A Very Different Teambuilding Event

Today I would like to share on a unique experience that I had recently with fellow leaders in my company. Because the craziness that we endure day in and day out, a teambuilding event was being organized so that the leadership team can unwind. Though I know very well, whenever there is a teambuilding event, the definition of unwind can be a little different from what most people think it is. This is because teambuilding events for our leadership team is always competitive. For me, I do not need to win but key is to stay away from any forfeit for being the last team. And this teambuilding event happened at the lovely island of Sentosa. The cover photo is taken by me while at the harbour area of Sentosa Cove where many yatch are being berthed.

Event First Half

The first half of the teambuilding is something that we are all very well familiar with - An Amazing Race to explore the newest exhibits of the island and for members of the same team to get to know each other better. I had a team of 8 comprising of people from different departments. While earlier when I saw the namelist, I was like this is not the kind of team I want to be in. However, as I interacted with them, I was actually really wrong with my earlier judgement as they are all nice people whom work together well to complete the task for the race. At this time of the year, it is the Peranakan season and there are many exhibits related to Peranakan culture (I suspect more of trying to catch the hype brought about by the recent TV serial drama aired in Singapore - The Little Nonya part 2). As many of the task involved these exhibits, we had a good time learning more about the culture which I think is a good job by the committee.

Not only did we explored the island on foot, we also explored the island via the internal cable car which is something newly built, making the island more accessible.

Thankfully we manage to complete all the given task and found a decent place to have our lunch before heading to the next part of the teambuilding and we also found out from the organizers, we are not one of the last teams in this first leg.

Event Second Half
Now to the part where it is very different from what we do for teambuilding as we all came to Senotsa Cove to get ready to board a yatch for the 2nd half of the event.

As soon as we boarded the yatch, we were all asked to remove our footwear for safekeeping and then given a safety briefing in the interior of the yatch.

Interior was really nice and there are two cabins below the area that we assembled and an upper deck for people to gather and enjoy the sea breeze.

And after the safety brief, we started the journey towards Lazarus Island - one of the offshore islands of Singapore where the yatch will berth for some water games.

This is the part where things didn't go too well for me when the water games started. The game was to swim towards a designated rower to obtain rubber ducky and bring back to the yatch. To complete, we need to bring back 40 rubber ducky. Without any warm up, I plunge into the water and swim towards the rower. However, the water is rather choppy and I wasn't getting any nearer to the rower whom keep drifting further away from me. And at this juncture, I felt my thigh tightened and it got worse with every second, signifying that I got a leg cramp. I struggled and tried to get help, thankfully another colleague spotted me and dragged me towards another colleague whom is on a canoe and I was successfully towed back to the yatch. Lesson learnt, warm ups are important, the sea water is cold and if we did not warm up, cramps can happen easily. I took quite a while to recover as I also got dehydrated and I ended up using the cabin for a short nap to get myself fully recovered.

It was quite a different kind of experience being onboard a yatch though I would not want another near death incident happening to me. Other than the games, it is quite a pleasant experience where we get to eat and chill on the deck, with some of us also catching up with one another.

Took a few more pictures of the journey when I felt better:

Closing
This teambuiling definitely did not come cheap for sure but it was a great experience. If not for that cramp, I guess it would have been an even better experience. Probably this will be a once in a lifetime kind of teambuilding. Still thankful for it and thank you for dropping by my post.

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