Tenting Exercise

On the 28th January 2016, PES Group B were to practice putting up our tents, ready for the hiking expedition in April.

Firstly we got seperated into five different groups and were given either a two-man or three-man tent each. Our first attempt wasn't a race, but we had to work as a team to work out how to put the tent up by using common sense and knowledge. Once completed, we desembled the tent and packed it into the bag, exactly how we found it. We then discussed what what went well and not so well.

Next we did the same again, but this time it was race in an attempt to improve our skills in this area. This meant we had to work even harder as a team to make sure we finished first and improved upon our last performance. However, this round was a total disaster. I believe we were under a lot of pressure as we wanted to finish first. There wasn't really any communication within the group or anyone taking lead. This meant our performance dropped rapidly with a time of around 20 minutes, this time was far too slow.

On the hiking expedition in April, we could be putting up our tents with no light. To practice this, we moved into a dark room and reassembled our tents in the pitch black. This round was a lot harder as we had to re-think the situation by finding a solution how to put up the tents with no light, most of us had our mobile smart phones in hand which had a torch. We decided this would be the best solution. I believe we performed quite well eventhough we didn't really have any light. We communicated better as a team and people were taking the lead which meant our performance vastly improved.

Again, we dismantled the tents and re-packed them into the bags as we found them. However this time we had to delegate a leader and the other members were not aloud to speak. The only way the other members could communiate with each other was by hand signals. This was done to improve the leaders communication skills. Because we had a good idea about how to put the tents up already, it only took us 4 minutes, 55 seconds to complete the task.

Strengths in the Tenting Exercise:

I believe I contributed very well in all the rounds. I offered to assist when other members were struggling to perform their duties which allowed the whole group to perform well. I gave my opinons about how to put up the tent, even though other people had better ideas, I still provided other ways, possibly simpler ways. My management skills were very good. Once I thought I'd finished one job, I moved to start another. For example, when I thought I'd finsihed unrolling the tent out of the bag, I started to fix the tent poles together to ensure our team had cohesive skills. This meant that our overall time may have reduced when putting the tent up. When we were under pressure from the other teams finishing before us, I motivated the team to ensure we stayed at peak level of performance.

Areas for improvements in the Tenting Exercise:

However, I found it extremly difficult in performing any of the tent exercises in the dark. I only had one hand free to perform any of the tasks as I had to hold my phone/torch in the other hand. It took much longer to complete any easy tasks which was frustrating. When only the leader was only aloud to communciate with the group verbulary, it wasn't easy to communicate with eachother as I didn't understand the hand signals the other members were providing, this slown our progress down slightly. I hadn't really had any experience in any other forms of communication apart from verbal communication, this meant I couldn't really communicate with any members of my team. I believe our leader may have planned what we need to do before getting stuck in straight away. At times, I had other ways and opinions on how to put up and pack away the tent which may have improved our performance. Looking back to the exercise, I should have put myself forward as group leader as I strongly believe that my procedures would have been more efficient and effective.