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After almost three months of cycling to raise awareness of acquired brain injury, former Brumbies Coach and Outward Bound Alumni Andy Friend is taking on the last leg of his journey with Outward Bound CEO Darren Black.

Andy and Darren will ride together from Taralga NSW to Canberra, finishing the last leg of a 5000km journey outside Parliament house on Saturday 3^rd December. The pair, along with Andy’s support team and wife Kerri, will celebrate the achievement with sponsors, Outward Bound Australia and Brian Injury Australia at a dinner at the National Press Club on Saturday night.

The FRIENDly Ride began on 1st September as a three month Mountain Bike challenge from Cooktown to Canberra, for Andy and Kerri to support a cause close to both their hearts. After Kerri acquired a Brain Injury in an accident while Mountain Biking just 12 months ago, the couple have decided to donate all sponsorship funds raised from the ride to Brain Injury Australia and The Outward Bound Foundation to run outdoor programs for participants with an Acquired Brain Injury.

Andy said the ride was designed not only to test his physical and mental endurance on the bike, but also to assist Kerri with her recovery as she supports him by being a part of the back up team.

“Kerri and I have always enjoyed the outdoors and we were both Outward Bound instructors when we met. The accident changed our world and prior to it I admittedly didn’t know much about acquired brain injury or the affect it has on people and their families,” Andy said.

Andy said this challenge has been one of the toughest he’s ever faced, but he’s determined to conquer the last leg in order to help his family personally and others publicly.

Kerri has been managing Andy’s social media activity, allowing fans to follow them on their 5000km journey and show their support. Andy has also been writing a regular blog, which includes some inspirational and humorous anecdotes about his experiences during the ride:

DAY 82 – MONDAY 21ST NOVEMBER 2011

DUNNS SWAMP CAMP to WALLERAWANG (95kms)

“…After a long soaking shower, I iced my knees and replenished my depleted water levels. Kez and I then decided to head into the restaurant for a meal. My three courses barely hit the sides!”

DAY 80 – SATURDAY 19TH NOVEMBER 2011

SANDY HOLLOW to DUNNS SWAMP CAMP (96kms)

From Widden Stud the track turned to gravel and quickly into sandy soil as it began the ascent of the Great Dividing Range in Wollomi National Park. The next two hours seemed like they’d never end. The track was heavy given the recent rain and the bike just seemed to stick rather than roll. It felt like I had two flat tyres the whole time. To make matters worse, the steepness of the climbs were well over 15% and the temperature was now up in the 30’s. By the time I reached “Keith’s Lookout”, I was just about spent. I can only remember two other days on the whole journey when I’d felt so drained.

DAY 71 – THURSDAY 10TH NOVEMBER 2011

GOSTWYCK to NOWENDOC (120kms)

Kez fed me a ham sandwich, a Mars bar and a bottle of Powerade to try and pick up my energy levels. I told myself to ride for another hour max, and that would make tomorrow much easier. Off I plodded, slowly but surely turning the pedals over. After about 20 mins, the fuel I’d just eaten kicked in and I felt great again. About two hours and another 40kms later I pulled up, just south of Nowendoc, having ridden 120kms, the furthest I’d ridden since we started our journey in Cooktown.

To read more of Andy’s blog and find out how he and Darren fare on the last leg of this epic ride, visit The FRIENDly Ride website.

If you’re inspired by Andy and Kerri’s journey, you can support their cause and those with acquired brain injury by making a donation here

2012 is gearing up to be a big year for Outward Bound, with a suite of great new courses as things start heating up over in the West and with the acquisition of our new business, Outward Bound @ Inter-Action. There’s also a lot happening in the leadership space, with a range of tailored programs aimed at helping youth develop the skills needed to help them become positive leaders in their communities.

Business in Western Australia is full steam ahead, with the introduction of an Indigenous Leaders Program and School Leaders program, as well as the first ever corporate Catalyst program to be held at the Walpole base:

-          WA Indigenous Leaders, 14th-20^th January, 2012, for Indigenous students ages 15-17.

