Challenges and Teamwork

Today was a pretty easy morning, after throwing on some clothes I headed downstairs to meet with my group to prepare for the challenge course we'd be participating in later today. At the meet up in the lounge we were given socks to put on to protect us from ticks. You might expect that this extra protection would assure you of your safety, but the socks just made me more anxious. After putting on the tick socks over our jeans and regular socks the group headed over to breakfast together. Today I went with the french toast and tater tots,  both tasted very good and I took a banana for the road. 

The beautiful view of the water.

We finished breakfast and all of us gathered outside again to head over to our buses. Since our group was small but our buses were big we had a lot of extra seats open and it made the ride more comfortable. After a little over 30 minutes of driving we were in Massachusetts and at the site for the low ropes course. Stepping of the bus made me both excited and nervous for what was ahead of me. We then met up with a few more groups and formed a big circle where a leader told us what to expect and what precautions we should take while on site. One of the precautions included doing tick checks with a partner. After our introduction to the event we went off to prepare. 

Our preparations for today included bathroom stops, loads of bug spray, and coating our shoes with a tick repellent. After being assured I was coated in bug spray, I met back up with my group and we started our day with trust activities. We played three different games which all involved a lot of communication and teamwork. This allowed for us to all become more familiar with each other and begin to really trust each other as a team. All the games took a lot of repetition to learn from our mistakes to complete the challenges we were given. All of this practice created a great atmosphere between all the members of our group and allowed us to be successful when we got to the actual rope course. Before heading over to the course we sat down for lunch and ate sandwiches and chips.

We walked a for about 5 minutes until we reached the area for the challenges. The walk felt extra long with the added heat factor. We went to three different challenges and each took about 45 minutes including a debrief at the end of each. The first challenge involved balancing this large platform with our bodies, each round we were given a new challenge to try. The second challenge involved swinging from platform to platform  (which were crowded with team members) without spilling a cup of water. The third challenge involved moving between three platforms using two wooden planks. The debriefs after each challenge allowed us to express our feelings and thoughts about the course. This was also a great tool to get more familiar with our team. The whole day felt like a war with nature. Bugs were flying all around me and I was constantly shaking my clothes when somebody pointed out a bug being on me. The bug spray was obviously not very effective. After the games we headed back to eat some cookies and left over chips. We then did one last debrief with all of the other groups, and one last tick check. We then headed back to the buses and took a short ride back to the campus. I was still very full off of our lunch and all the snacks I ate so when I got back to campus I headed straight to my dorm to work on my leadership life map project. Getting home early allowed me to get done with everything and finish my reading reflection for the night.