My fifth team has started and it definitely came as a surprise for me. I’d just come back from four weeks in Australia, walked through the front door on Monday to be greeted by Tom, who informed me that my team was starting on Tuesday….definitely brought me back down to earth with a bang.

 

The first week was all a bit of a blur, running off very little sleep was a challenge. Luckily the team were amazing and took part in every activity. It was great to see them go from not talking to each other in the first hour, to being practically inseparable by the end of day one and every day since.

 

Residential is something that every team is really excited about. We got the opportunity to be guinea pigs at a new centre and the young people had an amazing time. They were able to pick what activities they did each day and what time they wanted the instructors to turn up in the morning. This gave them real control and ownership of how their week was going to pan out. Everyone took part in the challenges they had set and overcame fears. A couple of the young people were adamant that they weren’t going to go rock climbing, but as soon as they were set the challenge of climbing the equivalent of Big Ben, The Statue of Liberty and The Empire State Building, they were practically running up and down the walls.

 

The past couple of weeks have seen the team planning and preparing for their Community Project at The White House next week, where they will be renovating their gardens so that they can be used by the residents. They’ve started raising money to complete the project and on Friday they spent the day in Eastgate Shopping Centre, where they rowed 21miles, from Dover to Calais and they are planning on completing a sponsored rock climb, climbing the equivalent of the Burj Khalifa (828m) this week. They are really excited and positive about the work they want to complete. I’ve never had a team that were actually excited about doing gardening in the middle of February.

 

Hearing some of the young people make comments about how close they had all become over the past three weeks was really sweet. Having a team that all get on really well is rare sometimes and having the opportunity to work with them is a real pleasure. I’m really looking forward to the next 8 weeks with Team 172 and getting the chance to help them to realise and achieve their potential.