Our group was made up of about 18 people, a mixture of academics and administration support staff. It was good to be mixed like this as it stressed the idea that we are a team rather than two op-posing divisions. The weather was bad but the venue had ample indoor space so that we were able to do our outdoors team-building exercises in a large hall. We found ourselves allocated into groups of three in an ingenious and fun manner that avoid-ed the banding together of cliques.

We then had a lot of fun, building and operating a “Mexican railroad” that demanded good team work as well as willingness to help each other. We did this in two big groups of about 9 each and then together with all 18 taking part. We also did some smaller three-member team challenges that were of a more intimate nature and that got us all working together and sharing in our small groups.

After tea, we did a very enjoyable picture painting challenge that lasted the rest of the day. In this challenge, we painted a number of frames that together made up a big picture. We worked in our groups of three but we had to share the tasks among ourselves, help each other as deadlines loomed, and collaborate with other groups to ensure that there was unity of theme/purpose as well as to ensure that colour schemes matched up with adjacent frames being painted by other groups. The final product was the big picture consisting of the component frames all joined together to make the picture. It was beautiful and we will now keep it in our School as a reminder of what we can achieve when we work together, and also of how much fun we had in the process of putting the picture together and working with colleagues.

The following impressions of the day stand out:

• The team building facilitators were flexible, engaging and full of fun.
• The program was well-designed, and perhaps surprising to many of us (as we had not known what to expect and were a bit apprehensive, imagining something like Kamp Staaldraad on valium).
• The choice of activities was fun as well as encouraging participation, collaboration, and helping one another, all the things that make for good team-building.

I am sure we all left with a good feel