The purpose of the retreat was both to discuss science and to stimulate better communication between lab members. Because of the latter we had many team building excersises, such as "bio-olympics" games during which you had to cooperate with other people on your team to e.g. seed agar plates as fast as possible, run with a stack of agar plates on your had as fast as possible without dropping them, and so on.
The retreat was lots of fun and it served its purpose well. Immediately after we came back from it, I could feel improved social atmosphere in the lab. I hope it will become one of the lab's traditions to have a retreat every year.
On the way to the ocean:
Pristine Limantour Beach:
The Lab:
Bio-olympics part 1: Plates' seeding competition:
Bio-olympics part 2: Running with plates:
Bio-olympics part 3: Rope pulling:
Bio-olympics part 4: Can you trust your labmates to guide you through the mine-filed?
Bio-olympics part 5: Plate tossing:
On the second day we hiked on Coastal Trail to Santa Maria Beach, and we finnished the loop back to hostel on Fire Lane Trail:
