Last weekend 16 of Regenerates young people and volunteer mentors went on a residential trip to Norway as part of their year long mentoring programme. The trips focus was learning about working together as a team and was a real success.
Chris Riordan, 19, said “The activities were challenging but I learnt that working as a team gets me further than working on my own. Meeting all the mentors was the highlight of the trip for me.”
Chlodwick Rossouw, one of Regenerates volunteer mentors reports on a challenging weekend in Norway.
“Our group had one of the best experiences of our lives! The whole group on Sunday could not stop talking about how much they enjoyed this weekend in Norway. The two main activities of the weekend were river rafting on the Sjoa River and walking/climbing the Besseggen Ridge. Originally all anticipated that the river rafting would be the most challenging and scary, but eventually the climbing of the Besseggen ridge was the true challenge. The rafting was great fun, even though the water was freezing cold. Apparently the river level was just below cut off point for rafting, so we enjoyed a quick flowing river with some big wave like rapids.
Knowing what we do now, the river rafting was the breeze of the two activities planned. Saturday morning we awoke early and everyone was looking forward to the relatively easy stroll across a Norwegian hill. When we arrived at the Ridge we saw all the Norwegian mountain walkers fully kitted out in outdoor walking gear, we started to realise that this might not be as easy as we have anticipated. Most of us wore trainers and carried our water and food in our JD Sports plastic bags! Obviously the serious mountain walkers did stare at us, but the spirit was high and all of us were getting ready for the challenge ahead. To our surprise most of the young lads were flying up the first and hardest hill and the older guys were lagging behind and had to play catch-up most of the time. We rested quite regularly for water and food breaks and about 4 hours into this walk we thought this is going to be a breeze to finish!
Obviously we did not have a chance to see the actual ridge until we were about to climb it! Two of our party members have vertigo, so this was a challenge getting them up the final ridge to the top where the wind was blowing strong as we physically climbed up the ridge. Eventually after some motivation and assurance we all made it up the mountain and were having a celebratory cheese and jam sandwich on the top. All of us were very excited and pleased that we all made the climb to the top. Eventually we finished the walk/climb after 8 hours and went to a hotel for a well deserved Norwegian buffet to recharge all the energy burned and reflect on the challenge just completed!
We all as a group felt that the weekend was a great success. In the beginning the young lads were comparing the most adventuress thing they have ever done with going to Chessington World of Adventures, but now they all talk about the rafting and climbing the Beseggen ridge! The only thing the lads complained about throughout the entire weekend was that there were no English fry-up, but only brown cheese sandwiches and jam! If you go only by this reaction, the weekend was a great success where good friends were made in challenging team building environments!”