Nov 17, 2018: Thanks to an abundantly wonderful team that I manage, we had loads of fun yesterday. We went to Dream Valley resort in the outskirts of Hyderabad. Here is a trailer of the fun.

And here is the full story.

The team and I were delighted to spend away the management empowerment fund on a well spent team building event. We chose to do this at the Dream Valley, even so to satisfy the water rides craving of some members including Rama. Too sad that she was not able to join the event. And so we missed Madhusudhan, and Shwetha as well who would’ve thoroughly enjoyed yesterday’s event.

We started off with team introductions and made ensure everyone knew everyone else whether it was from their team or not. This was followed by few tug of wars.

At the end it was concluded on whichever side, our Bahubali Sudhir was, that team won! It was not the sunlight angle or the slushy ground that mattered 🤫.

We had some team building games on object identification without speaking, learning to see positive side of everything even when an event seemed completely unfortunate initially and such. It gave a good slow and steady start to the day long event.

Vagu gave the team a good yoga session with his self created 🍇 postures and get the team to the toes to repeat the postures in a flurry of confusing utterance of fruit names. Of course there is never any outdoor event without cricket and shuttle.

And how could anyone forget memories from the Anakonda game? Entire team tries to save a poor calf from being eaten by the anakonda (python) either by not allowing it enter the ring or not allowing to get to the calf outside the ring, if the anakonda was able to break open the ring of protection. But at the end, it’s a matter of hunger for python after all. Anakonda manages to get to calf eventually even if it was very exhausting.

And there were few other games too that gave us enough teaming. Narasimha found enjoying a sole company of mobile device joined the crowd well. Had a decent lunch in a large hall that ensured it was never overcrowded.

The best part followed the lunch with several water sports. The water slides were amazing. I made sure I was safeguarding the laptops we brought just in case there was an emergency support needed on project front.

Despite best and consistent encouragement from colleagues and me, our beautiful Anjani couldn’t dare trying the water slides (for the most part).

High speed drama of going down the slide and hitting the waters making a huge splash ensured I got wet too, and even my iPhone that is not IP68 or IP68 rated!

Our high performance and daring Twinkle ensured that she did ALL the rides. She didn’t leave even one, not tried out. I was observing the difference between successful people and not so people recently. Successful people are as ordinary and as unsuccessful as all others. Sometimes even worse. But the difference is that they don’t give up! Clearly Twinkle was one good example. I observed, when she would take a ride the first time she is all over and sometimes executed lousier than most others; ended up being baffled and beaten up. But she would do that again. And she enjoys it this time without being scared or nervous. Truly enjoys it! And does this over and over. So she gets to enjoy multiple times and also becomes perfect at that eventually. Mark of a potentially successful person.

We moved on to Rain Dance after the water slides. Until we moved onto the pool, most members confirmed the best part of the entire day was the rain dance. Even the so called somewhat calm people as Sitarama, Vivek, and Ravi V also actively participated. Sharath was fully onto the Bhangra to a punjabi tune. Needless to say I could see best times for Poojitha. Anjani was having a helluva time and Twinkle was a natural. Manasa forgot about her family and home pressures for sometime and had herself immersed in this beautiful time. Sridhar P reminded me of Ganesh Nimajjan dances when dancers would dance to the beats so mesmerisingly well. Guys were having such a good time in rain dance, that I hated calling them to move into the pool. But I knew it was getting late and pool would surely keep them in waters much longer than they expected 🤔.

Harika apparently into a pool for first time, was nervous leaving away the comfort of holding the bars in the pool. But she ensured she had a fantastic time. Some of us gave her the theoretical and practical coaching on how to float in water 💦 to begin with.

Malavika took to the pool like a fish to the water. I was amazed at what a wonderful girl we have in our team. This girl has among the best of the attitudes I have seen for any person. If she continues this attitude all her life (rarely it does as mature), I think she will make the best of her life. She wants to get every bit of life. Every moment. Every nano second. Nothing left unturned. Gives her best at every opportunity or challenge thrown at her. There is no such thing as ‘fear’ in her dictionary. She wasn’t a tall girl by any means. She didn’t know swimming. She could be reasonably safe in the pool according to her only when she would stand on her toes. Yet she would go to the middle of the pool with no fear, try to swim by pushing waters to her behind as she ‘saw’ swimmers do. Needless to say I felt the STAR ⭐️ participant of the Outing was Malavika.

The event wouldn’t have been so successful without active anchoring by Kiran from organising the team, booking the venue, to ensuring everyone would have a safe ride to home. He is the hanuman for SAAQ Team.

Did I miss the opportunity to actively participate myself? Nope! Someone had to ensure things were moving, everyone was safe, each and ever member of the team was having fun, and everything else in between. Above all, someone had to ensure there were memories from the day, that could cherish for years to come. I did enjoy shooting those experiences into permanent media. I was happy being the manager for this wonderful team that I get to work with. Enjoy 💃🏻🚶🏻‍♀️!

To see a video of the moving shots during the day click here!

And to see all those still milliseconds that were made permanent, click here!

Would be happy to see any comments you may have.