Teambuilding at the Grafton Village Cheese Company
We've Joined Forces
High 5 Adventure Learning Center & The Old Tavern at Grafton have joined forces to offer a unique, fun and hands-on team building experience, immersed in the art of making artisanal, award-winning Grafton Village Cheese. 
Professionals at any level will enjoy, contribute, learn and grow from the experience. And your organization brings home the cheese that you make. Cheese making -- paired with the amenities of the historic Old Tavern at Grafton -- offer a unique retreat experience in the idyllic setting of Grafton, Vermont. No other partnership can offer your group such a delicious and rewarding experience!
Focus of this Unique Program
This unique program focuses around the basic business and interpersonal skills that are critical to a successful team effort: cooperation, trust, effective communication, commitment and leadership. From the beginning of the planning process through production and simulated marketing & distribution of Grafton Cheddar, your team will revisit these core concepts. When transferred back to the office, organization, school or team, your Grafton experience can promote stronger working relationships and amplified success, both internally and externally.
Your team will have fun, learn an age-old trade, experience the quintessential Vermont village of Grafton, and learn more about themselves and their co-workers. Your organization also gets the cheese to share with colleagues or clients. Your host, The Old Tavern at Grafton, one of the nation's oldest operating inns, enhances your team experience by providing elegant accommodations and delicious meals throughout your stay. This program can also be customized to address other challenges that your team faces. You can also extend your stay at The Old Tavern and incorporate other meeting time with your team.
"I have renewed appreciation for my peers, their creative energy, their sense of humor and their willingness to meet challenges."
Why Team Building?
A good team building session promotes the development and improvement of the skills critical to a successful team effort:
- Cooperation
- Trust
- Effective Communication Commitment
- Leadership
A teambuilding and/or challenge course experience can help newly formed teams and teams with new members to quickly develop cohesiveness and camaraderie. For an existing group, it can help to take team performance to a higher level. It can also be particularly valuable for participants that are part of the same team, yet are not in every day contact or don't work in the same location with each other.
The Components of a Successful Teambuilding
- Activities that allow the participants get to know one another differently than they might in the work place, helping to strengthen workplace relationships and productivity.
- Successful problem solving initiatives that help the team to establish a sense of camaraderie and a greater awareness of the importance of team work.
- An atmosphere of mutual support in which cooperation and encouragement are emphasized.
- Opportunities for participants to enhance their personal effectiveness as a team player.
- An environment which illuminates many of the essential components of high performing teams: vision, goals and priorities, trust, clear communication, flexibility, and feedback.
- Closing activities that encourage participants to share their key learning's and insights in a creative fashion, often providing a meaningful segue into action planning for returning to the work place.
- Open dialogue between participants to assess critical factors in team tasks, and more deeply explore how teams can effectively capitalize on group resources.
And Why Cheese?
Unique team building activities can often enhance and complement trainings that are more traditional in nature. Team building works best when participants are challenged to accomplish a task together, but in a non- threatening, fun and engaging environment. It's helpful when the experience is crafted around a process or assignment that is new or unknown to all or most of the participants. This levels the playing field and creates opportunity for all participants to contribute to their team's full potential.
The Grafton Cheese Company is a special place where award- winning cheese is handcrafted in small batches. What could be a more unique experience for your team? High 5, teamed with Grafton Cheese and the Old Tavern at Grafton, will provide a one-of-a-kind experience that will leave a lasting, positive effect on the way your organization operates. Get in touch with us so we can discuss your needs and share ideas. Each organization is different and we strive to customize this experience to address the unique chal- lenges of each group. (802) 877-877-4445 info@high5adventure.org
Outcomes of Successful Teambuilding
- Unexpected skills and traits emerge from participants who have pre-defined roles in their organization.
- New, different or re-energized working relationships develop between co- workers, resulting in increased productivity.
- Cameraderie increases after having experienced each other in a new and unusual way.
- Participants demonstrate positive traits that the others didn't know existed.
- Leadership skills emerge in surprising ways.
- Participants assume roles on the team that they wouldn't have the opportunity to have in the office.
Read the Cheesemaking Brochure (pdf) that includes pictures and a sample agenda...
