Team Building - Arizona Climbing and Adventure School

Arizona Corporate Team Challenges® (ACTC) objective and primary task is to help organizations, small businesses and corporations use rock climbing and adventure based team building as a catalyst for personal and professional change and growth. To meet this mission, we are committed to developing effective, meaningful and fun training workshops.

Our workshops are a blend of theory and practice. We utilize a variety of time tested teaching principles from the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), the Colorado Outward Bound School (COBS), Project Adventure (PA) and Paul Stoltz's Adversity Quotient. It is through this blend that adventure learning begins to take form and meaning - there is a reason for activity; there are connections between the adventure and our personal lives. Helping you make these connections is our greatest design challenge.

Each workshop offers you the opportunity to "live the model" - a chance to risk, to trust, to try and to learn. Our workshops are designed to allow you to learn by doing. You will be asked to be an active participant, to experience adventure based programming firsthand. And found in the midst of all this learning is fun! It is our belief that when work and learning are fun, creativity, productivity and achievement peak. When what we are doing challenges and engages us, then the learning is making an impact. You will find that our workshops can leave a lasting impression on you.

One of the stronger points of the ACTC curriculum is a series of physical trust-building activities. Whether it's spotting on the low elements course or solving an initiative problem, there is a natural rationale for all to participate. Engaging in these activities proves to the group participants that they can be trustworthy in risk situations, and that they can rely on others to be there. The physical nature of the program activities builds in the necessity of achieving a basic level of physical trust before moving on to more complex and social interaction trust issues. Later activities recycle the trust themes as participants risk feeling foolish, failing or in other ways becoming vulnerable to judgment. Appropriate trust and risk-taking judgments are intertwined necessarily.

The value of these trust exercises is to increase the quality of group development in building a sense of community and team support. The group proceeds to move more quickly to develop emotional trust, and to be able to take emotional risks more easily in the developing climate of trust. High group cohesion leads to sharing, openness, acceptance and support of others.

The fundamental importance of trust development is well recognized. Faith and trust in self and in other persons is such an essential ingredient in relationships that it cuts across and interacts with all other components of the self-concept system.

LEADERSHIP - Whether scaling a mountain, climbing a vertical cliff or creating a human bridge across an "acid river", individuals gain an awareness of and faith in their own ability to lead and follow. They have opportunities to test their ability in critical group decision-making and thereby become more confident leaders.
TEAMWORK - Success in each ACTC activity depends as much on teamwork as individual effort. Under the pressure of reaching a difficult goal, each individual undergoes rapid growth. This growth occurs in group efforts that become catalysts for new relationships between people. Participants become connected by shared experiences as they forge the foundations for new and effective teams.
CHANGE - In wilderness settings, participants are taken out of their "comfort zone" and immersed in a changing environment. By handling new circumstances, teams learn to turn problems into opportunities for success. Each challenge mastered is a satisfying achievement that prepares them for even more opportunities.

ACTC GROUP INITIATIVES AND TRUST WORKSHOP - LEVEL I
One concentrated day of activities. All of our workshops incorporate trust games and group initiatives. These exercises act as both an "ice" breaker and as a group foundation. Initiative exercises offer a series of clearly and often fanciful defined problems. Each task is designed so that the group must employ cooperation and some physical effort to gain a solution. Some problems are more cerebral than physical and vice-versa. This problem-oriented approach to learning can also be useful in developing each individual's awareness of decision-making, leadership, and the obligations and strengths of each member within a group. Participants engage the problems in groups to take advantage of the combined physical and mental strengths of a team. These initiative problems also can be employed to promote an individual's sense of his or her own competence, and they also serve to help break down some of the stereotypes which exist so comfortably in our social network.
......Prerequisites: Willing to explore the unknown!
......Cost: $265 per person
......Group size: 6 to12 participants
......Primary Activities: Trust and team building skills
......Additional Activities: Group dynamics and plenty of fun!

ROCK CLIMBING WORKSHOP - LEVEL II & III
Rock climbing, the heart and soul of team building. This workshop instills group bonding, cohesion and trust to its highest level. Spend one or two days with the ACTC's experienced and certified staff learning a new skill, having fun, and building confidence to climb!! We offer two day classes at the beginner level and two day classes at the advanced level. You will learn, bouldering, use of technical climbing equipment, belaying, knot tying, rope handling and rappelling. You will also learn specific climbing techniques, along with the jargon related in the sport. This fast paced workshop also places a major emphasis on safety.
......Prerequisites: Wanting to climb and fight gravity
......Cost: $225 per workshop level, per person, per day
......Group size: 6 participants
......Primary Activities: Climbing, safety, good judgment, advanced rope systems, site selection.
......Additional Activities: Group dynamics and minimum impact camping skills

