The AIC management has decided to give a special spin to the start of the year and organise team building in a very different way. The scenery for last year’s team building was the Pilis mountains when we went on hiking for the whole day. This time around it had to be a bit different, so we thought of renting two dragon boats and headed to the Danube for rowing.
We met in Óbuda at the Roman Beach where adventurous Colleagues arrived by bus and by bicycle, some by car. The dragon boats pulled in on time at 10 am to the shores and the two helmsmen held a short briefing about the right handling of the boat and showed us how to use well the oars.
Our 3 little companions put on the life-vest first and so did some of our Colleagues before we started rowing upstream. It took a little while until we found the right rhythm even though the drummers did a good job but to keep the right rowing rhythm was not an easy call. The first kilometre was the most challenging as the tide kept sweeping us back eroding all the advantage we made in the water.
The community spirit was excellent, and we are happy to say that we had Colleagues from all walks of Avicenna and not only the teaching staff. Among our team members you could find Husnah from the Reception and Monika and Ági from the kitchen along with almost all of our Student Centre Colleagues. The point of this water-born adventure was exactly that, to make all the staff work together or shall I say row together to achieve one common goal that is to move ahead. The target was the Lupa island and to reach it we had to clock in 4 water kilometres and slide on the water as fast and neat as possible to reach the island where lunch was wating for us. It took us an hour and a half to reach the Megyeri bridge and then one more half an hour to reach the island itself.
After our lunch box-stop we geared up for the water road back to the Roman Beach. This was a lot faster and easier ride as were rowing downstream so the tide took us quickly back, we made it just shy of 1 hour and a half, one hour earlier.
Having touched dry land we briefly discussed and voted into effect the school documents for the current school year 2023-24 and started going back home. It was a truly one of a kind type of experience, a real gap-filler, we all enjoyed it and Mr. Reza was kind enough to accompany us to immortalise the whole experience so that everyone reading this article now and later can enjoy the pictures.
The larger, 20 people carrier ran ashore fist, followed by the other boat with 10 people on board. The restaurant on the island, Sanyi buffet quickly became the highlight of the day as family members of the restaurant got busy serving us and the food, all three types of menus were of superb quality, beautiful food!
