This is a tribute to Thomas E. Smith
Welcome to Raccoon Circles—an experiential activity series designed to build and strengthen team cohesion. Through a blend of interactive exercises, teams engage in dynamic scenarios that foster communication, trust, and a shared sense of purpose. Each activity is crafted to highlight the unique contributions of individuals while aligning them towards common goals. Dive into the Raccoon Circles experience and watch as your team's collaborative spirit grows.
This is a tribute to
His orientation has always been toward growth and learning, and he has long explored the potentials of outdoor therapy and challenge and adventure education. In 1997, Dr. Thomas E Smith was honored by the AEE | Association for Experiential Education's Kurt Hahn Award, recognizing him as an important and life long leader in the field.
Jim Cain is the author of the award winning adventure-based text Teamwork & Teamplay,
and has researched, created, documented and contributed many of the Raccoon Circles activities and
writings in The Raccoon Circles book. Which we recommend.
Raccoon Circles are an innovative, simple and easy technique for building unity, community,
connection and teamwork with any group. This collection of Raccoon Circles activities, ideas,
suggestions and stories will help you teach, train, counsel, facilitate, coach and manage your group,
and connect them in the process. Need the book? Go to Training-Wheels store by clicking the book image:
"Tom Smith has been fooling around with tied loops of webbing for years, and getting some good experiential mileage from their applications to various games and initiative scenarios. Those of you who know Tom are familiar with his nickname, the Old Raccoon, given him by some Native American friends many decades ago. As Karl watched Tom facilitate a workshop some years ago, he commented that the webbing circles Tom was using looked like Raccoon Circles. And the name stuck. This newest edition of the book is the definitive resource for one of the simplest tools ever devised for creating community, building a unified team and actively learning together. Jim and Tom have teamed up to record the history, philosophy, ceremony and dozens of activities that can be facilitated using just a simple piece of webbing."
Adapted from the first edition's foreword by Karl Rohnke
Teamwork
Raccoon Circles Initiative redefines teamwork. Engage in activities that enhance cohesion, spotlight individual strengths, and align them with our collective mission. Elevate your team’s synergy and goal-oriented focus.
Experiential Learning
Colaboration
Embark on the Raccoon Circles Initiative’s path to collaborative excellence. Our powerful classic exercises foster team unity, encourage personal contributions, and steer towards shared objectives. Transform your group’s dynamic and productivity.
Experiential LearningTHE POWER OF OUR EXPERIENTIAL WORKSHOPS
An integration workshop is an excellent decision to take a first step to strengthen ties and integrate the team through Team Bonding. A Team Building and a Low Ropes Workshop go beyond integration, being more consistent with broader objectives to develop soft skills, and will improve the aspects that the team requires to consolidate, we will cause each member to achieve the insights to "realize " and "take charge." Building High Performance teams is not achieved with a single workshop, it is a continuous process with the contribution of several key deliverables with clearly defined purposes and thus sustaining "taking charge." A phase of greater consistency is Team Coaching, as it contributes with a series of benefits for the organization, in the short and medium term, as it improves individual and collective productivity, optimizes its processes, improves communication levels, allows greater approach, orienting towards a common goal, from synergy, as long as the team has a leader who inspires, who "is part of the team."
-
Sinergy
We will strengthen the exponential synergy of the work team, achieving the functional articulation of the different areas.
-
Esprit de corps
Esprit de corps. We will develop synergy between team members, promoting teamwork as a unit.
-
Ideation
We will stimulate ideation processes to achieve improvements that benefit the team and the organization, stimulating collective intelligence.
-
Productivity
We will achieve greater productivity by raising awareness of the optimization of resources, improving procedures, behaviors and attitudes.
Maritza Garcia, Cargo Business Administration, Martinair The Americas (KLM Group), Deerfield Beach, Florida, USA
I want to say thanks to Ernesto and his Crew, they´ve done a very good job, excellent job! This is exactly what we wanted to, we´ve interviewed a couple of companies, but we were positive that this what we were looking for, we wanted motivation, we wanted teamwork ... I would recommend this company to anyone ... and we hope that everybody will enjoy it and would take everything that they´ve learned from Ernesto and his Crew, and what they have learned from the BCT Office back to the field, because I am sure that if we all take the information that we obtained to the the offices, we´ll have a good year...!
Team Building Exercises Pictures from our trainings in USA, LATAM and The Caribbean
Our Portfolio
Check each link on this website of our programs for LATAM and the Caribbean and the USA, you will find
valuable information for consolidate and develop the skills of leaders and collaborators in your
organization. Then check out our portfolio which offers you excellent global programs for the development
of all your Human Talent. We take the game very seriously!
Our links for Latin America, the Caribbean & USA
Argentina | Bolivia | Colombia | Costa Rica | Chile | Cuba | Ecuador | El Salvador | España | Guatemala | México | Miami, USA | Nicaragua | Paraguay | Perú | Puerto Rico | República Dominicana | Uruguay | VenezuelaLet´s talk!
Contact us right now from your country of residence. Contact us through Whatsapp, or schedule a Zoom meeting, with Ernesto Yturralde personally, from the pop-up that appears below on the right. We will be happy to serve you with outdoor workshops that achieve your goals, backed by our experience in 21 countries.
https://wa.link/ernestoyturralde