Team Building Day at Cumulus Outdoors: Key Digital

Bespoke company away days in Dorset

In addition to providing first class residential school trips, we’re delighted to offer bespoke company away days at our outdoor activity centre in Swanage. We specialise in developing one a kind programmes, so that groups get the most out of their visit.

Most recently, Dorset-based marketing agency Key Digital tasked us with creating an exciting team building day for their team of thirteen people. During the planning phase, we liaised closely with their Managing Director, Dave to talk about the aims and objectives of the day. Dave wanted to bring his team together outside of the work place with the goal of improving professional collaboration, inspiring new ideas back at the office and most importantly, having fun.

After confirming the requirements and capabilities of the group, we proposed a bespoke team building day, which included a mixture of activities, buffet style catering and use of our classroom facility for the Managing Director to deliver a short strategy session midway through the day. Key Digital were delighted with the proposal and booked a session for mid May.

Team building day in Swanage

Key Digital arrived at our Residential Centre in glorious sunshine, which provided clear views of Swanage Bay. They were welcomed to Cumulus by Instructors, Jack and Ry, who would accompany them for the rest of the day. After welcome teas and coffees and a briefing about the day ahead, it was time to head to the first activity – team building games.

Team building activities

We started the day by delivering a range of team building activities at Cumulus Outdoors Residential Centre. Each activity had a focus on problem solving and required the group to communicate and work together to complete a series of fun challenges. This not only served as as an icebreaker to loosen up the team, but gave their Managing Director an insight into how his staff openly communicate – who has the loudest voice, who is the voice of reason etc. Learning about the natural strengths of his employees means he can utilise these back in the workplace.

The ‘plank game’

The first activity was the ‘plank game’, where the group lined up horizontally on a thin plank of wood and then had to rearrange themselves into alphabetical order. The difficult aspect here was that no-one could touch the floor – and if they did, they had to go to the end of the plank. This certainly gave the team (and our staff) some early laughs, and helped to get the group working together!

We followed this with other problem solving scenarios that required the group to delegate responsibilities and work together as a unit to find success in their efforts!

In the task below, the Key Digital team were given three bungee ropes and a tyre inner tube and were tasked with removing the bucket from the middle of the circle – without stepping in the circle! The twist in this activity is that those manoeuvring the bucket had to be blindfolded!

After trying a couple of ideas that didn’t quite work, the team pulled together on a strategy and was able to find success!

Axe throwing and air rifle shooting

Axe throwing

After the group had shared some laughs and victories on the team building activities, they made the short walk to our on-site shooting range, where we host axe throwing and air rifle shooting. We split the group into two so that the activities could be enjoyed simultaneously!

Our instructors Jack and Ry gave the groups a safety briefing and demonstration on how to safely throw the axes, before the team all had a go! Friendly competition between colleagues quickly became apparent, as well as words of encouragement and congratulations when a great throw was landed!

Axe throwing not only has fantastic health benefits by working most muscles in the body, but it improves reflexes, patience, concentration skills and self-awareness.

Air rifles

The co-ordinators took turns to show the Key Digital team how to safely use the air rifles, before groups of four took turns setting their sights on the shooting range. Each person had their own paper target, and tried to shoot out the middle bullseye. After a shooting session, attention quickly turned to inspecting each other’s targets to see who had the best accuracy!

Friendly competition

After everyone had a chance to try out both activities, we provided some mini games that promoted friendly competition. For air rifles, groups of three and four had one target per team and had to shoot out five particular spots on their targets in a relay. After one group reigned victorious, we played a game of ‘noughts and crosses’, where two teams had their own board and had to turn the ‘O’s into ‘X’s by shooting them. The fun part here was that people were allowed to shoot the other team’s board and sabotage their efforts.

Following these fun air rifle games, we suggested an axe throwing game where everyone took their turn throwing an axe. The rules were ‘if you miss, you’re out’ – and people kept throwing until there was only one person left!

Friendly competition is of course a fantastic thing to have in the workplace, and promoting this during team buildings days gives management an insight into how their staff operate. Friendly competition raises the overall performance level of the group as individuals push themselves to get better!

Catering

After a busy morning we then sat down for a great quality lunch with the Key Digital team – which our chefs had been preparing throughout the morning! The food catered to a range of dietary requirements, including vegetarian and vegan. The buffet received fantastic praise all round, and the brownies in-particular went down a treat!

Cumulus Outdoors are pleased to have a five star food hygiene rating in both our residential centre and tented villages. We consistently receive great feedback from visitors of all ages at Cumulus Outdoors – and this is testament to the quality and passion of our in-house chefs!

Business meeting

Key Digital’s Managing Director wanted to leave a gap free in the day for him to deliver a strategy meeting to his team. We were happy to offer the team access to our classroom. This came equipped with a large table and chairs to comfortably seat the group of thirteen, and a SMART board to use to deliver the presentation.

High ropes course

The afternoon was spent conducting a range of activities on our brand new, state-of-the-art high ropes course. Again, the team split into two so that we could run two activities simultaneously and ensure no-one was left standing around waiting for their turn!

After safety briefings from Jack and Ry, members of the team took it in turns to climb the tower – with various tasks to achieve at the top – including having four people squeeze onto a tiny platform, hold hands and lean away from the tower! Exercises like this made the individuals place trust in their colleagues in order to be successful in the task at hand: and this translates brilliantly back in the workplace.

Jacob’s Ladder

Jacob’s Ladder was a popular activity among the team. Here, two individuals had to work together to climb up the beams, which get wider apart the higher you climb. This not only took courage to make the climb, but got participants thinking about creative ways to help their partner climb up to the next rung.

Low ropes team building games

We also provided other team buildings exercises on our low ropes, including block building games, stepping stones and more. The goal with each of these exercises was to get the teams working together to some problems – especially in the high pressure of being situated high in the air.

Leap of faith

We finished our fantastic team building day with an opportunity to do the leap of faith from our main tower! Here, we practiced our ‘challenge by choice’ ethos of encouraging individuals to attempt the leap, and push themselves if they felt they could – however, no-one was forced to jump!

We were happy to see many members of the team giving the leap ago – and someone nailing the grab!

Team building days at Cumulus Outdoors

We are pleased to arrange bespoke team building days at Cumulus Outdoors Simply tell us exactly what you’d like to get out of the day and select from our wide range our outdoor activities. We’ll put together an action-packed itinerary – catering to your specific requirements and individual dietary needs.

Cumulus Outdoors is situated in a fantastic location in Swanage, on the Jurassic Coast. This means that we’re able to offer many adventure activities at iconic beauty spots along the coast, including locations like Dancing Ledge, Studland Bay and more.

Whether you want your group to dive in on a coasteering session, reach new heights climbing and abseiling, or get fired up for some friendly competition raft building or tag archery – we’ve got something that will bring your team together and inspire new ideas back in the workplace!