This year, an ap­pren­ti­ce trip to the start of the new ap­pren­ti­ces and stu­dents of the TecAlliance took place as usu­al. The trip is or­ga­ni­zed by the trai­nees them­sel­ves and is pri­ma­ri­ly in­ten­ded to bring the com­pa­ny va­lue One Team across. That’s why all trai­nees and some of the trai­ners star­ted the trip on Fri­day 09/06/2019 at TecAlliance in Wei­kers­heim. We dro­ve to the com­pa­ny site in Schwein­furt by bus. Du­ring the bus ride, the dif­fe­rent trai­nee teams were in­tro­du­ced and the fur­ther cour­se of the trip was shared with all of them. As we ar­ri­ved in Schwein­furt, we were di­vi­ded into two groups. One group was al­lo­wed to lis­ten to an in­for­ma­ti­ve pre­sen­ta­ti­on about the com­pa­ny site while the other group was again di­vi­ded into three fur­ther groups. They did a small sca­ven­ger hunt in front of spe­ci­fied sights and pla­ces of in­te­rest. The win­ner was the group able to take the most pho­tos in­clu­ding the group mem­bers and the cor­re­spon­ding ob­ject in 30 mi­nu­tes. Af­ter 45 mi­nu­tes, the groups swit­ched so that all trai­nees had the chan­ce to do both ac­ti­vi­ties. Af­ter­wards, we had a small lunch be­fo­re the bus went on to play La­ser­tag. In the bus, rib­bons in three dif­fe­rent co­lours were dis­tri­bu­t­ed in or­der to iden­ti­fy the La­ser­tag groups. One group with about 20 play­ers play­ed La­ser­tag, the other teams play­ed dif­fe­rent team ga­mes. Ever­yo­ne had re­al­ly fun play­ing La­ser­tag, so that it was quick­ly de­ci­ded that we have to re­peat this as an af­ter-work ac­tion soon. Af­ter all the teams had play­ed twice, we took the bus to the youth hos­tel and mo­ved into our rooms – of cour­se the se­xes were strict­ly se­pa­ra­ted. Now it was time for a streng­t­he­ning! With Spa­ghet­ti Bo­lo­gne­se or to­ma­to sau­ce, for the mul­ti­tu­de of ve­ge­ta­ri­ans, we fil­led our bel­lies. Ac­cord­ing to the mot­to “Let the evening be­gin” we went to the park ne­ar­by with drinks and snacks. Un­for­tu­n­a­te­ly, our over­loa­ded hand­cart bro­ke down, so the man­power of our trai­nees was nee­ded. The evening hel­ped to blur the bounda­ries bet­ween new and old trai­nees and to get to know each other better. 

Af­ter an hour or more of sleep, the last trai­nees also craw­led out of their bows and gathe­red strength for the se­cond day at the bre­ak­fast buf­fet. This time ca­no­eing was on the agen­da. We mo­ved on to Vol­kach whe­re we had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to bor­row eights to tens Ca­na­di­ans and take a leisu­rely tour on the Alt Main. The teams were put tog­e­ther by the trai­nees them­sel­ves. This worked smooth­ly, so that ever­yo­ne for­med part of a group quick­ly. Our coach Mar­co had some ide­as about one or the other game which the teams had to mas­ter with their boats. The first me­ters were very amu­sing for ever­yo­ne, espe­cial­ly when the boat did what it wan­ted and a strai­ght line tur­ned into a zig­zag. The last me­ters were al­most end­less. Ever­yo­ne fought with his last strength and was hap­py to fi­nish af­ter about four hours. The Ca­na­di­ans were pi­cked up from the ca­noe ren­tal and loa­ded them onto the wa­gons with our help. Be­fo­re we star­ted our jour­ney back home, ever­yo­ne en­joy­ed the pa­cked lun­ches brought along by the youth hos­tel. Around 4 p.m. we ar­ri­ved in Wei­kers­heim and tog­e­ther we put all the things out­side of the bus be­fo­re we went home. To sum up, the trip was a fun­ny ex­pe­ri­ence for all of us which we will keep in mind positively.