T3 Club
Date: 26-04-2025
Venue: Junior Block Multipurpose Hall and School Ground.
Activity Name: Tent Pitching.
No. of Students: 171
Activity Conducted by: Miss. Prajakta Ghode & Mr. Rahul Chikne.
Activity Plan:
Tent Pitching on the ground
Guest Lecture in the Junior Block Multipurpose Hall
Report:
The activity was held under the warm and bright sunny sky as students assembled on the school ground buzzing with laughter and chatter; with their lively conversations barely pausing even as their attendance was being called out.
Our guest lecturer was Miss. Prajakta Ghode Ma’am who is the Head of Operations at “Step-In Adventures.” Some of her amazing achievements consist of her being the coach and manager of Team India Asian Games 2018 which were held in Indonesia for Sport Climbing. She is also the technical director for Sport Climbing at the Federation of India alongside being the Treasurer for Sport Climbing Association of Maharashtra. National Judge for Sport Climbing for the past fifteen years. She has additionally completed the Asian Climbing Council’s Judging course in 2017 and 2019. She also happens to be a member of the IFSC Technical Rules Commission and has completed her basic and advance mountaineering courses along with a search and rescue course, the UIAA Mountain Leaders Course and the Wildnest First Aid Responder course just to name a few. She has also trained under the expert guidance of Mr. Shripad Sapkal who is a Chhatrapati Awardee in Adventure Sports. The session commenced with Prajakta ma’am emphasizing upon various basic survival instincts and skills alongside the “No Panic Mode” as being the critical essentials of camping. She also gave an in-depth understanding of how essential
clothing takes priority over aesthetic clothing as a highlight for students. Core priority was put on the importance of team work when it comes to battling unforeseen weather conditions, rationing food and water for sustainability with vital attention that needs to paid to hygiene and space management during such tough times.
Prajakta ma’am’s methodology and reasoning for the basics of pitching a tent were extremely precise and meticulous in terms of perfection. She explained in detail; about the type of materials that go into the composition of a tent accompanied by the significance of its weight, technical terminologies, inspection of equipment beforehand, examination of the terrain in relation to various mountains and valleys; in parallel with the direction of the wind; to enable the safest ways of setting up a tent. She then gave an in-depth practical demonstration which included careful exactness of unfolding the waterproof covering and the tent equipment, the thorough accuracy of the direction of the door and the anchoring of the pegs and poles followed by fine-tuned details of anchoring the peak and the supportive points for precise ventilation. Scrupulous attention to details was paid even when it came to demonstrating the dissemblance of the tent with extra emphasis on shoes and door safety at all times.
The students were then split in to groups of six and eight each depending on their grades. Since they were split in to two categories of males and females; it was exceptionally easy for teachers to supervise them. The girls were the epitome of “calm, collected and composed”; whilst the boys looked like they were auditioning for a live-action disaster movie. Teachers could easily witness the stark contrast with bewildered amusement. Once each of the groups had taken meticulous turns at assembling, praising themselves for their own efforts and disassembling their tents; they headed to the second floor of the Junior wing for breakfast. After an intense session that required students to focus for a prolonged time; breakfast seemed to have vanished in record time, as wada- sambhar and bananas were polished off by our T3 student army.
Everyone then gradually proceeded to the Multipurpose Hall to witness videos of Sport Climbing. Students were absolutely awestruck at the level of muscular strength, endurance, cardiovascular ability, agility, lightning speed and discipline demonstrated by the international players of Sport Climbing on various informative YouTube videos. They were astounded to be given an in-depth lecture regarding the
same by our extremely talented guest lecturer; Prajakta ma’am. Prajakta ma’am then explained how “Step-In Adventures” was responsible for constructing, maintaining and training students on various sport climbing walls at different school campuses in Pune; alongside training soldiers and the police force for warfare tactics and mountaineering. Yuvraj Jadhav, a professional sport climber, a former student and a
“Vikheite” has been an excellent example to inspire many of our students. Prajakta ma’am then concluded her guest lecture by giving a precautionary brief to our students who were about to commence their journey to “Chopta Tung Nath” in less than 48 hours. They were briefed about their protective clothing essentials, their water intake which was ideally supposed to be a minimum of three litres; given their
weight with an exaggerated yet crucial emphasis on their nutritional habits and not skipping meals and the importance of forehead coverings.
With a little time to spare on the clock; Suchi ma’am and Jason sir proactively and effectively engaged all the students of T3 in fun team-building activities and discussed at length about the norms of discipline and responsibilities that come hand- in-hand with adventure sports, after which; the students were ready for dispersal.
Teachers present for the activity:
1) Aniket sir
2) Umesh sir
3) Bapu sir
4) Jason sir
5) Suchi ma’am
6) Maria ma’am
7) Snigdha ma’am
8) Vasanti ma’am
9) Shama ma’am
10) Susan ma’am
11) Rashmi ma’am
12) Shilpa ma’am
13) Pooja ma’am
14) Ashmika