-          WA School Leaders, 23^rd – 29^th January, 2012, for aspiring school leaders ages 15-17.

-          WA Catalyst Leadership Development, 5^th-11^th February, 2012, for professionals over 18.

Meanwhile, back over on the east coast, we’ll also see a busy year with the introduction of the first Youth Navigator course and a Scenic Rim to River course at the northern NSW based operational area, Outward Bound @ Inter-Action:

-          Northern NSW Youth Navigator, 7^th-19^th January, 2012, for anyone ages 15-17.

-          Northern NSW Scenic River to Rim, 30^th June - 13^th July, 2012, for anyone over 18.

We’re also very excited to welcome back the much loved Victorian Snowy River Navigator course after a two-year break:

-          VIC Youth Navigator, 8^th-20^th January, 2012 for anyone ages 15-17.

Last but certainly not least, Outward Bound is proud to announce the very first Leadership Development course designed for young Leos, supported by Lions Clubs of Australia. Read about this exciting new opportunity in the article below:

- ACT Leos Leadership, 23^rd-25^th January, 2012, for Leos ages 15-17.

For more information about each of these courses, select the course title in the events list to the right of this page.

Outward Bound Australia and The Smith Family’s annual National Aspiring Leaders Summit (NALS) will now be able to continue providing leadership opportunities to young people across Australia thanks to a new partnership with The Trust Company.

Outward Bound Australia and The Smith Family were selected by The Trust Company as one of 17 Strategic Partners in the not-for-profit sector, as part of its Engaged Philanthropy Strategy.

The partnership will see a multi-year financial commitment from The Trust Company as Trustee for the Fred P. Archer Charitable Trust to fund the NALS Program for three years, giving Outward Bound and The Smith Family the necessary resources to offer young people across Australia the opportunity to learn leaderships skills that can help them make a difference in their communities.

Simon Lewis, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Communications and Community at The Trust Company said each Strategic Partner falls into three program areas; Socially Inclusive Education, Positive Ageing and Living with Disability with organisations that support social enterprise, innovation and capacity building also identified as partners

“Outward Bound and The Smith Family were chosen for demonstrating alignment between their program and the core objective of the Engaged Philanthropic Strategy, to maximise the discernable social impact for the benefactors who have entrusted us with their legacy,” Mr Lewis said.

The National Aspiring Leaders Summit falls into The Trust Company’s program area of Social Inclusive Education, with the program focusing on developing the necessary skills, attitudes and behaviours in young people that will allow them to effectively address social problems and declines in modern society as positive leaders.

At a fundamental level, NALS addresses six declines in modern society through experiential education and facilitation: self-discipline; compassion; initiative and enterprise; fitness; memory and imagination; and skill and care.

By addressing these social declines and providing young people with resilience, confidence and self-awareness, Outward Bound and The Smith Family, together with The Trust Company, aim to engage young people and encourage a significant, long-term positive impact in Australian communities.

Outward Bound Australia CEO Darren Black says the National Aspiring Leadership Summit is always a highlight of Outward Bound’s calendar.

“The progress the young people make during their week at the Aspiring Leaders Summit with Outward Bound is amazing,” Mr Black said.

“Their drive and commitment to making a difference in their community is inspiring to see.”

The discretionary funding for Outward Bound and The Smith Family’s NALS program, along with The Trust Company’s 16 other partners, is distributed through the Fred P. Archer Charitable Trust, for which The Trust Company is Trustee. The Trust was established by Fred P. Archer prior to his death in 1977 after spending 54 years in Papua New Guinea. The trust deed directs distributions “For the relief of poverty within the Commonwealth of Australia including Papua New Guinea, for the advancement of education and for other like purposes”.

