'Dizzy Heights' - Task Three in the Challenge Annica feature Series at Center Parcs

Venue Review of 'Dizzy Heights' - Task Three in the Challenge Annica feature Series at Center Parcs

The latest Challenge Annica event was the biggest and bravest to date. Mark Sansom reports from the tree tops at Center Parcs

The scores were tied at 1-1 when the Challenge Annica hotline buzzed for the third time. ‘Hello?’ Our intrepid editor answered with apprehension. ‘I have a challenge for you,’ replied the monotone voice. ‘Should you choose to accept, the V&E team will be whisked away to deepest Suffolk, where you’ll scale trees, cross lakes and battle in the forest. You have 30 minutes to decide.’ The line clicked dead.

Half an hour wasn’t necessary. As soon as the handset was down, emails were flying around Square Meal Towers in search of outdoor expertise. Our leader wasn’t to be disappointed. We had no idea there so much talent in our ranks: cub scouts, sea cadets, girl guides and a Duke of Edinburgh award-winner all came crawling out of the woodwork.

The challenger, it turned out, was one Simon Jones, a UK account director from Center Parcs, who wanted to show his holiday parks aren’t just for families. His team had devised three challenges to tax brain and body and confront fears in a day of fun, laced with an undercurrent of fierce competition.

It was an early start for the Squaremealers coming up from London to Elveden Forest, the Suffolk Center Parcs outpost. Although the Anneka Rice-style chopper never arrived, a two-hour journey saw us there in plenty of time for the breakfast briefing.

It was straight down to the heart of the forest for a not-so-ambiguously titled task, ‘Reaching Unknown Heights’. The teams had to traverse an aerial assault course, suspended several metres above the ground. ‘Not so hard,’ you might think, but with a paper cup full of water to take round the course to be redeemed for points after an 14m abseil, the sky-bridges and rope swings started to look a little tricky.

As the last drop was poured into the measuring jug for both sides, we were pretty confident. We weren’t to find out until later that we had lost by a couple of millilitres, thanks to Laura’s giggling and excess haste. She made up for it at the next event, though, bravely being the first to clamber up a 10m pole and make an un-aided ‘leap of faith’ to a trapeze and win the team 50 points. The flying squirrel you see in picture two above is Mark, who also brought home the bacon.

We went to lunch in high spirits. After a perfect-sized ploughman’s in the comfortable meeting suite, both teams were getting on famously – despite knowing what was at stake. The Center Parcs Challenge Annica trophy stared at us from across the room and we wanted it badly. After a SM team picked up All Star Lanes bowling trophy earlier that same week, we were already sizing up a trophy cabinet for the office.

The afternoon’s ‘Race to be the Best’ started with a bit of ‘simple’ maths. An elaborate ‘how long should it take Tom, Dick and Harry to cross a river’ equation revealed a set of coordinates, which lead us to a real life ‘how should we cross a lake’ problem. To get three crafts to the other side should’ve been relatively simple, yet with debut oarsman Mark making a hilarious hash of the rowing leg, we were left with some serious catching up to do.

Luckily we breezed through the logic puzzle, catching up with and going in front of the Center Parcs guys. Our lack of knowledge of the area really showed though, as we reached the next task neck and neck after taking a wrong turn. The last leg was a cycle race to the edge of the park and despite giving it our all, we came up slightly short, with Annica almost succumbing to a jump-suit induced asthma attack on the way.

It was straight onto the battle field after donning the army fatigues and slapping on the camo paint for the Combat Adventure. Using state-of-the-art laser guns with a 400m range, we were thrown in at the deep end, initially being picked off for fun by the crack-shot opposition.

Before we were able to find our feet, we were already a few hundred points adrift. Although, as the team got used to it, we managed to bounce back with a couple of wins to create a fifth and final shoot-off. The whole day boiled down to a gun battle worth a whopping 400 points; nerves were frayed and adrenaline was pumping. It proved to be a skirmish to end all fire fights: think Platoon on speed.

After a long and drawn-out battle, experience paid off. Caroline, our last woman standing, was eventually mowed down by a team of merciless Center Parcs assassins. Although feeling a little short-changed by a final round that was so heavily weighted with points, we came away from the fight deserved losers.

As you can tell from the smiles in the pictures, the day was a whole heap of laughs. From the first step on the log bridge until the last round was fired in the warzone, it made a perfect day’s outdoor entertainment. We were actually guinea pigs for the exercise, which is soon to be rolled out as a corporate event at the four Centre Parcs across the UK. In our opinion – despite coming away empty handed – a day’s teambuilding doesn’t come any better.

This article first appeared in Square Meal Venues & Events magazine, summer 2010.