The Sandstone Team Building Blog

So I got my gun out the other day and gave it a clean. The same stuff that’s used on tyres works wonders I find. Then again, my gun is rubber. We import them specially from the manufacturers in Nevada, along with real leather – real western! – holsters. We use rubber guns to teach people gunslinging skills from the movies and the rubber keeps it safe – no sharp edges to hurt people when the guns start flying as people try all the fancy tricks!

I never saw myself as a cowboy until some bright spark in our team came up with the idea of creating Wild West as a new team building activity. Now I can’t imagine a time when I didn’t don the boots, hat, bandanna, bootlace and, of course, the belt-holster-gun combo. I love it, but it isn’t without, shall we say, complications…

My admiration for the real gunslingers of old is unbounded. Not, as you might think, for their fast draws and fancy gunplay – hell, I’m a match for any of them these days! Nor for their ability to eat beans until the cows came home — I’ve never shied from a can of beans since I was a nipper. No – my admiration is for their ability to wear them darned boots all day and every day! For me, three things are guaranteed at the end of any Wild West event where I am the gunslinger. One – we have a happy client. Two – the winning team wear the widest grins. Three – my feet hurt!

So if you attend a future Wild West event and I’m on it, you’ll understand why I look grizzled. It’s not that I’ve spent ages perfecting an authentic enigmatic and tough look of the stranger with no name. It’s my feet.

Steve

Although some clients like us to help them find suitable venues for our team building options (and we are always happy to do so), most prefer to make the arrangements themselves. Indeed, many commit to a venue before looking for a team building supplier. This can be problematical.

Clients who make direct bookings – especially those who book before involving us – are often reliant on the advice of the venue’s representatives about what rooms are suitable for their group. Yet venue representatives are unlikely to understand the requirements for running specialist team events such as ours – and, of course, their interest is more around making sure the logistics that is part of their offering, such as refreshment and lunch breaks, are timely and well received.

Activities such as Cube, Memory Lane, Romanbar and Wild West all benefit from about three times the amount of space that venue folk think is suitable. It allows the participants a base to call home for the duration and the space to tackle the variety of fun elements that each of those team activities offer. Without that “extra space”, we need to get creative to deliver to our own high standards.

A recent event we ran in the South East of England for a new public sector client is a case in point. They had booked with an alternative team building supplier, who then let them down with just a couple of days to go to their event. We find it surprising just how often this seems to happen and we are always pleased and usually able to help in such circumstances. The practical upshot was that the venue was already booked and we had to work with what they had. Which, to say the least, wasn’t quite as large as we would have preferred for their chosen activity – Wild West. If I had to choose a word to describe it, “tiny” would come high on the list.

First and foremost, we got there the previous evening to see for ourselves the challenge and set about planning our use of the space. And we got creative and indulged in a little light negotiation with the venue people. When we had finished laying out the room, our contacts at the venue were, to use their word, “amazed” at what we had done with the room. They had never seen it organised the way we laid it out – and, for that matter, dressed up in the way we had done! Well, it was a Wild West event and we always enjoy making people feel they have stepped back in time and across the world when they walk into the room. If we’d had to, our innovative layout of the room would have allowed us to do everything within it, albeit with some re-arrangements during the course of the day. In the event, though, the venue staff were good enough to understand our challenge and helped us out by making some normally public space available for our sole use.

Don’t get me wrong, we’d much prefer that the space we have aligns nicely with the guidelines we give to all clients ahead of an event. But we recognise that this is not always possible and, deep down, we secretly enjoy rising to such challenges. Well, we do encourage clients to rise to our challenging activities – it would be churlish for us not to do so to real life ones…

Alan

There have been a few blogs now and although I’ve tried to avoid doing a real one (I said Happy Easter to everyone, but I’m not sure that counts!) I can’t get away with it any longer though. I’m someone who prefers to be in the background – the thought of standing up and running one of our events fills me with horror. This isn’t quite as bad…

Luckily here at Sandstone we have some wonderful facilitators who do enjoy leading events, so I’m spared that particular nightmare. I enjoy being one of the behind the scenes team. We prepare and mop up before and after each event. The teamwork involved is really quite amazing. Even for one of our smallest events there is much that needs to be done.

An example of this would be a recent Liberation event that was run for just a couple of teams. To ensure that the event ran smoothly there were a number of us working together to make this happen. The computer and printer for each team needed to be set up and thoroughly tested, plus a spare in case of problems on the day (rare though that is, it can happen and we’re always prepared). We printed and bound the booklets for every participant. We counted and checked the construction components along with some of the more specialist equipment. We called the venue to confirm that the conference room in use was correctly set up, the refreshments ordered and would be delivered when required. It all helps our team and the client on the day and we are pleased to do it.

Following the event everything is checked back in. We recycle as much as we can – printouts from Liberation are reused in the office for general printing before they are sent for recycling; booklets are unbound, new pages inserted and then the bulk is reused where practical.

There were three of us on this occasion but on much larger events our team grows. We each play our own role but it all comes together brilliantly and it’s all down to team work.

Barbara