	trust (noun) 1. Firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing. It is a well known fact that a wilderness experience can effect one person so deeply that it profoundly alters his or her view of self and reality to the positive, changing a person's life for months and sometimes years after the experience. "Team Building and Adventure Based Workshops of this sort have conditions. They require great energy, exertion, teamwork and planning. They also involve me in a process of discovery. It is impossible to hike up a canyon, traverse across a steep hill, rope up on a difficult ridge, establish a new camp, without becoming immersed in the symbolism of the adventure. I am one person, climbing from the bottom, trying to make it to the top. I am going one step further than I have gone before. I am declaring myself, at least for one moment, free from the sometimes confining shackles of the work world. I am passing upwards, into the clouds, into the sky, into fresh clean air, into a new appreciation of my strength and the strengths of my companions. When it is over I have not changed the world. But I bring back one small part that allows me to feel more alive, that allows me to give a little more to the ones I love, that allows me to dream new dreams. These adventures are critical, they are the adventures of my passage from the old me to the new. I don't believe that they can be had by sitting and waiting for someone else to do them. The conditions of these passages require me to take every step. Without them I am less. With them I am more. It's that simple." Articles and news stories featuring the Arizona Climbing and Adventure School have appeared in The Arizona Republic newspaper, Alaska Airlines Magazine, Frontdoors magazine, National Geographic Adventure magazine, and AAA Highroads magazine. FOX network television (Channel 10 - Phoenix) and CBS KPHO televison (Channel 5 - Phoenix). The activities described on this web site carry a significant risk of personal injury or death. Rock climbing is inherently dangerous. The owners and staff of the Arizona Climbing and Adventure School do not recommend that anyone participate in these activities unless they seek qualified professional instruction and/or guidance, are knowledgeable about the risks involved, and are willing to personally assume all responsibility associated with those risks.

GRAND CANYON SOUTH RIM WORKSHOP - LEVEL IV
Our most popular workshop! Program Director Mark Brontsema who has spent 19 years traveling extensively throughout the Grand Canyon will be your instructor to one of the most hidden and spectacular places in the Grand Canyon. Mysterious Anasazi Indian passageways, rare shaman petroglyphs, a giant natural arch, waterfalls and pristine springs are just a small part of this trip. You'll also be learning wilderness travel techniques, minimum impact camping skills, geology, astronomy, Native American history and culture. This workshop is pure route finding - no trails!
......Prerequisites: Hiking experience and participated in CTC's Level's I and II
......Cost: $525 per person
......Group size: 6 participants
......Primary Activities: Wilderness travel skills, map and compass, and minimum impact camping skills
......Additional Activities: Group dynamics, geology, history, ecology, cooking, and kite flying

HUMPHREY'S PEAK CLIMB AND CAMPOUT LEVEL IV - ALTERNATE
2-days and 1-night. Another popular trip. We will hike or crawl our way to the summit of the highest peak in Arizona - Humphrey's Peak (12,670 ft.). Everyone makes it to the top as a united and helping group. We will celebrate our summit victory with a campout high on the mountain among beautiful aspens.
......Prerequisites: Hiking or crawling experience and participated in ACTC's Level I
......Cost: $165 per person
......Group size: 6 participants
......Primary Activities: High altitude hiking, trust games, wilderness and minimum impact camping skills
......Additional Activities: Group dynamics, diet, nutrition, cooking

ACTC's COMPLETE CORPORATE TRAINING WORKSHOP
Join peers from all sectors of the corporate and professional community - managers, executives, salespeople, community leaders - and work together on activities that promote leadership, teamwork and professional renewal.
Using basecamp initiatives, discussions, a solo experience, rock climbing and a peak ascent, you discover new self-confidence, develop as a team player and become a leader who inspires the best in others. This workshop combines Level's One through Four over a nine day period which can be stretched out over a one month time frame. Please call us for more information on this extensive workshop.
......Prerequisites: Willing to explore beyond the unknown!
......Cost: $865 per person
......Group size: 6 participants
......Primary Activities: Rock climbing, trust games, team building and group communication skills
......Additional Activities: Group dynamics

NOTE: All equipment, transportation and food is provided. A complete and detailed workshop description is provided upon receiving your completed application form and fee.

ACTC's CUSTOMIZED CORPORATE TRAINING WORKSHOP
Arizona Corporate Team Challenges offers professional consulting services to develop custom training and program designs. The range of customized services is broad. One organization may be looking for a one-day trust building workshop for their staff, another a complete nine-day all levels workshop. The Customized Corporate Training Workshop is designed to teach you to effectively integrate adventure based approaches into your work. The option is placed on portable, cost-effective activities that can easily be adapted to indoor settings. We would be glad to work with you to develop a training design that is right for your organization! Our team of professionals works with your organization utilizing the following steps:

ORGANIZATIONAL ASSESSMENT - We meet with you to become acquainted with and better understand your organization's unique situation and to gain agreement on ideal outcomes.
CUSTOM DESIGN - We tailor the workshop to meet your needs. You may use a format that has been successful with other firms or select your own course length and setting. Activities and discusions are planned for your group and aligned with its stated goals.
THE CORPORATE TEAM CHALLENGES WORKSHOP - Your group steps into an adventure in learning. Facilitated by our outstanding instructors, the challenges and discussions illuminate problems, enhance solutions and create bonds of friendship and trust.
FOLLOW THROUGH - We follow up after the workshop to assess your progress, review successes and suggest ways to continue the integration and application process.

Call us for further information.