Camelot Events is a specialist provider of leisure and learning facilities. Bookings administration, accommodation, transport, site management and outdoor and indoor training and development which are all packaged in seamless events with our own experts contributing towards delivery of the full package specified by the client.
We have four British sites under direct management in the South East, West Midlands and East Midlands and access agreements to many others throughout Britain. Abroad we have our own owned or contracted properties with meeting and training facilities and outdoor adventure activities in the Eastern Pyrenees, Portugal, Jamaica and the Baltic States. We are even able to bring outdoor team building and development to locations such as parks, hotel grounds, farmland and woodland with mobile equipment and resources.
We are fully insured, fully qualified and very experienced in the things that we do. We have national reputations in consulting for other providers in Health and Safety, Outdoor Development and Trainer Training.
Everything we do is done with commitment and enthusiasm! We like doing the things we do and believe that our clients deserve the same.
At one extreme we will provide you with a half day of fun, energetic things to do together simply to energise and motivate the members of your team . . . . . or, at the other extreme we will assist you in refining and defining your strategic objectives, translate the team elements of that into an action plan, assist you in profiling your people and assessing needs, strengths and weaknesses, design training, source accommodation and facilities, deliver the planned programme and assist you in follow through and evaluation!
On the pages following you will find suggestions to guide your choice and further descriptions of parts of the service. These will help you to exactly specify the service you want.
Choosing a site or location
We have four permanent sites covering Metropolitan England. They are:
Henfold Lakes - close to Dorking and the M25 with excellent road and rail connections for London and the South of England. This site has lakes, woodland, scrubland, a stream in a narrow ravine and a hillside. There is a friendly 'clubhouse' similar to a small friendly but private pub.
Paintball, off road driving, raft building and an adventure 'challenge' course are always available together with initiative, leadership and team tasks. Quads, buggies and the full range of field sports and activities can be brought in to order.
The great advantage of this site is its ease of access from London. We have an executive partner hotel nearby and can offer good rates on accommodation, conference and leisure facilities.
Sherwood Forest - almost within a bowshot of the Major Oak the Sherwood site is deep within the forest. Nevertheless it is easily reached by road from the A1(M) and the M1 and by rail from Nottingham, Mansfield and Sheffield. We have a choice of high quality partner hotels in the area with good indoor training facilities. We are able to book accommodation near this site at heavily discounted rates at many times of the year
Paintball, off road driving, an adventure 'challenge' course, quads and buggies are always available as are initiative, leadership and team tasks. Additional field sports and activities can be brought in to order. For programmes of more than one day water activities in Nottingham and mountain activities in the nearby Peak District can be incorporated.
Shropshire North - easily reached from the M6 this site is near Telford at one end of the Ironbridge Gorge. It is a 'part-time' site in a spectacular setting with a mixture of open land and thickly wooded ravine. It is ideal for off road activities and for an adventure 'challenge' course. Paintball and other field sports and activities can be brought in to order and a wide range of activities and sports are available in the locality.
There is an excellent pub-restaurant nearby for lunches and we are able to book residential and indoor training facilities in a partner hotel a few minutes drive away.
This quiet, private and self-contained site lends itself to short sessions targeted at specific skills in support of longer, indoor programmes based on the nearby hotel.
Shropshire South - a wonderful forest setting with hills, valleys a lake and a wide variety of trees. The steep slopes, the lake, a gully with a timber bridge and areas of thick undergrowth make the site ideal for a range of development activities in addition to the facilities for leisure pursuits such as paintball, quad biking, off-road driving.
Although some miles from residential and indoor training facilities at partner hotels this site has sufficient shelter for outdoor catering and effective debriefing and is particularly suitable for intensive team formation and development work. The range of tasks and challenges available enable every aspect of teamwork to be assessed, prioritised, worked upon and evaluated.
Other outdoor venues - We are able to mount programmes at many other venues around Britain and abroad.
Our Health and Safety Manager has carried out detailed risk assessments for a variety of 'country house' and urban parkland sites. Where clients have a preferred location in hotel grounds or their own training centre a risk assessment can be carried out to enable us to bring equipment and materials onto site for the provision of fully insured programmes in almost any location. Previous projects have required us to prepare and use farmland, the grounds of a 'stately home' and Clapham Common!
