HR IST Buzz

and this here is the article i wrote for our monthly news letter. its about the teambuilding we had recently. i prefer 'lifestyle' style of writing, hence the relaxed feel of it. and i hate reading stuffy articles.

IST Team Building at Allson Kelana- by Janna Mohd Zaki

Waking up way before the crack of dawn is nobody’s cup of tea, especially not on the verge of weekend, a Friday. However for the IST family, 14th of May 2010 held promises of what would be a memorable day. We all converged silently from our respective homes, diligently according to the stated time we were asked to meet, at daybreak, 6.45am.
 Excitement was definitely in the air as waves and greetings were exchanged among the blue people in the lobby that morning. Everyone was required to wear the t-shirts given out days before, blue in color, and bearing our beloved company’s logo. Soon we were on our way.

 We arrived at Allson Kelana, Seremban at around 8.45am and were given breakfast to fuel us what has been promised to be an exciting morning. After speeches by the management of RayGuide and our respected Lauge Sorensen and Ainul of Manpower, the ice breaking ceremony started.


We were asked to run around the room and when the facilitator shouted ‘two by two’ or ‘three by three’, we had to find a partner or two, depending on the digit he bellowed. The running around sure did get our blood pumping, by the end of the session I was panting and reaching for my inhaler. Running and laughing certainly weren’t meant to go hand in hand.


The lot of us were then divided into our respective groups and we had to come up with a flag (of which ours got stolen), a war cry and slogan that we would perform on stage. It was rather unnerving to be shouting and making (dance?) moves in front of a room full of people- that you would actually have to see again the next week!


So it was with our war cries that we parted ways and went to our respective activities that the management had lined up for us.


First up was repelling. I must say a lot of us were rather nervous about climbing down backwards at a 90 degree angle out a 5 storey high window- with good reason don’t you think!? But a few of us were eager to go, voluntarily opting to go first. In the end, we realized that it was just a matter of overcoming our fear and it wasn’t as scary as we thought it would be, that and the fact that the five storey stairs were the most challenging part of it all.


Next up was the ropewalk. At hindsight it looked pretty easy, you’re basically just walking, albeit almost ten feet in the air. But 5 minutes into the activity, we were sweating buckets, both from the humid hot air and from sheer nervousness as we realized we were standing so high up in the air with nothing to hold us save for a shaky rope under our feet. The occasional gust of wind made us shake like leaves, literally. Doing this activity thought us to trust our buddies, to listen to their cries of encouragement (at that height u really needed it to go on!) and that you really need your team mates to get through difficult times.


Lastly was the obstacle course that many deemed to be the hardest of all. It required a lot of getting down and dirty and we truly would not have succeeded without all our team mates, and not forgetting the ever so important IBM (wink!). ok mase ni i was dis close *pinches thumb n index finger togather* to dying so i skipped it hence d short para on dis activity.


At the end, we were honored with a certificate from RayGuide Getting the certificates were our last fun activity they had for us. Having to look for the names on the certificates given to us was funny to say the least. There were people standing on the stage holding up papers bearing their names, and there were those who shouted out names like they were selling fish at the market, and then there were hugs abound as people were matched with their certificates. It was a wonderful ending to a great day.


We left Allson Kelana Seremban exhausted in physical but rejuvenated in mind. This experience has brought us closer as a team and we hope to be able to participate in such a spirited program again in the future.

Will upload pics soon-est!