MCRT 94 – HR Weekend Away and Boys Night Out
15th-16th March ’08, Adventure Zone
Over the last few years, the importance and participation of tablers of MCRT 94 in HR activities has
increased tremendously. A large portion of this can be attributed to the efforts of the past two HR
convenors in not only ensuring learning in HR, but also loads of fun and bonding.
Over the last three years, the HR weekend away and boys night out has evolved into one of the most
looked forward to events of the tabling year. And this year was no exception. We had 24 of us
including our Area HR convenor Punit and a few sq. legs making our way towards our venue for the
weekend, Adventure Zone, a purpose built out bound training venue about 90 kms from Madras. A
late breakfast on the 15th at Drive in Woodlands and it was on to Adventure Zone.
Idly vadai & VB enroute adventure zone
Strength testing the beds Where Sam’s prayers were answered
Future leaders?!
The theme for the weekend was “Continuity in Leadership” in order to motivate and understand
from the newer tablers, deterrents to them taking up larger roles in Round Table. The newer tablers
were the “leaders” for the weekend for all the activities we undertook. The HR portion of the
weekend was divided into 3 modules – Village Module, Tabling Module and Adventure Module.
Village Module :
After settling ourselves at our tents at Adventure Zone and a briefing of the place and the
activities, it was time for a few drinks and lunch. Post lunch it was time for the village rally.
The objective of this module was to sensitize our tablers about aspects of village life,
something which we are often disconnected from.
We were split into 7 teams and we were in 7 different cars . Each team was allotted a
village guide from the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS), a youth club present in over 2
lakh villages around India. Each team was given one place to go to and they had different
tasks to perform at these places.
These seven different tasks were -
Team Village visit in Activity Objective
1 Sunambedu Visit the traditional
medicine practitioner’s
clinic
Get remedy for
common cold
2 Zamin Puthur Visit a potters house and
try pottery skill
Buy a pot
3 Amandakaranai Visit a folk deity temple Perform a ritual
and get the
vermilion and
sacred ash
4 Between Cheyyur
and ECR
Visit salt pans Buy Salt
5 Palaiyur Visit a folk performers
house
Buy a
drumming stick
from the
performer
6 Palaiyur Visit a rice mill Buy harvested
and husked rice
7 Vedal Visit a historical temple
near a man made pond
Photo
Document the
temple and
pond nearby,
and collect oral
history
Durai Enna parkkuraar?? Potter in action
Pretty village belle
During the time at each of these places the teams interacted with the local villagers. Post
visit, team members then made their way to a farm in Nangulathur village, where they were
welcomed with hot vadas and tea made by women self help group members.
Watching the different uses of cowdung!
This was then followed by a talk by Mr. Raghavan – an eminent person experienced in
organic and traditional farming. He enlightened us on the aspects of traditional farming
which we seem to be loosing out on now-a-days. This was then followed by a lively question
and answer session by the tablers. It was then time to get back to Adventure Zone for the
next module.
TABLING MODULE
As soon as we got back to Adventure Zone, we were given a short time to freshen up and
get ready for the tabling module. Tr. Punit conducted two modules – one on the qualities of
leaders and the other on the “Hot seat”. Punit was excellent in involving all the tablers in a
lively discussion. The hot seat involved getting all the new tablers to take the hot seat and
talk about how they can take up larger responsibilities in the table. These two modules were
conducted superbly by our Area HR Convenor Tr. Punit.
Creating the future leaders
Listening to them!
Post these modules it was time for more drinking and dinner and to a long night of the 94
style camaraderie. The highlight of the evening, was our Tr. Siva regaling us with his funny
tit-bits and stories in his unique indomitable style. The party continued outside our tents
with all of us keeping each other awake inspite of having a really long day.
Om Siva!!!!!!
ADVENTURE MODULE
After a short night at the tents, it was time to wake up to chirping birds and bright sunlight.
Soon after breakfast it was time for the adventure module conducted by Maj. S R Roy (retd),
the man who runs Adventure Zone. For this module, we were split into 2 teams – Team Tin
led by Tr. Krishna Ravindran and Team Drum lead by Tr. Ravi.
Team drum Team tin
The first activity we had was rappelling down a 51ft. wall. Each team member was given a
task to do during the activity. The teams were given points every time a member of the
team rappelled down. It was amazing to see Doc. Achuth rappel down as time was running
out to give a come from behind victory for team tin after the 1st activity. After a short break
for refreshments it was then over to the purpose built obstacle course for our next activity.
Don’t let go off the rope!
For the obstacle course, each team was given 9 obstacles to complete in 25 min. The
obstacle race was very challenging and time was tight, which brought out amazing team
spirit within each of the teams. To make things further complicated, we were given an
imaginary additional member of the team – Papplu – a casuarina pole which we had to take
with us throughout the obstacle course . It was amazing to see all of us unfit tablers pushing
ourselves in support to our teams to overcome obstacles that we thought we could not do.
Team Drum won the 2nd activity and inched past Team Tin for the overall lead.
Scaling new heights!
Overcoming obstacles – 94 style
The 3rd and final activity - rifle and pistol shooting involved all us sharp shooters shooting
the target both with the rifle and the pistol. At the end of this final activity, Team Drum
managed to maintain their lead and were adjudged as the overall winners. The losing team,
Team Tin, we supposed to carry the luggage of the winning team Drum to the car (which of
course they did not do).
Sharp shooters (Yeah right!)
All the three activities were brilliantly facilitated by Maj Roy. He led a discussion after each
activity to look at the team dynamics in play, leadership in the groups and turning
challenges into opportunities. All in all, a super amount of team spirit and bonding between
the tablers that challenged us to push ourselves for our team’s sake.
Sorry! No drinking....
After a relaxed lunch it was time to leave Adventure Zone back to Chennai. It was a very
different HR weekend for all of us at MCRT 94 with a little bit of roughing out and a whole
lot of fun and activities. We had a great time bonding with each other and getting Table 94
closer knit.
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