Team Building Day
It was our Team Building away day last Friday. For the last three years we have been to Lose Hill Hall at Castleton in Derbyshire. It is an amazing place and we were rewarded again with a lovely day to take full advantage of the beautiful surroundings.Before your head begins to fill with pictures of us orienteering or building a craft out of oil drums and rope, let me tell you that Ben’s Centre’s team building days are very different….thankfully!
Working with the client group we do, we do not really need any more adrenalin rushes. We have plenty of those in the course of the week. We started with a very novel way of introducing our self which got everyone relaxed. We then play a game that has become a firm favourite with our team, the chocolate game! As you will see from the photographs it was a game with a difference. You had to roll a dice and the one with a six had to put on the lovely hat and scarf and gloves and very fetching sun-glasses. You then had to attack the chocolate bar with a knife and fork and try and get into the chocolate. All the time you are trying to do this the dice is progr
essing round the circle and so often you were just about to get some yummy chocolate into your mouth when someone shouted six and you were stopped by the hat and other clothing being taken off you. It is very interesting to see how competitive some of our team got!
We bring together our staff, volunteers, admin and book-keeping staff and our management committee so it is so good for us to relax and learn more about each other. Volunteers rarely meet each other and that goes for our admin lady Maria and Mary our book-keeper. We are all a valuable and significant member of Ben’s Centre and days like this help to re-enforce this. 
Wendy had worked very hard in getting us to take part in all sorts of different activities. She had carefully and thoughtfully done this so that at the end of the day you felt that you all knew each other a lot better and had us working more efficiently as a team. Also it helped us all to see why it is we do certain things and why these boundaries and practices are in place. This is always a big help to volunteers and the members of staff who don’t work full time and it makes them again feel part of our team and understand more our client group.
We have an excellent lunch in the middle of the day which is a treat for all of us and a time again to relax and unwind and chat informally to one another. Sitting outside having our coffee looking at the autumnal colours we knew that it had been a wonderful day. All Wendy’s hard work was so appreciated and our only question to her was once a year was not enough…. So when would the next one be?