Describe a team activity that you took part in

I'd like to talk about a community clean-up day that I took part in last spring. It was organised by my university, and about forty students volunteered to clear rubbish from a riverbank on the edge of the city.

We were split into teams of six, and mine included two classmates I already knew and three students I'd never met before. Our job was to clean a stretch of about two hundred metres. We divided up the tasks quite naturally: some people collected plastic bottles and bags, a couple of us sorted everything into recycling and general waste, and I was in charge of carrying the full bags to the collection point. One teammate, who was studying engineering, even built a simple device from a stick to pick up rubbish from the water without getting wet.

I really enjoyed working in a team that day. At the start, we were a little shy, but after an hour we were joking and encouraging each other, and by lunchtime it felt as if we'd known each other for years. Because we were pulling together towards a clear goal, nobody minded the hard work or the smell. We also finished well before the other groups, which gave us a great sense of pride. What I took from the experience is that people can achieve much more together than alone, as long as everyone plays to their strengths. I made two good friends that day, and we still meet up regularly.