It is sometimes good to remind everyone that Avon Tyrrell Outdoor Activity Centre is a part of UK Youth a 100 year-old charity that supports young people to realise their potential. Our Charitable Vision is: To enable all young people to realise their potential.
So you may ask why as well as having a primary school staying in the Avon Tyrrell House and a special needs group using our lodges this week, did we also host a management and business development training team from Developing People and the senior management team of First Wessex, who used our training facilities to participate in a bespoke scenario event to help develop their management training objectives.
The reasons are sensible and link to our charitable vision; the value gained not only benefits attending participants and organisations, but helps the centre to improve its provision and make outdoor learning more accessible to young people. By helping support companies Corporate Social Responsibility and generating income we support the day to day running of the charity and its direct work with young people both at Avon Tyrrell and all across the UK. Considering the huge diverse range of young people we work with we believe this is an effective way of helping them. As well as giving corporate companies a rewarding experience and high quality management and development training, they know they are also indirectly contributing to helping young people.
And what is possible at Avon Tyrrell for a corporate company, well First Wessex who are a Hampshire-based housing association providing homes and services to local communities throughout Hampshire and parts of Surrey came to Avon Tyrrell in partnership with Developing People on a company management and development training programme this week. Their visit to Avon Tyrrell over 2½ days was a part of the programme of work they were doing. As well as using our meeting rooms for their own projects and training programmes they also took part in our new ‘Fission and Fusion’ developmental event, which saw the teams undertake a series of scenario based tasks around collecting power sources to power a new type of generator. 
Teams were faced with tasks such as blindfolded archery to test communication, building a tall tower from plastic crates- and then climbing it to encourage self-belief and confidence, learning how to make a fire (without matches) to make a hot drink, as well as some more cerebral tasks such as mixing dyed water to a specific colour to look at pro-activeness and attention to detail. There were also training tasks to complete, to provide base level knowledge to aid their final task- this involved being taught how to make the bungee sets, and lash wooden poles together. 
Throughout the event the teams battled with heavy rain and wind, but still managed to earn a huge amount of money for the scenario based company, and collected lots of elements which were traded in at the exchange. To the surprise of the teams, the values changed throughout the day, which made them look at how to adapt their plans to the changing market
Head Chef, Paul, took everyone’s minds off the cold and wet weather with a spectacular BBQ including the very popular pork belly, garlic mushrooms and Aberdeen Angus burgers with an epic chocolate cake to follow. With everyone refreshed, the scenario continued to the finale and an auction to purchase equipment to build a catapult and therefore secure a massive contract; and if you want the full details of how that worked then why not come and find out for yourselves?
What the scenario achieved was the teams learnt to collaborate to maximize their chance of seeing success. They split in to small groups to ensure all the tasks were being addressed and the result was a towering catapult firing at its targets with varying degrees of success! One generator was powered up fairly quickly, so spurred on by this, with only 10 minutes to spare before the deadline the remaining 2 catapults burst in to action and filled the air with chaos! With literally 10 seconds to spare before the deadline, the teams succeeded and set off the siren to show the objective was achieved! They secured the contract, and took away a company profit of £8.4 million. Not a bad day’s work.
The First Wessex participants then reflected on the day’s events with the Avon Tyrrell Instructors and Developing People Team, and related their experiences of the day to their real lives and work situations. This was taken to the next level with the facilitators from Developing People to implement the transfer of learning. We now hope that First Wessex’s time at Avon Tyrrell will not only be an enjoyable shared experience with many happy memories, but in collaboration with the Developing People programme, it will be a catapult for positive change.
Elsewhere this week:
As the school gear up for their departure and journey home, despite the weather, they have enjoyed the week, with praise specifically aimed once again at Paul, our head chef, and his team who has done an amazing job to cater for the very different needs of our groups and to the schools lead activity instructor, Jamie, who they felt went out of his way to help the group settle in.
Our NVQ students have been involved in a variety training courses; including soft skills and disability awareness and have had chance to see how this is practically applied with the various groups staying with us so far this week.
Once again it has been a very diverse week at Avon Tyrrell – who knows what next week holds…
You are most welcome to visit and see what we are up to or to find out more about Avon Tyrrell Outdoor Activity Centre and the many varied opportunities we offer please contact us on Tel; 01425 672347 or email info@ukyouth.org or view our website www.avontyrrell.org.uk
Remember… experience – learn – develop
Working in an outdoor centre we need to all have a sense of shared purpose and understanding why we are here, this is not just a job, what we do as a team does affects the lives of so many young people. If you think about it we give them opportunities to experience, learn and develop in an environment often never experienced before and can be a little daunting and challenging for some. And how do we know we are doing some good? Well we can always read what the positive feedback says, and remember we have made it possible.
Finally, our EcoHealth team have done a fantastic job making the Avon Tyrrell Main House front Courtyard more welcoming and have built and planted two beautiful planters. Great Job Guys, thank you and we are receiving many positive appreciative comments already.
