We started to sense that everyone was a little burned out, so we worked on getting together as a company to remember we're in it together and why this is a great place to work and that we are lucky to work with the best clients anywhere.

When we were planning it, we learned a few things we wanted to share so they might help you re-connect with your own team.

You Can Use Public Spaces

We were trying to find a safe space that everyone would feel comfortable, and luckily there are a number of bookable public spaces that you can rent. Here in London, Ontario, we were able to rent a Pavillion with a charcoal barbecue in a local park so rain or shine we’d be ok.

If you are in London as well, there’s a handy guide here (https://london.ca/living-london/recreation/recreation-rentals), or check out what spaces your own city has available.

Try a Team Scavenger Hunt

One of the suggestions from the team was to do a scavenger hunt. After doing some research we decided to use Goose Chase (https://www.goosechase.com/) which has a free version to try out.

We leveraged some of Childreach’s scavenger hunt ideas for kids (https://www.childreach.on.ca/wild-child-resources), and used a number of Goose Chase’s own suggestions and the team had a blast!

Team Pictures

One of the bigger challenges we’ve had with not getting together in the office, is how to do you take team photos? Sure, screenshots from our weekly virtual work hangouts are ok, but they always seem to be missing something. Make sure you plan this in advance - are you coordinating outfits? Are there particular shots you want? Who is taking the photos, and who is responsible for bringing the Camera (and Tripod)?

Re-energize the Team

Anyone else feeling a bit exhausted and disconnected from all of the virtual meetings? Getting together in person is a great chance to make sure we're all in alignment with the goals of the company, and remember why we are all here to begin with.

Keep the momentum going!

One of the best things we did, was brainstorm what everyone wanted over the next quarter as a company. This involved planning things like our next social events (Disc Golf), to exploring ways to improve our performance and corporate culture.

While we are missing the whiteboards and sticky notes we would normally brainstorm with, we simply brought our sticky notes with us to the park and used the picnic table - it worked great.

Also, we learned that our designer Kevin can pretty much teach an expert level class on Maple Syrup, so if any of you out there have questions about that, let us know :)