Some people are excited, chomping at the bit to get started. Others are wary, worried about what they’ll be asked to do. But no matter how each person begins, by the end of these fun, unusual and downright adventurous team-building programs, meeting attendees are racing sailboats, shooting air rifles and saving secret agents.
Adventure Associates
“You’ve got the winds and the tides, and you have to figure out how to harness all those powers to make the boat go where you want it to go,” said Rebecca Tilley, managing director of Adventure Associates, a nationwide corporate team-building and training company. She said, “It’s unbelievable how quickly people learn.”
Adventure Associates offers half- or full-day team sailing excursions, mostly on the West Coast and along the Eastern Seaboard, including in Maryland, Florida and Rhode Island.
The company breaks groups into crews of four or five per sailboat; in Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay, they use J/22s, although boat sizes usually range from 24 to 36 feet. Each boat has a dedicated skipper, whereas facilitators rotate among boats. Crews learn the basics of sailing by rotating among stations: manning the helm, pulling in the sails, learning navigation and more.
While many planners share common goals, such as wanting to build relationships, others may want to tackle more specific goals, such as risk management or strategic decision-making, Tilley said.
After everyone has learned the ropes, teams compete in several short regattas. “The goal is to have the skipper take a backseat and let the crew make most of the decisions,” Tilley said.
Outdoor Campus
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
The Outdoor Campus is a 100-acre city park nestled in the crook of interstates 29 and 229 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but the “grounds are made up of prairie, riparian area and eastern South Dakota woodlands,” said director Thea Miller Ryan.
Part of the program’s goal is to “get people back outdoors,” and it includes providing team-building and group activities, such as a mini-Olympics, orienteering courses and dutch-oven cooking classes. During a mini-Olympics, groups rotate through stations, competing in fishing, archery, kayaking or target shooting with air rifles. In the winter, it may be ice fishing, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing.
“It’s really fun; it brings teams together in a way they might not often think of as team building,” Miller Ryan said.
Many companies bring their own medals or trophies to award at the end, but activities “don’t have to be competitive; they can be social,” she said.
If groups just want to cook a dutch-oven meal over hot coals or check out maps and compasses to navigate the campus’ orienteering course, “we can make anything work,” she said. All programs are free, supported by hunting and fishing license revenue.
