Jerry Seinfeld vs Jay Leno zip line in New York

I watched with eager anticipation the advert during the Super Bowl for the Acura NSX.The zip line feature full access package offered by Jerry Seinfeld nearly did the trick until Jay Leno turned up with that flying suit. Ah well, I don't have a flying suit to offer but I do have zip lines that will opening again this month. Why not get ahead of the rest and book your adventure now.

Zip Line at Upward Enterprises Facility in Maryland

Holiday Inn partnership with UEI

I met with the sales team from the Holiday Inn Frederick Conference Center last week and I am really excited about the potential to work together in a partnership. They have great facilities at their Frederick site and I promised to take them to the course and run a small team of their managers through some of the activities for some team bonding of their staff. Our course is less than 10 minutes down the road from the Conference Center making this partnership a perfect match for corporate clients who book the Holiday Inn to get outside for a little while and experience the power of UEI's team building exercises.

New Personal Development and Assessment Tool for 2012

Looking for a training course for your group that improves communications, reduces conflict and builds strong leadership skills?

After nearly 10 years since my first introduction to the Strength Deployment Inventory®, we at Upward Enterprises are excited about about the introduction of this valuable tool for team building processing to our curriculum. SDI is a self assessment tool that provides an understanding of what drives or motivates you and what drives others.

Imagine how much stronger your relationships would be if you really understood what made people tick — both when things were going well and when there was conflict and opposition. SDI is a suite of psychometric tests and a practical methodology for empowering people to improve relationships and manage conflict more effectively. Leadership success depends greatly on getting along with others on one's team.

We intend to utilize this tool with great effect in our team building adventure programs for those who wish to go to the next level of understanding group dynamics. I know there are many analytical processing models, and feel free to make your comments,  but I am sure if you experience this particular model you will agree that the simplicity in the SDI method and the understanding gained along with the self evaluation, outweighs most of its counterparts.

Team Building New Year's Resolution

"We will confront the problem, not each other."

At Upward Enterprises, we teach our clients that working together to solve problems through the power of team can achieve so much more than the power of one.

What is your resolution?

Transitions to Indoor Programs

As a full time ropes course operator we are constantly looking for ways to transition to indoor facilities and to provide our services year round. We love our ropes course as a vehicle to work on group dynamics and we have a huge amount of pride in our successful program sequences but all of these successes can be transferred to an indoor facility using minimal equipment.

With an open  mind and and little creativity we can develop an equally rewarding experience to clients. We always talk about the group being able to work together towards a common goal and how that actually happens when trying to solve a particular problem. The communication that is essential in the planning stages before leadership kicks in to get the ball rolling, right through the frustration stage of early failures and then into small successes which we build on to process the good and the not so good and to carry that to the next activity. All of this can be achieved with a simple hoop or ball or indeed any other small piece of equipment that can be carried into a conference room or meeting space.

What is your favored indoor activity and how does it compare with some of the traditional outdoor ropes course activities?

My personal one is called "through the hoop".

Challenge the group to see how fast they can get all members through a simple hoop. This immediately begs the question to define what through the hoop means. I encourage the discussion to see how deep they will go with the creativity but generally come back to passing the whole body from one side of the hoop through to the other. After some time of getting individuals to step through the hoop some one will suggest getting couples and triplets to have the hoop passed over them. This can then develop into more specific actions and the success will just follow from there. I have had a group of 12 people go through the hoop in less than 5 seconds. What successes have you had?

Upward Enterprises Volunteers at the National Kidney Foundations Over the Edge event.

Its always nice when we can use our experience in the ropes course industry to help with a charitable cause.  We were contacted by the National Kidney Foundation who ask if we could help with their 'Over the Edge' event on June 18th.  The Over the Edge event, held at the Canton Crossing Tower in Baltimore, Maryland  offered  participants the opportunity to rappell down a 200ft (17 story) building to raise money for the foundation to fight kidney disease.

John

Clive, Larry, Sean and John went  to Baltimore on Friday the 17th to take part in the pre-training with the Over the Edge staff and to be shown the ropes! They all got to rappel down the building during the training, which was an added bonus that they all enjoyed.  During the training day, the event had a few VIP's come along and rappel down the building too.

On June 18th, the day of the actual event, 56 participants took part and each rappelled down the building and altogether raised an amazing $82,244.00 for the charity. 

Clive's wife Liz also took part in the event and raised $1100 before she went over the edge in memory of her Father who passed away from kidney failure in 2005.

Clive

The view from the 17th floor balcony was quite breath taking, when you first walked out onto the balcony.  Best advise was to not look down too much before you rappelled.

Each of the participants were geared up with full body harnesses and helmets and went through a brief training on how to use the various equipment before being taken to the balcony for thier rappel.  Some people were a little nervous, but everyone made it to the bottom with no problems.

Sean

We were so pleased to be part of this fun and exciting event and look forward to helping out at next year's event. For more information go the the National Kidney Foundations website. 

Larry