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: AATC@nzdf.mil.nz
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: lynch@nzdf.mil.nz