Ref Letter

NEW ZEALAND ARMY Ngati Tumatauenga

Army Adventurous Training Centre Burnham Military Camp, Burnham, New Zealand Telephone: +64 3 363 0232, Facsimile: +64 3 363 0239, Email: [email protected] Internet: http://streweb2/burnham/AATC

12 August 2009

Mark Rayward and Sean Waters were contracted in February 2009 to provide a developmental activity for the staff of the Army Adventurous Training Centre (AATC). The AATC design and deliver adventure based experiential activities that develop an individual’s leadership competence The activity that Mark and Sean delivered was designed to develop the staff in all aspects of their role….. It was based around a five day multi activity adventure race that saw participants traverse from the Southern shore of Lake Wakitipu, near Mt Nicholas, to the Southern coast of the South Island. The real value in this type of training is the developmental aspects for all participants and particularly the behaviour change that can be observed back in the workplace. Mark and Sean were able to deliver on the outcomes that I desired …. Judging from the regular reference that is made about the activity within our workplace some six months later I have no doubt that the remainder of the staff have taken significant learning from the event. It is through Mark and Sean’s significant experience as adult educators and facilitators that we were able to achieve these outcomes. The key reason I approached Mark and Sean to deliver this training package for the AATC was that I needed confidence that it would be suitably challenging yet developmental and above all safe. This is not an easy mix to get right and required a high degree of trust from this organisation to hand over the activity to these two men. They demonstrated sound decision making allowing mentally and physically fatigued participants to continue on challenging legs whilst weighing up the developmental need and the overall risk to those participants. I had complete trust in their ability to do this and their exemplary judgement, founded on significant experience, was more than evident throughout the event. My staff were physically and mentally challenged and also left the activity with an appreciably greater understanding of their own behaviours and what impact, both positive and negative, these behaviours can have within our workplace. It was both a pleasure and privilege to work with two very professional operators and I would have no hesitation in employing them for future work of this kind with the NZ Army.

Yours sincerely

2 B.L. LYNCH Captain Director AATC Ph: 03 3630232 Cell: 027 445 4039 Email: [email protected]