienced my first abseil. I need to confess here that I am a bit uncomfortable with heights. Often when I am looking down from a high place I feel like I am being drawn over the edge - I don't know if this is just me or whether this is a common experience with heights - it would be great to hear about your experiences with heights - but I know it feels a bit freaky from where I sit.

Many of you will have had a lot of experience with abseiling and so I don't know if you will remember your first time - but that experience of leaning out backwards over the drop for the first time is something that will stay with me for a very long time. Forcing myself (with encouragement from my instructor) to lean out backwards over that, admittedly short, drop was a very rewarding and exciting thing to do. (Isn't it funny how these things always look higher when you are at the top looking down than when you are looking up from the bottom?)

After that first big step the descent was exhilarating and I would highly recommend it to everyone. I am also more committed than ever to work to make sure as many people as possible get opportunities for experiences like this as I want everyone to that same sense of achievement and feeling of self worth that I got. It is one of the benefits that we can offer through camp and outdoor programs that we should be shouting from the treetops.

I have some video of my first abseil and as soon as I can work out how to upload it to You Tube (I have had one failed attempt) I will link it to this blog.

A good walk spoiled?

The photo you see to the right is from the walking track around the Barwon River at Geelong in Victoria. It is the walk my wife and I use on a regular basis. It is a great walk because it is close to home and there are a number of circuit options from the car park which range from about 50 minutes up to 4-5 hours (we haven't done the long walk yet). My wife was born and grew up near this river using this track and she tells me the walking/bike track you can see has been there as long as she can remember (I'm too smart to put a number of years here!).

Then this sign appeared sometime during the past 12 months. At first I just ignored it but the more we walked past it the more annoyed I became. What does it mean? Nothing has changed on the track so why now? I have come to the conclusion that this is what happens when you let lawyers get involved in matters that belong in the realm of common sense.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at the meeting to discuss the erection of this sign! How do you think it went? I can't imagine the bizarre justifications that were used at that meeting but I believe it boils down to one thing - a ridiculous and totally over the top aversion to risk and an abrogation of personal responsibilty. The gradient referred to in the sign is not a particularly steep one and if we take this sign to its logical conclusion does that mean that there will need to be a sign notifying us of every change in gradient on the track? If so then there will be an awful lot of signs. It is really just visual pollution and shows us that it is not just our children who are being wrapped in cotton wool but that our whole society which is heading this way - unless we start to do something about it and reclaim the place of risk and personal responsibility as desirable concepts.

Resilience - are we helping?

I went to one of the Alfred Deakin Lectures at Ballarat University last week. The title was 'The Geography of Hope' and it covered a range of issues under the banner of environmental challenges. One of the speakers was Dr Brian Walker, Research Fellow with CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems. But it was his role as Program Director and Chair of the Board of the Resilience Alliance that caught my attention. Brian pointed out that given the very significant changes that are going to be forced on us all because of climate change we will need to build resilience in our communities and individuals to cope with these changes.

When Preston B. Cline was here in Australia last year he also said that in these times of rapid technological change we need to build resilience in our children if they are to cope with the rapid pace of change.

Increasingly we are hearing from commentators and academics that we are 'cotton woolling' our children in our attempts to protect them from risk. Our society is becoming increasingly risk averse - and yet it is our contention in the camps and outdoors sector that by supporting and encouraging children to engage with risk in a thoughtful and planned way that we can in fact build their resilience.

We continue to hear about the 'obesity epidemic', increasing rates of suicide amongst teenagers and increasing incidences of mental illness and depression. Surely we can't solve these problems by withdrawing further into our protective cocoons? That might be a natural reaction but it must be detrimental in the long term because it suggests that it is safer at home on the couch than it is to be out riding your bike, safer in a tightly controlled environment than it is exploring and playing. Well it might be safer in the immediate short term - but what about the longer term impacts on our health and wellbeing? To believe that we can, or need to, somehow protect our children from the disappointments that inevitably are a part of growing up and working out how they fit in the world is, while understandable, not helpful in the long run.

So is trying to manage risk out of existence, in an effort to protect our children and ourselves from harm, actually counterproductive? I suggest the answer is yes.

Camp Coorong

I had the opportunity to visit Ana at Camp Coorong recently. Camp Coorong is a beautiful camp on the Gippsland Lakes near Bairnsdale in Victoria. I was there with Rob Gunston, who is a professional photographer working with us to capture some photos we can use to promote the camp experience.

The reason we were there on the day was to meet with Wanda Braybrook and Kelly Faldo, who had organised a camp for women on behalf of the Aboriginal Family Violence Prevention & Legal Service. We were there for day one and were taken into the pink room they had set up - and I mean pink. Day one was pamper day and so there were massages, hair care, manicures and other female stuff that I don't quite understand - but they were certainly enjoying it. (The photo is of Wanda, me, Ana and Kelly)

For day two they had planned a self defence class and some adventure activities like the high ropes course and the flying fox.

Thank you to all the women on the camp for allowing us to visit and to take photos - they made us feel very welcome. We will post some more photos on the ACA website soon.

I might also add that I had possibly the best scone I have ever had for morning tea cooked by Ana's wonderful cook Jean - thanks Jean

Anxiety - a modern illness?

Came across a great quote the other day (thanks Alistair). "Anxiety is one of the greatest of modern ills. And it flourishes most in the fat soil of security. It is a middle-class disease, endemic in those countries which enjoy the highest standards of living and the greatest stability. We have banished fear, which is a healthy emotion, only to admit anxiety, which is a morbid one. We no longer wake up in the morning mildly astonished and delighted to have been safely brought to the beginning of this day. We no longer spring to our feet to satisfy ourselves that there is no immediate threat. Instead we come gradually to consciousness, and lie in bed in complete safety, gnawed by anxiety... The man who pins his faith on security is bound to suffer from anxiety, for he knows in his heart that however many insurance policies he takes out, he can never really be safe. This very night his soul may be required of him. It is only when he turns outward, to some end outside himself, in other words embarks on life's adventures, that he saves himself and exchanges anxiety for mere fear."
Tom Price. Former Warden (Executive Director) Outward Bound Mountain School, Eskdale, England (1960’s), Mountaineer; Address to the RSA 1966

A great piece of wisdom from more than 40 years ago. Now more than ever we seem to have a focus on eliminating risk in our lives and so this piece of advice would seem to be more relevant than ever. One of our challenges is to advocate for the role of risk in our activities as a legitimate learning tool. This is something we will be working on in the year ahead.

Welcome

Welcome to the Australian Camps blog. In my role as Executive Officer of the Australian Camps Association I get to visit some great camps in fantastic locations. In the past 12 months I have had a barbecue on the deck of a camp looking down the Swan river to Perth, Western Australia. I have visited camps overlooking Victor Harbour and on the Coorong in South Australia. I also visited a camp overlooking the Derwent River in Tasmania and camps on the Hawkesbury river in New South Wales.

I hope to use this blog to share with you some of those adventures and, if I can work the technology, some amateur photographs as well. We are convinced that a whole range of benefits flow to those groups who undergo a camp experience and we have over 300 member camps to choose from all around Australia. I hope you become as enthusiastic as I am about camps.