Source 2 Sea
Source2sea is a team development journey, taking you, quite literally, from the source of a river to the sea, in a beautiful part of the UK.
The 3 day journey allows teams from business to work together on a series of challenges that will test them – cerebrally and physically – whilst being supported by professional team-working coaches. Teams take on the challenges of each stage in real-time, and become adept in the skills of managing uncertainty, problem solving and creative lateral thinking.
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Source2sea 2008 took place on the 25th and 27th September. Its starting point was the stunningly beautiful coastal hills of Mid-Wales on the Afon Rheidol River, which rises in the Cambrian Mountains and reaches the sea at Aberystwyth.
Seventeen teams took part, from organisations across Europe, including British Telecom, NHS Health Scotland, Knowledge Solutions and Coca Cola. Each team consisted of 6 people. They would take part in different parts of the 9 stages according to personal strengths and skills, learning challenges or the needs of the team. While some stages utilised the whole team, others required team members not directly ‘out in the field’ to act as Support Crew.
Day one and Stage 1 had the teams building model gliders. The location was the dam holding back the reservoir that was filled by the Afon Rheidol itself. The climax of this first stage was a glider ‘fly off’ from the top of the dam. While this short stage provided a gentle introduction to the event, it was a great opportunity for the coaches to observe all the teams in action. Many styles of glider were designed and built, with bonuses on offer for wing length…! The winning glider flew a distance of 39.9 meters netting the stage winners, Coke from Grigny in Europe, their first 100 points.
Stage 2 was a 4.5 hour stage and involved the teams playing a game of Pontoon by visiting controls around the mountains. At each control could be found different playing cards. The objective was to get as many high scoring hands as possible. However, a challenging twist to this offered the teams the opportunity to split into 2 groups, with some going into the hills on foot and some collecting cards by kayaking around the reservoir. Some teams played up to 5 hands of cards during the stage but several went bust scoring nothing. A compulsory control, located high in the Cambrian Mountains, gave a crucial card of ace high or ace low but also allowed the teams to pick up their team baton; a leek complete with its own SI card! The winning team for this stage was another Coke team, this time from Northampton, gaining 500 stage points.
After a night at the Event Centre under canvas, day 2 and Stage 3 took them further down the river on mountain bikes. The route hugged the Rheidol and went through stunning terrain of forests, open moorland and past small lakes. It often crossed or joined the now famous Continental Mountain Bike trail. The finish was at the mountain bike centre at Nant-yr-Arian. What may have appeared to be a straight forward bike ride was made more complex by controls being worth different values at different times of the 3 hour stage. Consequently team strategy and time keeping were crucial!
Stage 4 involved the team running around the Silver Lead Mining Museum at Llywernog finding controls and answering questions about the history of mining in the area. One control was even hidden underground in a disused adit, forcing the teams to don helmets and head torches. This highly interactive museum created challenge and education all in one stage! GrowHow took their first stage win and the full 100 points maximum.
Stage 5 was on foot and headed back through very different terrain again with gently rolling hills high above the deep gorge of the Rheidol. With clear skies and gently turning wind turbines on the hilltops the competitors were put in mind of Telly Tubby land! The stage was all about creating as many words as possible gained from collecting letters along the route. Bonuses were on offer for the longer words. No team managed to get the 9 letter word ‘Democracy’ that was worth 18 points. GrowHow were on a roll and stormed into the lead on this stage, but the exertion was starting to take its toll and 3 teams failed to make it back to the event centre in time, scoring zero for the stage.
Finally on this day, stage 6 was a night event similar to a trail or hash run, but with the routes marked by glow sticks. Three trails, each of a different colour, extended out from the event centre and up into the surrounding hills. The twinkling trails of lamps streaming up the dark slopes made a spectacular sight under the perfectly clear, starry Cambrian skies. At the end of each trail, the teams collected the components of a bubble-making machine. They then had to build and demonstrate the machine working in as fast a time as possible. A Procurement team produced the first bubbles and won the stage in just under 45 minutes!
Day 3 dawned bright and sunny and there was a buzz of excitement around the event centre. Stage 7 was a dynamic sprint relay race to Devils Bridge. with the leek (that had been collected from the source of the Afon Rheidol and carried on every stage) being used as a team baton. The fastest team, who all came from East Kilbride, covered the 4km in 17 minutes – a very fast time that netted them 100 points.
Stage 8 set in the grounds of the Hafod Hotel at Devils Bridge had teams building water wheels to raise their leek as far as possible off the ground, however the water used to power the water wheel and many bits of the equipment used had to be retrieved from the Devils Bridge Gorge some several hundred feet below the build area. This stage really was a mix of physical, creative and cerebral effort by the teams who were by now tiring after 3 days of continued effort. However with this stage and one other left all was to play for all the way to the sea! GrowHow, whose water wheel lifted their leek to a staggering height of 2.87m, again won this stage.
The final stage followed the Afon Rheidol as it opened up from the confined gorge of the Welsh hills and out onto the open plains before it arrived at Aberystwyth. The teams took a train to Aberystwyth with questions to answer on the train by looking out of the windows, in order to earn time bonuses. Just to make it a little more challenging the questions were in Welsh, however they did have a Welsh dictionary.
A short sprint across town and a challenge to stack pebbles to a height of 1 meter on the beach then the teams were allowed to take the final run in past the castle and into the water for the final control and stop the clock!
After the results from all 9 stages had been calculated, it was newcomers GrowHow who took the final honour and overall title with 1852 points and Agile Media 1 from British Telecom came second with 1569 points. Last year’s winners Knowledge Solutions came sixth with 1345 points.
All participants hailed the event as a superb team experience, full of development learning and fun. The team challenges that made up Source2sea 2008 were intriguing and exciting, with the event design team actually surpassing their superb formatting of 2007 and 2006.
Veterans of Source2sea marvelled at the complexity and scenery of the "Pontoon" running and kayaking stage and grappled with the intricate challenges of the "Leek Lifting" water wheel construction stage.
Each team benefited from the personal guidance of an accredited Team Performance Coach - enabling them to step up their performance throughout the event, and then to transfer the learning back to their workplace.
Event Director, Stephen Bentley commented, "It was fantastic to see teams developing their performance in such a stunning environment, with the learning they gain being directly applicable back in the workplace. Source2sea has firmly positioned itself as the premier outdoor team development event in Europe. We are already looking forward to 2009 and the New Forest".
The event also raised money for Source2sea’s 2 nominated charities: Kidscape; a charity who specialise in the prevention of abuse and bullying and the Marine Conservation Society (who also entered a team into this years event and came 11th with 1223 points).
For more information about this or next years event, or to get more information about Source2sea, please check out the website: www.source2sea.com
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