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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Team Building - “Creating and Sustaining Healthy Teams”


Administrative services staff held their Spring Team Building event, Thursday, April 23rd.  The event began with a tour of the PAC.  Nelson Cupello, Director, PAC, and Skip Bailey, Associate Director, Athletics, acted as tour guides.

Following the tour, staff gathered in the PAC for team building activities.  Seven teams, each with 10 members, competed for “blue” ribbon status.

Each team member, only using their two index fingers, had to raise 2 lightweight helium rods simultaneously from the floor.   Once the rods were raised, a golf ball was added.  The team while holding the golf ball steady walked it to and dropped it into a bucket.  If one team member’s fingers weren’t touching, the exercise was restarted.  The team who was able to release their golf ball into the bucket first with everyone “touching” the rods was the winner.

For the next exercise, teams arranged themselves in a circle with a small rubber ball.  The ball had to be tossed and caught by each team member.  If the ball was dropped, “work” stopped for 1 minute.  Once teams were comfortable, another ball was tossed into the circle followed by a third.  Work increased so each team member had to catch and toss 3 balls.

Two co-workers called-in sick but “work” had to continue.  Now 2 members had to “pick” up an extra rotation.  The winning team is that with the least amount of “down” time.

These exercises were meant to “entertain” as well as reiterate how teamwork, communication and being able to adjust to different environments are “key” to everyday job responsibilities and assigned projects.

After the exercises, staff enjoyed “healthy” dessert/snacks prepared by staff members who competed for prizes and “bragging” rights.

1st prize – Laura Pfenninger, Controller Operations
2nd prize - April Spring-Buckley, Payroll
3rd prize - Vickie Alessandra, Accounts Payable

One team successfully took the “blue” ribbons in both exercises and is pictured below.

Front row: Mary Ranghelli, Laura Pfenninger, Cindy Wang, Joseph Berry, Back row (l to r) Douglas Bailey, Lajuane Green, Joseph Angora, Fred McCullough, Robert Shufelt and Robert Fess.

Heze Simmons, Vice President
Administrative Services
05/06/2009