For our second trip lead by the Norwegian students we were taken into Jegersberg and divided into previously designated groups which were a mix of both Norwegian and international students.

Within these groups we had to complete a serious of different tasks requiring team work and group cohesion. Our first task was to construct a stretcher with a tarp and the aid of natural resources, then carry the largest group member to a finishing point further approximately 500m away (although it felt like a lot more). Our group was the second to construct a stretcher, we used two large branches and wrapped the stretcher around them also using some para-cord for added stability. For this task we came second out of about seven groups and worked very well as a group. There was cohesion and encouragement and it was a really good start for the group as the success resulted in more positive feelings shared (demonstrated through group high fives) and therefore a further increase in cohesion.

The second task was a race to create a fire, boil an egg and then present it to the leaders. I felt as a group we went backwards here in a level of performance. We started the task well as everyone had a role of either getting wood for the or creating kindling. But after this the communication was poor as the Norwegian students mainly discussed things in Norwegian leaving Max and myself confused and unaware of what was going on. Unfortunately when we presented the egg it wasn’t fully boiled, this was due to another team already presenting theirs and our team being to eager to place early. The second egg took a long time as our fire had died out a little and we also had the issue of running out of water that was boiling. This was an example of really poor communication as the Norwegian students had taken the kettle with the egg to the leaders and they were all talking in Norwegian, Max and I asked what was going on, we thought that we were presenting the second egg already. But after awhile no one presented the egg and we walked back to the fire with it. We then asked again what was happening and were told that we had run out of water. I had water in my pack the whole time so I could have prevented standing talking to the leaders for 5minutes and continued the boiling. Anyway, I think we came last in that event so it wasn’t very successful at all.

The third event was very simple, it was just a relay of running and carrying a rock to a designated spot about 20m away and creating a tower. Each person would run and carry one of four rocks, to create a tower and this resulted in one point for every tower of four rocks that were created.

The third task was a memory game, where a tarp with a variety of small random items were scattered and the group had to memorise as many out of 40 items as they could. Our group did not do too well, forgetting about 9 items in total.

However we finished off strong as we had to perform a song and dance to the whole class and our group came second and the performance was pretty good if I do say so myself.

For the group dynamics of the day I think our group had a couple moments of successful performance, but for majority was a bit divided into Norwegian and International students, seen primarily through the use Norwegian language in discussing of problems. This was very detrimental towards the groups performance in particularly during the egg game as the poor communication lead to about 5minutes of unnecessarily wasted time.
Future ways of preventing this include being more stern when asking what was happening and reiterating the importance of speaking a language everyone can understand, every time the language is spoken. This will require a bit more confidence on behalf of myself to be able to say to the Norwegian students, lets please talk in English when we need to discuss things as a group.