Vikarabad Trails

Vikarabad Trails.

We went on a 2-day team building camp to a place called Trails in Vikarabad. Here we performed several team building activities through which we got to communicate and discover each other’s capabilities.

There were several team building activities to be performed. We started off with a Zip line. For me it wasn’t a new experience as I had done Zip lining on a couple of occasions before. However it was quite an experience to see the reactions of fear of those who were afraid of heights and hadn’t done anything of this sort before. It was a part of the team building to be able to motivate them and supply them with the courage to push them in.

Then we also had team rock climbing. In this we had to compete with the other teams in terms of the amount of time it took for the entire team to climb the rock climbing course. I again did not struggle to complete this activity as I had already performed this activity before. However there was much to learn in watching those who hadn’t done this before. Some struggled but went through due to their persistence. While the others got stuck but didn’t give up. They stayed and tried every possible way, they stayed till they realized that it was probably better for them to give the chance to the next person to improve the team’s timing.

 We also performed another activity in which an ‘A’ shaped structure had to be moved from one end of an area to the other and back. The ‘A’ shaped wooden frame had 4 ropes tied at the top for team members to pull. One person would stand on the horizontal dash of the structure to turn the frame by tilting to one side and the structure getting pulled by the ropes simultaneously by the other members. Our team again struggled due to the lack of communication and coordination. People pulled too much or in the wrong direction causing the frame to fall.

Then, we also had team volley ball with mats. Here each team would stretch a mat and use it to catch and throw the volleyball across. In this activity, coordination was the key. We lacked that and ended up losing this activity too. We lost in ALL the activities we performed so far, including this one and we had started to give up on the team.

Another activity that we had was where the entire team would have to walk across a thin wire and the best timing was measured. Here, our team performed well and finished with second rank. However in the overall points table, we still found ourselves last.

The next activity was to compose a music piece and perform. Here again, none of our team members were musicians and we had started to give up. But I tried to continue to make some sense out of the ‘noise’ that our instruments made. I tried to use my creativity and used my surrounding. There were a few steel glasses around us. I filled them with water to different levels and struck them as they produced different sounds. We used this and finished first in the activity. Here I learned the importance of creativity and how much it was value. I also learned how to improve coordination with the team and grab everyone’s interest. With this win, we moved up to second place on the points table.

The last activity was a team treasure hunt. Here we had to find our team flags scattered across the premises and bring them back to a central checkpoint. Our team finished first by collecting all the flags the fastest.  Through this activity I learned the importance of coordination. We had to coordinate our moves with our team players even though we were scattered in different areas of the premises. At the end of this activity, we finished first on the table. We learned a lot about our team mates and fellow teams.