Creative work: Onward bound: The first fifty years of Outward Bound Australia and Exegesis written component: Creatively writing historical non fiction

Abstract

Onward Bound: -- the first 50 years of Outward Bound Australia traces the founding and development of this unique, Australian, non-profit, non-government organisation from its earnest beginnings to its formidable position today where it attracts some 5,000 participants a year to its courses.

The project included interviewing hundreds of people and scouring archives and public records to piece together a picture of how and why Outward Bound Australia (OBA) developed -- recording its challenges and achievements along the way.

A mediated oral history approach was used among past and present OBA founders, staff and participants, to gather stories about their history. This use of oral history (in a historical book) was a way of cementing the known recorded facts and adding colour to the formal historical outline, while also giving credence to the text through the use of 'real' people's stories.