For more information about the NALS Program, or if you are interested in partnering with Outward Bound to offer young Australians life-changing opportunities, contact:

Australian Outward Bound Development Fund Director, Lucas Gamble
Ph: 1800 627 999
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

About The Trust Company

www.thetrustcompany.com.au

The Trust Company is one of Australia’s longest-serving financial services companies with over 125 years of experience. The Trust Company Group provides trustee services for personal, corporate and philanthropy clients and has over A$1 billion in charitable funds under administration. Currently serving as trustee for over 800 charitable trusts, The Trust Company has recently launched a new Engaged Philanthropy program, designed to create lasting social impact in the community. This is led by 17 strategic partnerships with key non-profit organisations across the sector.

The Trust Company Group has offices in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

Ten days straight and over 700km of trekking, mountain biking and kayaking with little sleep in between sounds a bit like a nightmare – unless you work for Outward Bound, in which case it’s an adventure of a lifetime.

Outward Bound staff members Chris St Jack, Jason Schreiber, Laura Marshall and Ben Kaiser took on the challenge of this year’s XPD Adventure Racing World Championships and pushed themselves to the ultimate limit of human endurance.

In true Outward Bound style, throughout the race the team embodied principals of the Outward Bound culture; resilience, self-discipline, skill and reflection, as they endured harsh conditions and navigated through check-points to the finish line.

Team member Laura said their ultimate goal was to finish as a ranked team of four, which they successfully achieved, finishing the race with an impressive rank of 37^th out of 89 teams from countries around the world.

Laura recounts the team’s experiences:

“’As much an expedition as a race’ is the XPD motto and this year it was combined with the Adventure Race World Championships, 89 teams began, with 44 ‘full teams’ finishing the race.  Ben, Jason, Chris and I headed to the wild, wet and wonderful north-west coast of Tasmania for ten days of adventure racing. We undertook a variety of activities including trekking, kayaking, mountain biking, clay pigeon shooting, caving and canyoning, covering a total of 733km.

We began steadily, keeping a pace we could maintain. The weather came in many variations: heat, cold, wind, rain and snow. We experienced a few bike mechanicals - a broken chain, a split tyre and worn out brake pads. These were dealt with and we moved on steadily.

We pushed on with minimal sleep. Until the Arthur River we averaged two hours sleep a night, with some nights just settling for power naps, stopping and sleeping where we were for 20 minutes; just enough time to recharge but not get cold. The sleep monsters were evident early on with hallucinations and voices constantly being heard– surely there was a group coming up behind us! Covering large distances on one discipline, like biking or kayaking, is hard when combined with sleep depravation as the monotomy of the task started giving us the nods. This was very evident on the 70km kayak leg where we found we would just catch ourselves before falling into the river! Alternatively, hitting a rapid normally refocused us!

The Arthur River was a highlight, with continuous flowing water up to Grade Two white water and encased by the ancient and somewhat prehistoric feel of the Tarkine Forest. The river section also had an enforced Dark Zone so from 7pm until 6:30am we had to stay off the water, meaning the chance to dry out with a fire, hot food and more than double our sleep hours thus far.

The final legs were tough as our bodies were feeling the drain of energy and injuries started to appear in our feet and legs. Nevertheless, we maintained high spirits even with the most gruelling part of the journey towards the end, a trek of 25 km; a short distance but over boulders, dense bush and mostly in the darkest hours of the night.

This played on our minds and bodies quite a lot, so we were relived to reach the final transition and enjoyed a smooth last leg of mountain biking, taking in some roads along the coast to Burnie oval with a lap of the cycle track and a warm welcome form Bens family.

One of the beautiful aspects of XPD was the ripple effect on people supporting us. One example is Ben’s sister, a primary school teacher in Tasmania who used the values of  XPD as a teaching aid for her Grade One and Two class. The children sent us some beautiful poems, pictures and asked us a lot of questions. They also told us that they played XPD at lunchtime and followed our date on line. That’s a whole class of people following Outward Bound!

Our ultimate goal was to finish as a ranked team of four and we are happy to say we achieved this, along with many individual, personal goals. In summary, XPD was an amazing experience and we would like to thank everyone who has supported us, especially Moxie Gaiters, Outward Bound Australia, Andrea Strand, Mick Scicluna, Equipped and our family and friends.”