Associates of the Hotrocks own 'wilderness' sites each with a range of possible activities in Spain, Portugal, Jamaica and the Baltic States. Each venue can support intensive three to five day programmes for groups of up to twenty five people.
Making a choice:
The questions to ask are about appropriateness, convenience and cost. We can assist you in drawing up a shortlist of locations based on your objectives, the distances people need to travel and the facilities required to deliver your specification. Generally the design of our multi purpose sites means that the best result will result from using the one most convenient for travel. If for whatever reason you prefer to specify another site we are happy to assist you in costing and arranging your choice.
Specifying a Team Programme or Event
It would be very convenient if there was a single 'perfect' model of team. There is not because organisations are different, the focus of teams within them are different and the individuals are different.
By way of example: In a bank which has been a client for several years teams working in highly structured account management and processing areas with rigid procedures and a focus on compliance had entirely different selection and development requirements to those identified in the marketing group where creativity and innovation were the priority.
In the same bank managers and teams needed development and support in analysing and dealing with the cultural and social changes brought about by the effects of new technology. The nature of teams had to change to maintain business effectiveness as distributed networks and local information management replaced the central mainframe.
In another case a manufacturing organisation had to commission a production line costing tens of millions of pounds. To ensure that the investment made a return as quickly as possible the operating team of three shifts of managers, supervisors and operatives were selected and rigorously prepared as an integrated confident team capable of both problem solving and routine operations
Similarly, assessment and selection, diagnosis and team development, incentive, motivation and reward are all valid activities on which to spend budget. All however have a different place in the cycle of a team's work.
So . . . the important questions here are about clarifying objectives. What do we want to be different afterwards. Questions about identifying where on its cycle a team is and what is the appropriate result enhancing activity at this point and, lastly, questions about the kind of people we are dealing with - what are the methods and choices for our action to which they will best respond . . .
Overleaf we have illustrated some of the main categories in which we may make choices.
Some of the common categories in specification building
Where a team development need is recognised but its necessary focus has not been identified asking questions like those suggested here can help sharpen up the specification and design of your event.
One question that often helps identify appropriate types of event is to ask -
Where in its current cycle is the team?
Stage in cycle Possible appropriate types of event:
Pre-formation Assessment / selection event designed to assist matching process of people against person specifications Commitment / consensus building event, facilitates 'opting in' where team can have a measure of self-selection Skill building event in which skills assessed as necessary are trained into population from which the team will be drawn.
Formation Trust building event to build / accelerate social cohesiveness of team Role rehearsal / confirmation event to familiarise team members with effective team process as far as it may be predicted
Operational Motivational / incentive events - lightweight, informal, more fun than instruction. Justifiable on the budget where the culture expects it, may be used to celebrate achievement of milestones Review / reflection events - may be used to formally or informally review progress, often built into operations using a 'project management' approach Corrective / reinforcement events - mounted to further analyse dysfunction or ineffectiveness in teams and to take supportive corrective action, may also be used to polish and reinforce team attributes delivering excellence (often neglected) Succession / cloning events - designed to identify and pass on skills, good practice etc. and to manage elements of succession and team renewal Exceptional needs events - may be brought about by changing circumstances unexpected events or unsuspected needs arising
On conclusion of cycle or project Reward event to display organisation's approval and appreciation to this team - also transmits to others Debriefing / feedback / evaluation event may be used to build a knowledge and experience base, to extract information for future planning and to support a 'learning loop' in the organisation
The detail above is illustrative rather than exhaustive, it may help you indirectly as well as directly in sparking your own ideas arising from you own unique knowledge.
Another question that often helps in deciding what kinds of content to put in an event and which methods to use in managing it is to ask (or to measure using organisational research, observation or questionnaires -
Where are the knowledge, skill or attitude gaps?
At the outset people are seldom perfect for their role within a team. They may have great knowledge - but be unable for various reasons to effectively communicate it to a team. They may have great visionary talents and drive - but be unable to deploy them without alienating others . . .
These and many similar problems tend to be the rule rather than the exception. Generally, however, knowledge gaps are easily dealt with once identified, team development events can rehearse and confirm skills and even attitudes can be changed although this is usually a more complex and difficult task. On the next page is a table containing some ideas for identifying and dealing with 'gaps'.
