With all members of the DC team constantly busy or away from the office either in London or delivering training for instance, it’s particularly difficult to arrange a time when we all can get together in one place and put forward intentions, plans, ideas and objectives. Our away days provide a perfect opportunity to do such that.
Business was as usual during the morning except with a markedly full office, which is always great to see. In the afternoon before our team meeting, a few of us went to the fish and chip shop for lunch which proved to be a useful little refuge from the battling winds outside. By 2pm we commenced our review of the quarter and after some very useful discussions we called it a day so we could leave the office for our team activity – hence the name, ‘Away Day’. The venue selected was Xscape in Castleford, a huge leisure complex, home to an indoor snow slope, lazer quest, bowling and a cinema along with many restaurants and other amusement areas. In essence, if you’re around the area and looking for a fun day out, I’d highly recommend it. As there was a great selection of activities to choose from, I put it to a vote. On the ‘shortlist’ was mini golf, lazer quest, skiing, sledging and bowling and in the end it was a tie between mini golf and lazer quest, but eventually mini golf was chosen on account of having done lazer quest on a previous Away Day. The 4D, glow in the dark course appeared intriguing however I feel these effects may have reduced our putting ability; either that or we just weren’t all that impressive. Nevertheless there were a few ‘holes in one’ although these were soon followed by a string of painful experiences of repeatedly putting the ball past the hole. The ramps and bumps proved to be a particular problem to many if not all of us.
After the activity we all went to Frankie & Benny’s for an evening meal which was very pleasant albeit rather noisy (to be expected on a Friday evening). This was attributed partly to the restaurant bringing out a cake and playing ‘happy birthday’ to anyone whose birthday it was; there must have been 6 or so birthdays celebrated on that day. This made me remember one of the first things I was told in a statistics lecture at University, that if you have a room of 30 people, there’s a 70% chance of two people sharing the same birthday. With a very busy restaurant that evening, this statistic seemed only too relevant. The food itself was most enjoyable as was the company; other halves were welcome also so it was great to meet some new faces.
We’d to love to hear from you if your organisation runs quarterly review and activity days. Please feel free to get in touch at marketing@www.dataconsulting.co.uk and suggest some fun things to do, we’re always open to ideas.
