This time last year I was asked to run a team building day with the Year 7 pupils at Ellesmere College. It was a day run for several successive years by Huw Gilbert, a fellow outdoor instructor and friend. Last year, Huw was unable to make it due to a prior booking and asked me to stand in. This year, we decided that we’d try running the day together to lighten the load a little.

The day consisted of 6 team tasks, split up by a couple of story telling sessions based on the adventures of explorers that found themselves on exceptional circumstances, and had to pull together as teams to survive. Tasks required a combination of planning, analysis and refinement, co-operation, trust, identifying strengths and weaknesses, creativity and speed.

After a fun day of working together on the tasks, the teams spent some time reviewing their performances and the day in a couple of low key ways. All in all, the day went really well, and probably benefitted from having two of us on the case. I suspect we’ll opt to do similar if we get the chance again next year.