Gap research - identifying knowledge, skill and attitudinal needs
Organisational Systems Many systems (often in place for other purposes) can highlight knowledge, skill and attitude gaps in the team. Examples are: Comparative analysis, competitor analysis, measurement against benchmarks, comparison of team performance etc. Assessment Centres results and top down or 360 degree appraisal system data often indicate longer term team development needs Grievance systems and disciplinary records highlight trends requiring corrective action Critical incident analysis highlights both corrective needs and patterns of excellence for 'cloning'
Team Observation Team observation by skilled observers using structured observation methods can yield estimations of strengths and weaknesses in all areas
Survey and Profiling Instruments Profiling using questionnaires either administered on paper or online or by structured interview can produce reasonably accurate self and other perceptions and analyses of teams and organisational cultures
Experiential Modelling Team events themselves can be structured in phases so that the first phase is used for unmodified teamwork on task which is then available for analysis and as a jointly witnessed starting point . . . .
Agreeing and delivering the specification
We suggest that once you have identified your team's development needs that you go on to estimate how critical each is to the delivery of its objectives.
You can then list the needs in order of priority so that a sensible estimate can be made of what might be achieved within the constraints of time and budget that you may have. If it is possible it can be very effective to involve the team in this analytical and prioritising process.
Experience suggests that the best results for the organisation and usually for the team members too will be achieved if fewer things are done but are done in greater depth. This is because the team will be better motivated by some measurable progress in depth and will often then continue the development process themselves. We a happy to help that process by supplying follow through ideas and support.
For the same reason the commissioning organisation should try to specify outcomes in terms of measurable change - in behaviour, results, scores on re-administered questionnaires etc. as this gives the team three things. A sense of purpose, a target to aim for and a measure against which feedback may be given.
When you have a specification with prioritised outcomes we can match the methods and components of an event against those and an assessment of the group and the individuals within it.
We aim to achieve a balance that ensures that the experiential element is sufficiently powerful but is not threatening, overly demanding or too easy for the team in question. At this stage of our outline design we can almost always go firm on the final cost.
The outline proposal will then be discussed and finalised and the contract made.
A guide to costs
The contracted price of any team event will be agreed in writing. However, for planning purposes the guide prices below are the current prices of many of the components that an event might be built from.
Consultancy & Staffing Preparation, specification and design, supply of masters for team members preparation pack - readers, questionnaires and joining instructions (except specially designed or adapted instruments) Site manager (first aid / safety) - per day Activity supervisor (activity safety) - per day Tutor / coach / observer / facilitator - per day £450 £200 £200 £300
Site fees Shropshire N & S and Sherwood - per day Henfold Lakes - per day 'Base Camp' (where available) - per day £100 £200 £50
Activities Development activities, set up, apparatus and equipment, tools and safety items where required - approximate prices Minor activities requiring light / portable equipment - per day Medium activities - Ballista, raft, rope bridge etc. - per day Large scale / heavy activities - trestle bridge, scrapyard challenge etc. - per day 'Command Tasks' - per team using Orienteering - per event Motorised activities, provision of vehicles, instruction, fuel etc. (minimum numbers may apply, prices are per person per session and depend on site) Quad bikes, 4x4 off road driving, Mud Buggies etc. Paint ball, includes paint ball guns, overalls and safety equipment, marshalling etc. Mid week short session, 200 paint balls Half day, 400 paint balls £25 £60 £100 £50 £40 £35-45 £15 £30
Accommodation (guide prices only as season, demand levels etc. dictates negotiable price) Hotel accommodation is quoted against specific numbers and dates. Typically B & B in twin rooms, weekend overlap with use of meeting room, leisure facilities etc. is per person all sites but Henfold Lakes Midweek or single occupancy Henfold Lakes - three weeks notice required to get quotes on best available prices £45-£50 £80 upwards
"Just a quick email which I hope can be passed on to those that marshalled and organised the day paintballing. Our group had a great time and enjoyed all of it, even the stag hunt!!
It was a great day and we all felt is was very well organised and as safe as paintball can be. We all spent the evening comparing bruises and tactics like true war veterans.
I hope this can be passed on to all concerned.
Thanks again "Gary Finch
Organising
Quad Bikes ..
Birthday Treat..
Combat Games Ltd, 31 St Georges Terrace. Brighton, BN2 1JJ.