An overview of our trip
After months and months of planning, Spacebar finally embarked
It’s apt to say that all of us were in love with the environment!
on its first ever offsite trip to YMCA, Nilshi. It took a lot of efforts by Alpana and Swati (Our Human who manages the Resources) to make it happen. So what compelled Alpana to take her monkeys into the jungle? Well, Spacebar completed five years of saving the world from bad content and to mark it as a special year, she decided to take the monkeys into the greenery and teach them a couple of things. Now with only one human (Swati) and Alpana herself to manage the monkeys, they needed a third set of hands. Now that’s where Carlos (YMCA instructor) steps in. With Carlos on board or rather a bus, the Spacebar team set off for their first ever offsite training.
The very first day of the training started with the team arriving at the lusciously green location, where they were trapped for the next two days. Camp YMCA Nilshi was acres and acres of green land surrounded by water of Andhra Lake, so nowhere to run! Once the team had settled in their rooms and munched on lunch, they were greeted by their YMCA instructor, Carlos who conducted a small but fun team building activity. The next session was conducted by Alpana, wherein she talked at a stretch about the small nuances of the “Spacebar Culture”. A little learning and understanding of things we knew and things we didn’t. Post this session, the whole team set out on a nature trail to explore the beauty of the complete YMCA camp ground. The funny thing about the nature trail was that only a handful of them made it to the end. After a much-needed break from the trek and trip, everyone again met for a special session with Carlos where he emphasized on the little steps to take to achieve your end goals (the big picture). Next in the line was our editor Miralee who imparted knowledge on how one can push their creative limits. And that called for the end of the first day of training.
The next day of training started with the monkeys trying to save the world, literally! Carlos conducted another interesting team building activity where the Spacerbarians were divided into a team of two and asked to save the world in record time.
This activity showed us the importance of coordination and teamwork!
It was a fun activity! Alpana took charge from here and sat down to talk about communication skills with her people. With a good session of 2 hours focusing on perfecting communication skills, we were again left free to climb a tree or two. Post lunch the Spacebarians were divided, and the editors went ahead with leadership training while the writers went ahead with their usual Friday activity. This time though, the Friday activity was conducted by ringmaster Carlos, who made them play a team-building game called the Australian walk. The rest of the evening was spent relaxing and trying to burn a camp fire. The camp fire did not light up, however, the Spacebarians still had their performances, dances and other shenanigans.
This is how Clinton and Aastha’s activity looked like!
The last day was the day we turned back to come to the city. But before we left, there were still a few more things to do. The morning started with a presentation by Aastha and Clinton on how content writing is more than just writing blogs. Post which, a few of our brave hearts went for kayaking in the alligator-infested waters of Lake Andhra. Only one thing though, there were no alligators! The offsite neared its end with a Reflection session by Alpana, in which everyone reminisced all the good things they learned in these 2 and a half days.