Look, No Ropes

Meetings and Conventions Magazine Article http://www.mcmag.com
JUNE 2008

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Group team-building options get creative
By Hunter R. Slaton

Popular wisdom holds that we are living in the age of the niche. Appropriately enough, team-building companies are now offering some out-there activities that depart from tired-and-true trust falls, paintball games and ropes courses of years past.

One offbeat option is WhirlyBall, which combines lacrosse, hockey and basketball with bumper cars. The WhirlyBall (www.whirlyball.com) company has three Illinois locations, where bumper car team members work together to score baskets using plastic scoops. Visit whirlyball.org to find other places where the sport is played and watch a game in action.

For those who don't enjoy getting knocked about, Canadian Outback Adventures (www.canadianoutback.com) organizes a barbecue challenge where teams battle, Iron Chef-style, with must-use ingredients in an outdoor cooking competition. After the judges choose the winning team, it's time to eat.

A do-good way to forge bonds: The Helping Hands program from Odyssey Teams (www.odysseyteams.com) assists groups in building prosthetic hands that are donated to those in need. Since the program began in 2004, a total of 1,200 hands have been assembled, 750 of which have been distributed to amputees in foreign countries including Colombia, India, Jordan and Kenya.