Last weekend, Lewis and I led a group of 20 women on a training weekend in the South Downs National Park.  In 6 weeks time these women will embark on a ‘once in a lifetime’ expedition to the Arctic Circle.  During their expedition they will be taking on activities such as snowshoeing, nordic walking, shelter building and dog sledding.

We were asked to put together a training weekend to get them ready for the trip ahead; we focussed our attention on building strong team relationships and exposing them to vulnerable and unknown environments/situations to get them to pull together and work as a group.  Fitness was also of importance and made them aware of the level of fitness they will need to minimally achieve to enjoy their time in the Arctic Circle.

South Downs National Park gave us a great location to execute what we wanted to do, offering great hill walking, expansive forest area (great for our shelter building and navigation skills), meandering river, sea (and the sea breeze), large pebbly beach and the famous chalk cliffs, plus a pub for nice hearty meal at the end of the day.

Our itinerary was:

– Tyre dragging to the beach and back

– Shelter building (ready to be slept in overnight)

– 12 mile hike over the Seven Sisters

– Night time walking

– Pub meal with talk and quiz

– 5am wake up and navigation skills test

– Raft building with race across the river and back

The team leader from the group wrote:

As a leader in a large organisation, I am responsible for the Women’s Network and setting challenges for female employees that stretch/develop them and increase their confidence.

The challenge this year is in the Arctic, which will mean considerable physical fitness is required, as well as working closely as a team and building strong relationships with each other.

Having worked with Richard and Lewis before, I thought they were ideal to help us to train for the event, from both a physical perspective and a team building perspective.

Having set them the challenge, they sourced a fantastic location and designed a great training weekend, where the 20 women on the challenge were put through their paces! Not only was the event great fun, it was brilliantly designed and executed, and Richard and Lewis really stretched the group and supported us in building a great team.

I would highly recommend them for both team building as well as physical training.

 

The 25 women completing this challenge are raising money for a charity called Rosa, a UK charity for women and girls.  They hope to raise £25,000, and with the determination I saw at the weekend Im sure they will.  If you wish to support these adventurous people then please follow this link: http://www.virginmoneygiving.com/team/CWNArctic