Our Work With The Bristol Gulls
It has been a pleasure working with The Bristol Gulls on a range of team-building workshops over the past year. Here’s what they have to say about our partnership with this incredible group of women:
“Writing to you from The Bristol Gulls HQ – hello everyone! We are four Bristol-based women who will be rowing across the Atlantic this December in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, a 3000 mile row from the Canary Islands to Antigua. We’ve been planning for this day to come for almost two years and have received incredible support along the way… including from Ruari and Tim at High Performance Development.
HPD have been working with us over the past year, over Zoom calls and Whatsapp group chats to provide us support and guidance as we take on this massive challenge. First of all,we cannot understate how amazing it has been to work with Ruari and Tim and how much work they have put into preparing us individually and as a team for the challenge. The biggest of thank yous to them both for all of their time and the preparation they have put into running virtual workshops, chatting with us and supporting us throughout 2020. We have had some unusual challenges this year, one obvious one being less time spent together as a team. I cannot imagine that our communication and togetherness would be as it is without their input, expertise and knowledge.
So what did they do?
High Performance Development have mentored us as team to identify our purpose, vision and values and helped us realise how our success is underpinned by our behaviour and mindset throughout this journey.
We’ve been identifying challenges and obstacles, with HPD providing the tools for us to carefully think ahead and plan for how we will mentally and physically overcome them. We’ve worked on personality types to help us understand how to get the best out of each other and how we each make team contributions in different ways. We’ve worked on personality types using the Insights Discovery psychometric profiloing tool which was brillaint in helping us understand how to get the best out of each other and how we each make team contributions in different ways. One of the most valuable HPD sessions for us was the virtual workshop on tiered goals, creating a list of goals that can supercede others so that there is always something to work towards. All of the exercises we have done with HPD are to make our team performance the best that it can possibly be.
We’re really looking forward to now getting out to La Gomera and beginning the race. We leave the UK on December 1st so the countdown is on. We know all we have learnt with HPD will come into practise once the four of us are on the boat with only ourselves and each other for support”.
You can find out more about The Bristol Gulls at thebristolgulls.com or head over to their social media channels @thebristolgulls. Alternatively, follow them live from 12th December during the race using the ‘YB Races’ app!
