“Many colleagues fail to truly appreciate the benefits and enjoyment this type of Corporate event can bring. I’ve participated in several events like this before and I can honestly say they are so much fun whilst at the same time I’ve learnt lots of new skills that have really helped me. I’ve also made new friends from within the Company, spread from all over the country, whom I now frequently interact with in my day-to-day job. Sometimes you don’t realise the depth, variety, expertise, diversity, experience and damn good laughs you’ve got in your colleagues sat all around you until you’re in an arena to readily discover them.
The excitement and interest in the event normally starts straight from the point of registering. Be it organising a team, deciding who is best to be captain (start with the oldest first if they’ll admit it), to who can come up with a funniest team name that isn’t too inappropriate! Teams then begin to bond together and often begin their boasting against other teams about how many of them could climb Mount Everest at the weekend “if they could be bothered”!
In the weeks leading up to the event the preparation will vary widely. Some people actively walk the dog a bit longer than normal just to “stretch the legs”, some will be dusting off the picnic hamper and some will be trying to find those old walking boots that were “definitely under the stairs the last time they looked in 1987!”. The truth is events like this are ultimately whatever you want them to be and you’ll get just as much out of the experience whether you set out to win the event or whether you just want to relax and amble around the countryside.
The Friday of the event comes around and everything is prepared. Normally one of the team volunteers to drive everyone to the event so it seems compulsory for someone to have bought those travel sweets out of a tin that cover you in powder, as well as some “Power Energy” drink that it claims could fuel a camel. In my experience the journeys to these events have varied widely from Bob snoring on the back seat after 5 minutes, to teams talking strategic tactics, to listening to some old cheesy disco music on the radio, ………to unfortunately getting stuck in a good old traditional British traffic jam! But this is all part of the experience and by the time you reach the destination you’re raring to go and you’ve learnt things about your team mates that you never knew in the office only a couple of hours ago (or slightly longer for the colleagues travelling from the offices further afield such as Aberdeen or Southampton!).
Friday night involves first registering for the event so everyone knows you’ve arrived safe and well and then collecting the information pack that will help guide and direct you on the walk on Saturday. After tracking down your accommodation for the next 2 nights, and freshening up, the team captain often states (orders?) that the team should go and find a bar to prepare with the information pack and to plan for the day ahead. This is also the perfect time to begin meeting with your fellow honourable colleagues (or as they are now known “the evil opposition”) to discreetly find out whether they know anything about the course that you don’t.
Saturday morning comes and depending upon the intensity of the bar preparation the night before it might still seem a bit “hazy”. After a good breakfast it is off to the start with all the essential bits of kit (any excuse to eat an extra chocolate bar these days) ready for the fun to begin. The hooter sounds and your team and all your fellow colleagues begin the adventure. Due to the way the course is designed teams all tend to have different approaches that they think will serve them best from either scoring the maximum amount of points possible right the way through to key priorities like having some “nice downhill slopes” or as one of my old team captains used to state “we have to go past every ‘PH’ on the map for extra points”!!
Time itself generally tends to go very quickly when on the walk between focussing on what direction you’re going to finding the various check-points and solving the odd puzzle or problem that can gain you a few extra points. On the walk you’ll no doubt pass the opposition teams and it’s customary to “boo” and “hiss” as you go past, sometimes deviously giving them very misleading directions they ought to follow to find a “really good” check-point!!!
The location of the walks is always exceptional and a real chance to see parts of the country you wouldn’t normally see and appreciate the wildlife and scenery. Hopefully you’ll make it back from the course to the finish line before the time deadline passes with as many points collected as you wanted to collect, possibly with the odd blister as well for those that genuinely haven’t worn their boots since 1987!
Saturday night involves a good social event with a meal, disco and presentations. Colleagues can let their hair down and if they feel inclined, or still have the energy left, cut a few moves on the dance floor!! Unfortunately all too soon Sunday morning arrives and the teams drift away at their leisure reflecting on their experience and the great adventure they had.
It’s often only when you look back after the weekend that you realise what had been organised and structured as such a natural free-flowing event that so much benefit can come from it: the relationships and networking that has informally happened, the colleagues you’ve caught up with after not seeing for a long while, the employees you’ve met who previously you only knew by their telephone voice, the understanding of how different parts of the company work now you’ve chatted to other colleagues. In addition to this there are all the specific skills that you’ve learnt indirectly as well from perhaps leadership and organisation if you are a team captain right through to delegation, communication, planning, prioritising, motivation, commitment and dedication that can immediately be transferred to the workplace. It’s also great physical exercise for our body to help with our general wellbeing and a great way to generate funds for our excellent Charity of The Year.
Oh ……and did I mention that the kids, the misses and the long list of chores were all safely at home many, many miles away!
I hope to see you on the hills in September so you too can experience and benefit from this fantastic event. I’m the one with the hat ;-)
Wally
An Insider's View!
