Team building is big business, or rather it is for those companies who offer such services to Corporations, Council's and other large operations and institutions.
I have had some experience of the types of activities offered with the intention of forming or improving the bond and trust between colleagues, workmates or those with a common purpose.
One of the most memorable and enjoyable, but only with the gift of hindsight as I was, frankly, terrified at the time, involved being left on a hillside in the English Lake District. This was in early spring, so a bit chilly and damp in that part of the UK.
I was one of a small group stranded in that location by Outward Bound Instructors and provided with only a plastic sheet and some basic food rations. We had been briefed to seek out, as a team, a sheltered spot to pitch a camp, prepare a communal evening meal and then sleep out in the open with only the polythene between us and the elements.
There was good co-operation in the group for two of the three activities, namely the site finding and cooking . It was in the bivouac making arrangements that things started to unravel.
The more intrepid amongst us expressed their intention to go it alone and drifted off to the periphery of our, for the duration, known world to do their thing.
The rest of us, perhaps terrified of the countryside being town dwellers , unskilled in improvising a safe refuge (not ever having to need to do that in a town) or just plain idle tended to huddle together relying on mutual body heat and half hearted humour to get through what would be a very long night. Not everyone, it appears, has the same opinion of the value of flatulence towards creating warmth in a tightly knit cluster of bodies.
To complicate matters it also started to rain, not hard, but of a persistence and overall wetness to make it miserable. It was the type of precipitation that permeated an advertised 100% waterproof and breathable, therefore expensive, cagoule and chilled through to the very bone marrow.
Gradually our brave band began to thin out as one after another became fatigued from sitting in our survival circle, fed up of conversation and increasingly anxious about developing hypothermia, frostbite or trench-foot or being carried away by a wild animal. These were unfounded fears but compounded by watching too many Bear Grylls programmes.
I admit that I detached myself from the nucleus of the group when it was down to just a handful and sought out a suitable niche in the rocks, a dell in the heather, a hole in a tree trunk or just somewhere that, combined with my transparent tarpaulin, would provide any protection from the wet, cold and inhospitable environment of the hillside.
I felt no sense of abandonment or betrayal of my fellow adventurers, much helped after a quick glance back revealed that everyone now had the same idea- self preservation.
Perhaps, in adversity it is a human trait not to be magnanimous and sacrificing but narrow minded and wholly self centred. I was hardly in a life threatening situation but this behaviour, singularly and aggregated was a bit of a shock. I had been brought up by my parents to be conscientious and compassionate towards others . It was common for me to shed a tear at the portrayal of humanitarianism in real life dramas or in TV or film .I can honestly say that I enjoyed the all over warm feeling that such acts of random kindness engendered. It was different on the mountain (well , big hill anyway).
For my efforts I did assemble a really good, snug and dry den from the plastic sheet stretched across and anchored with rocks between two large granite boulders. That did not mean that I necessarily got any sleep that night as I lay awake fearful that my skull would be crushed by the aforementioned rock anchors, on the upper, larger boulder if they were disturbed by the weather, my agitated movement in the poly-tunnel or just plain gravity.
At the group meeting in the misty, moist air of the next morning we avoided eye contact with each other whilst mumbling about "good nights rest", "fresh as a daisy", "bring on another night" and other forms of attempted one-up-man-ship.
As for me, I make a solemn oath to myself to try to do better next time the opportunity arose.
The future of the human race depended upon it.
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