Date: Saturday, November 23rd – Sunday, November 24th, 2019
Location: Mitake

Program:

Back to Nature program was the woodcraft program. We also had planned to do nature art by the river, however, due to the rain and the debris on the riverbank from the typhoon last month, we changed to “team challenge” activity. After the orientation, all participants were split into teams and decided on their team names and the headcounts. Then it was time for “team challenge”. All the activities required strong communication and teamwork, but all teams quickly cleared all the challenges. The final challenge was spaghetti tower build. It required everyone to pitch in their ideas and build the tower together, and some of them came up with very creative tower structures. After lunch, it was the day’s main activity: woodcraft. With instructions from the expert and using knives and sandpaper, everyone created unique and original chopsticks from pieces of wood.

LITs were separated into team leaders and the support staff. This is already their 6^th Back to Nature program, and they all knew what needed to be done without any detailed instructions, and they were able to complete all the tasks very smoothly. In the evening, LITs took on the challenge of making dinner on their own. By studying the recipe and working together, they made delicious pasta and salad meal.

On Sunday, it was, again, all about the final project. It has been 2 full months, since the last time, so it took a while for them to catch up to where they were before, and to explain to the team members who missed the discussions the last time. It was also too easy to focus on the details and lose sight of the big picture, and they needed to be guided back to the right path by the corporate supporters, who were there to do just that. In the end, they were able to come up with a project plan with “to-do list” and associated deadlines. The time left for this project is now very limited and they will need to bring together all the management and communication skills that they have been learning this year. We’ll be looking forward to seeing how each of them contribute to this project, and what it would look like at the end.