Our second week of ELBA training began with the Team Challenge. We were a team of 12, with the majority of us not looking forward to a day of gardening. On the day, we were there bright and early, with the weather outside echoing our feelings, cold and slightly grey.

In the first week of the training, our cohort had met, learnt about the basics of Corporate Social Responsibility and starting learning about each other. The whole of Wednesday had a focus on personal development, learning about teamwork and about ourselves. Our weekend was spent at Ashridge Business School, learning about project management tools, fine dining and a scary night walk. All these days had started to turn us from a group of strangers to a group of friends. The Team Challenge really started to solidify that.

Teesdale & Hollybush Tenants Residents Association welcomed us with open arms, tea and an assortment of food. As we walked over to the gardens, we were told about the role they played in keeping the estate community together and positive, and how fresh produce was sent to the local food bank. We took a garden bed each and started weeding it out- so it would be ready to be planted. While we worked till lunch, we had a chance to talk and learn more about each other. One of our team members had tried to grow a watermelon one summer. Two school peers had been reunited by EaGLES and they started learning more about each other, while they cleaned up the garden workspace.

After a lunch of pizza, the community leaders gave us an hour to clean up three additional garden beds, sweep up the large patio area, and clean up the playgrounds within the estate. This helped strengthen our connection as a team and showed us how we can work together in a timed situation. This was helpful when we worked with on our team project, a debate on Brexit to the ELBA staff and our placement line managers.

The Team Challenge became one of our training highlights: as well as improving the gardens we learned about the community, had fun and we became a stronger and closer team. The Team Challenge was a great way of rounding off our EaGLES training and was useful practical experience for several of my fellow eagles who are asked to arrange team challenges (via ELBA) as part of their placements. The three weeks training at ELBA have been very useful to my placement. I have used many of the skills and techniques taught during the training, particularly the project management tools. These have been particularly helpful as I work in two teams, digital branding and sustainability, and need to manage two separate workloads. The training rounded off the skills I had already developed at university and through volunteering for the workplace. I am now one month into my placement at Ernst & Young, and feel as if I am part of the team and understand (for the most part) my role and responsibilities. I am unsure whether I would feel as comfortable without the three weeks training.