A ropes course, also known as a challenge course, is a series of activities and structures made of wood and cables. Your group will navigate these structures, called elements, while our staff members facilitate. Through your group’s efforts, issues that typically take weeks or even months to address can be brought to the forefront within hours due to participants feeling challenged and “out of their element”. Beyond being merely fun, ropes courses provide a powerful and rewarding experience.
We recognize and embrace the diversity of groups taking advantage of our course. Many factors are considered while planning and implementing your day at the UVM ARC, especially group context and group and individual goals. Our facilitators have a wealth of experience and training, and are skilled at flexing with your group throughout the day as group dynamics necessitate.
Some critical components for a successful program are name games (for safety and respectful communication); warm-up activities (to stretch muscles and get a great energy going); and spotting instruction. Trust- and problem-solving initiatives get to the heart of your group’s dynamics, and can serve as bridges between field games and elements. Our low and high ropes course elements will help your group work toward specific goals. Low ropes course elements involve much teamwork, so if you wish to gain better communication skills and cooperation among team members, the low elements are where we will focus. High elements involve more individual challenge and support. As often as possible, we teach participants how to belay each other, as this is a powerful experience for everyone involved.
None of these components stands alone; our facilitators use them in concert. Clients sometimes request that we omit one or more of the above components. In these cases we will work with you to discuss how the omission is likely to affect program effectiveness. We like the analogy of the frog who immediately flees when put directly into boiling water; we prefer participants warm up slowly to the challenging (and sometimes threatening) experiences they face on a ropes course. No group has so much cohesion and trust that they would feel safest going directly to high elements to be belayed 40 feet in the air by each other! Although adrenaline rushes are part of what make our course exciting, education is our primary mission. The most successful programs take into account human nature to ensure a group is in the best place to learn and grow.
Another important component of our programming is the staff to participant ratio. Our programs require a ratio of one facilitator for every twelve participants to ensure safety and quality of programming. A ratio of one to ten is recommended for youth groups.
Businesses: We welcome
relationships with employers who value their
employees, are invested in strengthening employee
relations, and are commited to providing experiences which enable their
employees to
excel. Knowing the work we do on the ropes course is only part of
an ongoing effort to improve employee communication and teamwork, we
encourage our clients to call us with challenges they face beyond the
scope of the ropes course visit. We are a popular destination for
attendees of conferences and retreats, as time at the ropes course is
both productive and energizing.
School and Youth Groups: School
and youth groups have particular
needs, including a progression of activities and elements suited to
their size, pace, and attention. Chaperones and teachers play a key
role (and sometimes a difficult one) in making the day successful. They
serve as role models and are there to support and manage the group, but
should allow the students' group process to unfold without adult input.
We recognize the ever-present
need for financial aid to support youth team building efforts, and we
can help put you in touch with possible funding sources.
College Staff, Faculty, and
Students: Many of our clients, like us,
spend their days working and engaged on college campuses, and many of
our
facilitators are college employees or students. We are well-prepared
to
address the range of issues typical to college culture, from
helping students bond or cope with academic and peer pressure; to
easing staff and faculty transitions and providing coworkers a time to
learn how to work with each other.
Community Organizations:
Community groups have historically embraced ropes courses as a
wonderful venue to improve self-esteem,
perseverance, and leadership skills, and for good reason! We are
honored to facilitate the
individual and group development processes that take place on our ropes
course,
knowing our community is only as strong as its members.
We strive to make our ropes course accessible to and meaningful for
all individuals regardless of ability or age. In our pursuit of a
fully-accessible ropes course, we encourage individuals to contact us
with associated ideas and concerns to help us in this important
endeavor.
For all our groups, we offer pre- and post-program site visits at an additional cost to better understand your group's dynamics and to aide in transferring learning back to the school or workplace.
Catered lunches from Klinger's Bakery are available for $12 per person, with a minimum of ten people.
Last modified April 20 2007 09:18 PM
