Sewing Relay Team-Building Challenge

A creative, hands-on team experience
R500 per person

Forget the usual team-building activities.

The Sewing Relay Challenge puts teams into a fun, practical situation where they have to communicate, plan, problem-solve and work together to create one finished product — under time pressure.

No sewing experience is required.

How the Challenge Works

Participants work in teams of four people.

Each team is shown a completed item, such as a tote bag, and receives all the pre-cut fabric pieces required to make it.

They are not given step-by-step sewing instructions.

Instead, the team must study the finished sample, examine their pieces and work out:

what each piece is for;

what needs to be sewn first;

the correct construction sequence;

how they will divide the work;

and how they will make sure the next person can continue successfully.

The 60-Minute Challenge

10 minutes — Team Planning

The four team members work together to study the finished sample and plan their strategy.

They decide how they think the item has been constructed and what each person should aim to accomplish during their turn.

40 minutes — Sewing Relay

Each person receives 10 minutes at the sewing machine.

When their 10 minutes are finished, they must stop and hand the project over exactly where it is.

The next participant must assess what has already been done and continue the construction.

The success of the final person depends on the decisions made by everyone before them.

10 minutes — Reveal, Judging & Debrief

The finished products are revealed and teams reflect on what happened during the challenge.

What Makes It Team Building?

The challenge naturally brings out the same behaviours teams experience in the workplace:

Planning
Can the team understand the objective and create a workable plan?

Communication
Can team members clearly explain what they have done and what needs to happen next?

Delegation
Can the team use each person's strengths effectively?

Problem-solving
What happens when something goes wrong or the original plan doesn't work?

Time management
Can participants prioritise what is important when they only have 10 minutes?

Trust
Each person has to build on the work of the person before them.

Adaptability
The next participant may inherit something completely different from what they expected.

The Fun Part

Nobody needs to be an experienced sewist.

The challenge is deliberately designed around simple sewing and pre-cut pieces so that technical sewing ability is not what determines the winning team.

Participants may discover very quickly that the person with the strongest opinion during the planning stage is not necessarily the person with the best construction plan!

Expect plenty of laughter, strategy, mild panic and some very creative problem-solving.

What Is Included

At R500 per participant, the experience includes:

sewing machines and equipment;

all fabric and materials;

pre-cut project pieces;

use of a completed reference sample;

challenge briefing;

facilitated team planning;

60-minute Sewing Relay Challenge;

judging;

team debrief;

and the team's completed project.

Judging

Teams can be assessed on:

completion of the project;

accuracy of construction;

quality of the finished item;

use of time;

teamwork and communication;

and how successfully the team adapted when things did not go according to plan.

The objective is not perfection.

The objective is to see how the team gets there together.

Ideal For

The Sewing Relay Challenge is suitable for:

corporate teams;

small businesses;

management teams;

staff appreciation events;

women's groups;

social clubs;

year-end functions;

and groups looking for something different from traditional team building.

Pricing

R500 per person

Teams are ideally arranged in groups of four participants per sewing station/team.

For example:

8 participants = R4,000

12 participants = R6,000

16 participants = R8,000

20 participants = R10,000

More Than a Sewing Activity

Participants leave with more than a finished bag.

They experience, in a very tangible way, how one person's decisions affect the next person, how important a clear handover can be, and how much easier a challenge becomes when a team communicates and works toward the same goal.

Four people. One project. One hour.

Can your team figure it out together?