The Sandstone Team Building Blog

Just a quick note about what people put into search engines to find us.  This year so far, some of our most popular terms have been team building, team building activities, sandstone, free team building activities, free team building exercises, away days, corporate away days, team building days and team building events.  Some of the less obvious search terms to have found us are bedrijfsuitje (a number of visitors from this term, which we believe is Dutch for “team building”), how do you design a bridge that can cope with weather changes (yes, really!), ingrediants in leather (complete with spelling mistake), pottery class in London (no comment), parenting (?) castles in bristol (??) and custard bunny (???).

Social bookmarks from the likes of Facebook, Digg and Twitter are also proving to be an increasingly popular way of finding us, essentially following recommendations from friends and colleagues.

We don’t mind how people find us, so long as they find our site interesting and enjoy their visit.  Of course, it’s even nicer when they progress to become our clients – something that, we’re pleased to say, happens quite a lot.

Nikki

Taking them in reverse order, it will come as no surprise to regular readers of our blog that this entry is about our team building options.  Well, one in particular – Memory Lane.  We are constantly working to add things into all of our activities and we’ve just done so with Memory Lane.

You guessed it,  we’ve added some swordplay into it.  But it isn’t what you think.  Memory Lane is an activity that gives everyone a trip back through time, revisiting songs and fads over the years.  Our participants get to go bowling in an authentic 1950s skittle alley, race some 1960s space hoppers, pop into the 1980s to play Pacman again and, for the younger members, take part in our grand texting challenge amongst many, many other things.  One fad that everyone remembers from their childhood is playing with bubbles.  And we have just bought some very special, bubble making swords that will take everyone who wants to back to their childhood in a big way.  And I do mean big.  These swords create huge bubbles – and we’ll show you how.

So where does sorcery come in?  Memory Lane is even more capable now of delivering a magical day for your entire team.

I look forward to seeing you soon back in the old days.

Steve

I have just returned from a fantastic time in what was once war-torn Sarajevo.  As regular readers of our blog will know, we have recently added to our family of international partners and associates with a company in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  I had the good fortune to be the member of our team that went out there for the first time.  Our partnership was presented to the various media and a select group of senior directors from top multinational companies in the region.  Sarajevo Business Consulting has created a specialist company called TBA as the first professional team building company in Bosnia and Herzegovina and selected Sandstone as its exclusive partner.  They have translated Liberation and Iceberg already and will do the same with all of our options slowly but surely.

As much as I enjoyed the spotlight of the evening presentation, I had even more fun the next day helping our new colleagues run their first client event – Iceberg.  They really pushed the boat out for this first event.  It was held at one of the most unusual and unique locations we have ever run an event at.  Set high in the Bosnian mountain area about an hour and half’s drive from Sarajevo city centre, “Bijele Vode” is a hunting lodge and exclusive conference venue.  The group was a senior management team from a high profile international company and so mixed English and Bosnian languages was the order of the day.  Future events are likely to be all Bosnian, but I wasn’t complaining as my Bosnian is limited to hastily learned phrases such as “please” (molim), “thank you” (hvala) and “pleased to meet you” (drago mi je).

The event went, as ever, very well.  One delighted client and one new partner showing a mixture of relief, vindication and sheer excitement at what they have in our options.  When we eventually returned to Sarajevo, the journey back was one of excited and rapid Bosnian as the three members of our partner’s team who attended the event discussed what they see as a future filled with excellent possibilities.  I enjoyed the general tone and ambience in the car if without any great understanding of the conversation!

Before we left Bijele Vode, however, we were taken into the forest to look at where the animals that clients can hunt live in abundance.  The timing was not right for us to see any mountain bears or wolves, but there was plenty of evidence that they were not far away.  I managed to avoid stepping in some of that “evidence”, I am pleased to say!

My visit stretched across just 5 days, but it seemed like far longer because of everything we packed in.  In addition to the presentation and the first event, we ran Liberation for the SBC team themselves and that was a great day.  My generous hosts also took the trouble to show me the city and surrounding spots of beauty and I had a great time.  I left just yesterday (Sunday) and already miss the place.  Sarajevo is a beautiful, compact city that has been rebuilt in a careful way that has restored the tradition and heritage of the city.  The country is stunningly beautiful and I can see why its tourist trade is growing.  I can hardly wait for a return visit.

Alan

I’ve decided to pull rank and write the event of the month entry for May.  I may be being selfish, but I would like to write about a great event that I ran at the Golf Hotel in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire.  I was on my own, so Paul would struggle to write this one.  The group was looking to improve their sales and presentation skills, so Dropzone was a perfect fit.  Two teams were formed and the challenge was on!

The teams got stuck into the scenario quickly – trying to beat the other team to some (big!) business by designing and building a structure to safely deliver a container for a very secretive client…

As in real life, good sales technique was at the heart of the action.  Firstly, they needed to find out extra information from the client and it was fascinating (as ever) to watch two teams use the computer simulation that is at the heart of Dropzone  to ask quite different questions.  As their information started to build up, they were able to start designing and building their model … and both teams were very keen to start ‘playing’ with the big foam pieces that teams use to form the frame for their structures!  Much laughter was heard at this time, along with many comments about how a young child would be a very helpful addition to each team!  Sadly for them, it was left to their adults to cope!  And cope they did … eventually.

After they built their models they needed to do a sales pitch (a key part of Dropzone) to the other team, two impartial observers and myself.  I was impressed with both teams – especially when they were able to come up with some good answers to some rather mean questions from their opposition and us!

Then came the demonstration stage of their models and they might not have performed quite as the group had hoped, but we all had fun watching!

As ever with our learning-focused activities, the debriefing then took centre stage.  Dropzone’s debrief always helps the participants better understand best practice selling and gain some great tips on how to improve their presentational skills, and this event was no exception.

All in all a good fun day, with the usual great mix of fun and lots of learning for the group.

Sorry, Paul.  You can definitely do the next event of the month blog entry!

Nikki