Last Thursday and Friday a number of our younger CECA Wales members came together at Cwrt y Gollen Army Camp in Crickhowell to test their leadership and teamworking abilities at CECA Wales’ annual “Leadership Challenge”. The “Challenge”, which we’ve been developing in partnership with the Armed Forces, and is in its second year, is designed to expose our aspiring apprentices, trainees and graduates to a series of physical and mental activities, in an unfamiliar environment, to test their leadership capabilities.
Those who attended had been previously nominated by their employers for the CECA Wales Annual Awards and so this event builds upon the Awards. It also forms part of a broader programme of leadership and management training which CECA Wales is developing to support the “brightest and the best” within our industry. We also invited a number of guests from client and consultant organisations to join in the experience and help to develop future networks across the sector.
The 2-day event involved a number of “military tasks” undertaken in “combat mode”. Fortunately, the weather in the Brecon Beacons was pretty good which made “sleeping out” great fun! The programme for this year also involved a number of military engineering tasks set out by the Royal Monmouthshire Engineers including bridge building, mine sweeping and water purification. Trying to perform these engineering tasks whilst completely disorientated following a lack of sleep proved a real test! The event culminated in a a physical assault type event followed by a well-earned curry lunch with a number of CECA Wales employers and local authority clients who came to observe and discuss the shape of future “Challenges”. I will be reviewing feedback from the Challenge but the overwhelming view of the Army personnel was that these were an exceptional group of individuals – which they would welcome with open arms!
We’ll be issuing details of our 2019 Awards in December and all those apprentices, trainees and graduates who enter will be automatically eligible for the 2019 Leadership Challenge.
So, big congratulations/llongyfarchiadau to all those who took part. And here’s a few photos to follow just to prove that it did all happen!
The importance of a good briefing
Mobilising
Building bridges
Walking the walk
The final push!
Knights Brown
Team Encon
The Griffiths team
The Walters team
And look how hard the employers are working!
The Winning Team – Well done/Llongyfarchiadau