Overnight fieldtrip, forest winter 

Location: Jegersberg, Kristiansand

Jegersberg is an area placed between Gimlekollen, Søda and Justvik and it starts right behind the University of Agder in Kristiansand. In Jegersberg it is possible to use the area for biking and hiking in both on small roads, paths and in the forest. Besides that there are many opportunities to camp and overnight which is because of the Norwegian ‘Alle mands ret’. The area that we put up our tents was a small ravine with forest around, a lake right by and even a primitive toilet.

We meet up at 2 pm and got briefed about the plan and the weather forecast, rain at 3 pm and therefore we put up our tents right away. The first thing was to find a place to put the tent up, and I don’t really think that we (Stella, Sædis and Max) communicated and saw the opportunities of using the forest as a wind-shelter. We all were very like ‘let’s just get this tent up, lets get it done fast’ and that definitely backfired in the night because

our tent were almost right on the top of the top of the ravine which eliminated that water or snow would pile up around our tent in the night. But there were no wind when we put up the tent and doing the night a small storm or definitely a lot of wind build up and we had just put up the tent as we was told no

t to do, sideways, so the wind hit the tent on the side and shaked it like crazy  – but learning by doing, next time we will do it different (Teambuilding, slide ).

Afterwards we did the different games and I think that the variety of games was good, there were both running, relays, competitions, laugh and reflection games. All had elements of team building, fun, communication and competition and it all made us not think of the rain and the cold weather. People move around and got warm and it also removes the negative atmosphere there can occur if you are wet and cold. We reflected over the games and give short feedback to the coordinators.

But in the end we all were very cold and soaked through even though we had rain clothes and three-layer on. Here it was hard to keep a positive mind but luckily we then went to the next thing, the cooking competition. At this time I was not in a good mood and I became very bluntly when we had to make dinner which didn’t do any good for the cohesion. At the point where we all were done and we stood around and talked about the different food, I was grumpy and very quiet. I understood the purpose of the games, but I was hungry, wet and cold I just wanted to make one meal and go sleep. But the idea about this game was very nice and after tasting and giving each other good feedback and discussed a little bit about how the food should contain some warm liquid (that will help keep you hydrate), fat (that gives you energy), vegetables (that give you vitamins and carbohydrates) and that it’s preferable if it tastes good because then you will eat more and you will be keeping warm.

Reference:

https://turikristiansand.wordpress.com/jegersberg-2/

Communication, slide 12-14

Group Cohesion, slide 2-8

Word count: 580.