Tracey Leong is one of the six Invacare staff members who was selected to participate in the Rob Rees Kitchen Challenge along with people from Presbyterian Support Northern and Invacare community members. Here is her take on her experience to date:

I am the Quality Assurance Associate based at the Auckland office. My responsibilities include document control, managing complaints as well as improving and creating standard operating procedures to ensure Invacare ANZ is compliant with regulatory requirements. I have been working at Invacare for two years where I started off as Customer Service Representative for the Rentals business.

I am grateful to be given the opportunity to participate in the Kitchen Challenge with five other Invacare colleagues as well as community group participants associated with Presbyterian Support Northern. The programme sessions are being held in the Auckland CBD. 

During Rob Ree's (the founder and facilitator of the Kitchen Challenge) visit to Invacare Auckland office to meet the Invacare participants in November last year, we were told that this isn't a cooking course but it was meant to be a disruptive learning experience. Rob assured us to "trust the process" but I could feel a sense of doubt from some of the others.

Before coming in for the first session, I was excited but also very anxious about what we would do as I have very little experience in the kitchen. At home, I would avoid working in the kitchen especially after a devasting experience of burning some brownies in preparation for Invacare NZ's Blue September fundraising event last year. Knowing that I will learn and engage more by being out of my comfort zone, I am determined to make the most out of this programme. 

After a couple of ice-breaking activities in the first session, we were put into three groups. I'm with Tony from Tauranga, who is visually impaired, and two participants from Invacare (Chloe from Supply Chain and Ken, the ANZ Finance Manager). A task in the first session was to prepare a feast for everyone from three recipes for Spaghetti Bolognese, Lasagna and Shepherd's Pie. To our surprise, Tony was the most experienced cook of my group with very impressive cutting skills!

By being thrown into an environment where I am unfamiliar with and working on recipes that I haven't prepared before, with a deadline, I recognized the attributes I lack during moments when my confidence and verbal communication skills were tested. I find it interesting as I noticed these patterns of feelings of self-doubt and frustration do come up when I face similarly challenging situations at work.

We have been through three sessions to date where I felt uncomfortable being in the kitchen each time. I reflected on what I would do differently during moments of distress and gained motivation to work around it in the next session.

While we are still lucky the kitchen hasn't been lit up in flames, all three groups produced wonderful results where each and everyone contributed through the process. I am confident that every participant including myself would take away something useful at the end of the Kitchen Challenge to create positive value in their daily lives!