For anyone who has ever started a new job you will know how nerve racking and how sick you feel on your first day, meeting new people, doing new things, trying to make a good impression. Well for me, sat on the coach on the way to the team building trip to Patterdale felt exactly the same.
Being part of the university and the apprentiship scheme is amazing, you meet so many people but you never actually get to know them. With the other apprentices we only ever meet when we are at meetings, courses or sometimes in just passing. This is probably the reason for our team building trip to Patterdale – So we can get to know each other.
Patterdale is a small village in the Lake District; basically it’s IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. Whilst there we were to stay at Patterdale Hall, which is a Victorian building, and we were to undergo lots of different activities to help us work effectivity as a team.
At the moment of being sat on the coach I was nervous, I had never been away on a team building week before and I didn’t really know anyone, I couldn’t even remember everyone’s names. Then we arrived…
No sooner had we put our bags down that we were thrown straight into an activity. The activity being raft building. We had logs, barrels and string. The aim was to get everyone over to the other side of the water and keep the raft in one piece. Because the group was so big we were split into 2 groups, this therefore meant that not only did we have to work as a team, get everyone across with our raft still intact, but we also had to beat the other team.
This was our first activity and you could tell that we didn’t really know each other; it took time to get into the swing of who was doing what and what your part was within the team. Before we knew it there were 2 rafts built. All that was left was to get across the water in one piece.
We carried our raft into the water, not really having a strategy on how to actually get across. The first time we got on it we were actually stuck on the lake bed. So after a bit of a sluggish start we eventually seemed to be getting somewhere. In the end the team that I was on lost the race between the 2 rafts but we all made it across in one piece.
More activities like this followed throughout the week from rock climbing to canoeing. All the activities were focused on us being a team with every activity having a different team leader.
For me, my favourite activity was the canoeing, I think this was because it was something where we all had to work as a team and also because the group I was in was in front of the other. We canoed the whole length of the lake and even used tents as sails. I was one of the two in my canoe that was in charge of steering, we had to make sure that the canoe was facing the right direction and that when the sails were up they were in the wind.
For everyone there was a challenge somewhere in the week, whether it be being in water or being at height. For me personally everything was a challenge. I’m unfit and I knew I wouldn’t have the stamina or the physical abilities like the others. Out of all the activities the walking expedition was the hardest. This activity required us to walk to a place where we were to camp for the night. This meant we had rucksacks of essential things we would need on our backs, from sleeping bags to cooking stoves. From the start I knew in my head I wouldn’t be making it to camp, it was a long way and I could only just carry my own weight let alone the weight of a full bag. I said I wanted to make it half way and I managed just over that before having to go back. I felt as if I’d let my team down, but after thinking about it and discussing it with one of the others I came to the conclusion that id challenged myself and that me having to come back would allow the rest of my team to be challenged.
By the end of the week we were all knackered and ready for home. The week in Patterdale was great, and I feel that I have really gotten to know the other apprentices. I feel that team building activities like the ones carried out at Patterdale Hall were really beneficial, not only to enable us to work as a team but as a good way for us to get to know each other and more importantly make friends.
