By Walsh and Beck | Posted: Thursday August 29, 2019
Earlier this year, Family Works were approached by Doug Kamo, Managing Director of a corporate team building company called DKCM, to take part in a charity “Build a Bike” event with Foodstuffs South Island. This opportunity allowed seventeen excited children aged between 7-12 years to take part in team building activities.
The exercise required teams from Foodstuffs South Island to work together to solve puzzles in order to collect bike parts. The teams were then tasked with bringing all the parts together in order to build their very own bike. All of this had to be done within a strict time frame, which meant that the teams had to practice expert teamwork skills, if they wanted to build the full bike in time.
The children also got to enjoy a day filled with games and shared a delicious afternoon tea, before being surprised with the completed bikes that they had helped to build by supplying the finishing part – the bike seat – which they were lead to by clues. This gift was kept as a complete surprise for the children and they couldn’t have been happier to receive such a generous prize.
Family Works received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the Buddies involved in the Build a Bike event – both Big Buddies and Little Buddies. Since the event, Buddies have been enjoying adventurous bike rides together as part of their on-going activities.
Family Works Invercargill Buddy Programme Coordinator, Rosanne Wybrow reported on some of the glowing feedback around the event saying, “I have had feedback from Amelia, Ryan’s mum, that he almost has the hang of riding a bike now (bike riding is a new experience for Ryan) and Alicia and her mum are going bike riding together.”
Helen Goatley, Team Leader at Family Works, talked about her involvement on the day and how the day played out.
“We had a number of ice-breaker games followed by a set of challenges that culminated in the children finding a cache of bike seats that they took to the adults, at which stage both children and adults learned that the children would be receiving the bikes that had been assembled.
“The challenges were indeed challenging and kept the children engaged and having fun throughout the afternoon.
“Ten children received bikes – three
from Invercargill, three from Gore and
four from Wakatipu. Several of these
children wrote “Thank you” notes after
the event expressing their appreciation
and gratitude”.