Last Updated (Thursday, 11 June 2009 09:05)
For those colleagues who don’t really know what the Teamwalk Challenge involves we asked one of our current colleagues who has participated in similar events like this before to describe what the event is really likely to go on:-
“Many colleagues fail to truly appreciate the benefits and enjoyment this type of Corporate event can bring. I’ve participated in several events like this before and I can honestly say they are so much fun whilst at the same time I’ve learnt lots of new skills that have really helped me. I’ve also made new friends from within the Company, spread from all over the country, whom I now frequently interact with in my day-to-day job. Sometimes you don’t realise the depth, variety, expertise, diversity, experience and damn good laughs you’ve got in your colleagues sat all around you until you’re in an arena to readily discover them.
The excitement and interest in the event normally starts straight from the point of registering. Be it organising a team, deciding who is best to be captain (start with the oldest first if they’ll admit it), to who can come up with a funniest team name that isn’t too inappropriate! Teams then begin to bond together and often begin their boasting against other teams about how many of them could climb Mount Everest at the weekend “if they could be bothered”!
In the weeks leading up to the event the preparation will vary widely. Some people actively walk the dog a bit longer than normal just to “stretch the legs”, some will be dusting off the picnic hamper and some will be trying to find those old walking boots that were “definitely under the stairs the last time they looked in 1987!”. The truth is events like this are ultimately whatever you want them to be and you’ll get just as much out of the experience whether you set out to win the event or whether you just want to relax and amble around the countryside.
The Friday of the event comes around and everything is prepared. Normally one of the team volunteers to drive everyone to the event so it seems compulsory for someone to have bought those travel sweets out of a tin that cover you in powder, as well as some “Power Energy” drink that it claims could fuel a camel. In my experience the journeys to these events have varied widely from Bob snoring on the back seat after 5 minutes, to teams talking strategic tactics, to listening to some old cheesy disco music on the radio, ………to unfortunately getting stuck in a good old traditional British traffic jam! But this is all part of the experience and by the time you reach the destination you’re raring to go and you’ve learnt things about your team mates that you never knew in the office only a couple of hours ago (or slightly longer for the colleagues travelling from the offices further afield such as Aberdeen or Southampton!).
Friday night involves first registering for the event so everyone knows you’ve arrived safe and well and then collecting the information pack that will help guide and direct you on the walk on Saturday. After tracking down your accommodation for the next 2 nights, and freshening up, the team captain often states (orders?) that the team should go and find a bar to prepare with the information pack and to plan for the day ahead. This is also the perfect time to begin meeting with your fellow honourable colleagues (or as they are now known “the evil opposition”) to discreetly find out whether they know anything about the course that you don’t.
Saturday morning comes and depending upon the intensity of the bar preparation the night before it might still seem a bit “hazy”. After a good breakfast it is off to the start with all the essential bits of kit (any excuse to eat an extra chocolate bar these days) ready for the fun to begin. The hooter sounds and your team and all your fellow colleagues begin the adventure. Due to the way the course is designed teams all tend to have different approaches that they think will serve them best from either scoring the maximum amount of points possible right the way through to key priorities like having some “nice downhill slopes” or as one of my old team captains used to state “we have to go past every ‘PH’ on the map for extra points”!!
Time itself generally tends to go very quickly when on the walk between focussing on what direction you’re going to finding the various check-points and solving the odd puzzle or problem that can gain you a few extra points. On the walk you’ll no doubt pass the opposition teams and it’s customary to “boo” and “hiss” as you go past, sometimes deviously giving them very misleading directions they ought to follow to find a “really good” check-point!!!
The location of the walks is always exceptional and a real chance to see parts of the country you wouldn’t normally see and appreciate the wildlife and scenery. Hopefully you’ll make it back from the course to the finish line before the time deadline passes with as many points collected as you wanted to collect, possibly with the odd blister as well for those that genuinely haven’t worn their boots since 1987!
Saturday night involves a good social event with a meal, disco and presentations. Colleagues can let their hair down and if they feel inclined, or still have the energy left, cut a few moves on the dance floor!! Unfortunately all too soon Sunday morning arrives and the teams drift away at their leisure reflecting on their experience and the great adventure they had.
It’s often only when you look back after the weekend that you realise what had been organised and structured as such a natural free-flowing event that so much benefit can come from it: the relationships and networking that has informally happened, the colleagues you’ve caught up with after not seeing for a long while, the employees you’ve met who previously you only knew by their telephone voice, the understanding of how different parts of the company work now you’ve chatted to other colleagues. In addition to this there are all the specific skills that you’ve learnt indirectly as well from perhaps leadership and organisation if you are a team captain right through to delegation, communication, planning, prioritising, motivation, commitment and dedication that can immediately be transferred to the workplace. It’s also great physical exercise for our body to help with our general wellbeing and a great way to generate funds for our excellent Charity of The Year.
Oh ……and did I mention that the kids, the misses and the long list of chores were all safely at home many, many miles away!
I hope to see you on the hills in September so you too can experience and benefit from this fantastic event. I’m the one with the hat ;-)
Wally
