Norval

On October 19, 2009 our middle school went to Norval for a team building day.

After a long drive thanks to traffic, we arrived at the colourful forest entrance. We then split into our different grades and played games that had to do with team building. The first was the Inuit blanket toss: where we would toss someone into the air and catch them using a big, reinforced tarp. For the second, we divided our grade in half and went either into the forest or out into the clearing. My team went to the high ropes course to do “Mission Impossible” where one of us wore a harness attached to four ropes and the rest of us would pull on those ropes to move that person around, without touching the ground. Finally, we had to climb a 14 foot wall with only the help of our peers. That was our day in a nutshell, but that was just what happened. What happened as a team is much different.

Being a team is very important; if we don’t work together things can go bad. For the Inuit blanket toss we all did pretty well except for a few minor lapses, such as not pulling the tarp out at the same time. In “Mission Impossible” it went very well except for when Emilie was in the harness. She went as high as the rig could go because two of the four sides pulled as hard as they could without telling everybody else. When we got to the wall, we were tired but we did try very hard. Greg and I did most of the lifting of other people, until they were over the top of the wall. The people at the top had to help pull them up, and because there was a lapse of communication only one person fell. Don’t worry that person was caught! (Somewhat) I think overall we did pretty well as a team except for communication between us.

Norval taught me that there are two sides to team building activities: the physical and the mental. The physical side is fairly easy; if I have to pull on a rope, then I pull on a rope, no big deal. The mental side is the risk taking, communicating, and trusting your peers. Personally, I found trust and communication to be the hardest part of being on a team. So now if I do another team building activity, I will know what I have to work on.