Closed and Opposed

We've had a really great weekend, team-building for Cambodia, and also starting to make some decisions about who might initially be given which jobs on the team. This involved plenty of outdoor activity, some of it in the dark. Nobody fell down any holes. Although later, there was lots of deliberately stepping off heights, because we went round the Go Ape course in Buxton.
I cannot recommend this highly enough as a teambuilding experience. None of your ‘pretend this bucket is really a bomb that needs to be defused’ rubbish, but plenty of clipping and unclipping of safety lines, meaning that when you look out for your team, you really are checking that they’re not going to fall thirty feet. It’s really quite fun, even considering the heights, and the fact that a rainy day in November isn’t necessarily the optimum time to be clambering around on ropes and bits of wood. On the other hand, teambuilding probably doesn’t work very well if nobody has any pressure put on them.
The karibenas on the safety lines for your Go Ape experience should always be fastened properly and facing in opposite directions, so that whatever angle pressure is put on them from, only one is at risk. As the instructor put it, check the karibenas are closed and opposed. We have so far discovered at least three ways of using this as a metaphor for good teamwork.

Positive things gained from this weekend:
1. We like all the people we’ll be working with. This is possibly one of the most important things affecting the success of the next four months, so that’s a major relief.

2. We’ve taught two more people to play Fluxx 3.1, which can only be a good thing for humanity in general.

3. We know slightly more about what we’ll be doing, and among other things, Rob and I have the job of taking our volunteers round Angkor Wat, which suits us just fine. Rob also has the job of assessing which restaurants the team should eat at. It feels like those in charge have got us sussed out fairly accurately.

Negative things.
Really not a lot, apart from the discovery that we’ll be getting up at 5.30 everyday. That’s the one that happens in the morning. Poot.
Oh, and the feeling of panic and inadequacy that always comes from changing jobs, just in case you turn out to be rubbish at the new one. But that’s normal.