The Sandstone Team Building Blog

Hi all, its time for my event of the month nomination for the month of April. I had the darned cheek to take some holiday during April and I believe that I missed a few really good events - including a couple of superb and back-to-back Memory Lane events in Nottingham. Sorry folks - I can’t select ones I wasn’t at, so if you were there at least you have the experience itself to console yourself with!

This month my award goes to a different Memory Lane event - one held at the village hall in the sleepy village of Chilton Foliat. A reserved start by all (it was a small group!), but before the end of the first hour, the usual hive of activity kicked in and by the time the bowling alley was under way they were steaming along. The calmer side of the event was our magnetic marble run, often referred to as the “big mousetrap game”. Our very constructive team members were constantly “tweaking” their run for the final roll. The finale of the day, where lot of points stood to be gained, was the space hopper final. It was a superb end to another great day.

Paul

As blogs are supposed to be personal to the person writing them, I simply have to write about elephants. A very important element of me is my love for elephants. I can’t remember my first introduction to elephants - they have just always been part of my life - and I know they always will be. Much to my partner’s displeasure - he is not so keen on the many elephant drawings we have around our house! Which reminds me, this is as good a time as any to thank those clients who, over the years, have sent me pictures that they have taken on the odd safari they have been on.

Coming back to my early years, I do remember my Granddad saying to me that the first time he took me to Chester Zoo when I was a toddler I was mesmerised. I have been ever since.

So why am I talking about elephants? Well partly I’m avoiding sorting out all the wigwams from our recent Wild West events (they are a nightmare to sort out afterwards!), but mainly because it’s relevant to team building.

Elephants live in family groups consisting of the matriarch (the leader) and her family. Whenever a new baby is born the whole family rally round to help with the rearing. Whilst the mother does the feeding, and protecting the baby from the sun. The older sisters and aunts also help look after the calves.

Elephants require a lot of food to survive, this means they need to keep on the move to ensure there are fresh food supplies throughout the year. Using migratory routes that the matriarch has learnt from previous generations, she passes on the knowledge to her herd. It is their close relationships that allows the rest of the herd to acquire knowledge to be used when needed.

So, again, what was the point of this? Well elephant herds work together. Organised by their leader, they not only collectively protect their young they develop them also. They work as a team, improve their team and help their less experienced members take on ever increasing responsibility for themselves and the rest of the herd.

Maybe we can all learn a thing or two from elephants.

Till next time …

Nikki

Hi everybody. Well here I am blogging for the first time and I bet everyone who knows me won’t believe it is really me doing this! I’m the “brother” referred to as “enough” in our very first blog entry. Thanks bro…

I guess many people don’t end up doing what they thought they would and I am certainly one of those. When I left school all I wanted was to be a professional footballer. I didn’t quite make that, but football was always an important part of my life and I have been pleased to have been a part of a small number of (though I say so myself!) some pretty good local amateur clubs. Never one to hold back in the dressing room or on the pitch, I was soon made Captain wherever I played. As Captain I was always trying to get a team spirit going, with everyone working for each other and building on our collective strengths. Some people was great defenders, some had the vision to create opportunities, others scored the goals. All were necessary and all had to pull together if we were to win.

Now I am part of the Sandstone team, I have found not much has changed except I have swapped footballs for flair bottles (in Romanbar), Colt 45s (in Wild West), Yo-Yos (in Memory Lane) and so on. While I really enjoy looking after some of the more belly laughter generating elements of our activities, I also know that all of the other bits that help make our team building options so enjoyable for all participants are equally important. So we all look out for one another in setting up, during the sessions and in packing everything away. All of the staff that attend our various events work really well together and take pride in finding something in every event that makes us a little better still next time. This in turn, helps ensure that our team really delivers each time for our clients and everybody wins.

Catch you all again soon!

Steve

So, for my first blog entry, where should I start? As an Event Assistant, Sandstone has provided me with great opportunities that would otherwise be hard to come by, so I’m going to talk about those.

Event Assistants here are people who are not full time (I’m one of our student team members but we have older folk too!) that are trained to handle specific jobs at the larger events. The variety of events that we run provide not only our clients, but the Sandstone team itself, with a wide choice ot things to get involved with. Notice I say “our clients” - we all feel very much part of the company. Sometimes I might be assigned to look after a small number of teams on the day, helping them with anything they need. Other times, I might be asked to run a specific part of the event - perhaps ‘Gold Panning’ in Wild West, ‘Cocktail Making’ (I am a student after all!) in Romanbar or ‘Walk the Plank’ in Cube.

The diversity is not limited to the range of activities either. Each individual event that is held is completely unique as we tailor them for client needs. This allows our team to get really involved in something fresh each time - just as the clients do.

This brings me back to some of the opportunities that I have experienced so far. I’ve found the best bit is getting to know the people attending the events. I’ve really enjoyed meeting - and having fun with - a wide range of clients. As we have members of the team all over the country, I’ve also got to know and work with other members of the team - and believe me when I say that they really are varied!

As someone who is a member of this team, I can safely say that Sandstone not only take great care of their clients, but also their team.

Jenny

Hi all. As Production Manager here, I’ve decided that my best contribution to our collective blog should be a “Team Building Event of the Month” slot. If nothing else, it saves me thinking too hard each time it is my turn! And I’m happy to make my first nomination.

During March, for me it has to be a Wild West event that we ran at the Abbley Hotel in Great Malvern. A very industrious group and between them they managed to pan more gold than any group before them. I must take my hat off - cowboy hat of course! - to the former geology student who set a new, impressive individual record of 140 pieces of gold!

Gunslinging was its usual fun activity, enhanced by the group banter - usually rude! - between colleagues. The finale may have been a bit more “Starsky and Hutch” than our more usual western-style shootout, but it still made for a fabulous finish and a wonderful addition to a great set of memories from this brilliant day.

Paul

When my gorgeous daughter was four weeks old (a lifetime and yet only six weeks ago) I sat on the sofa one morning and phoned my sister to ask where the off switch was. Francesca had been feeding and crying non-stop for a couple of hours and I was sure there must be some magical way to make her happy again. During the course of our chat my sister put her son on the phone, my three-year-old nephew Jack. As he came on the line Frankie started wailing again and I asked him if he could hear her. “Don’t worry Auntie Jo,” he said, “crying is just talking”.

Out of the mouths of babes! I couldn’t believe that a three-year-old had just shifted the whole thing into perspective for me. I have been involved in numerous team building events where the objective is to improve communications across departments, where colleagues complain that their point of view isn’t heard or that they aren’t made aware of important developments. My daughter was simply trying to communicate with me and I hadn’t been listening to her properly. It made me realise how important communication is, right from the day we are born. Maybe Jack should consider a career in team building…

Jo

Just a quick one for the blog today - everyone here at Sandstone would like to wish all our clients and visitors to our site a very happy Easter. For those who have to work over the long weekend, we hope you still get to enjoy some chocolate!

Barbara

While we’re waiting for one of our other team members to put pen to paper - well, fingers to keyboard - I felt the urge to add to my first blog. I am one of Sandstone’s Event Managers. You may have had the pleasure of seeing our online video – and yes I am the star! I am one of the main points of contacts for our potential, new and existing clients. I spend a lot of my time talking with people about what they want from a team building session. Once it has been booked, I also help sort through the logistics and make sure the day runs smoothly and, more importantly, delivers what they are looking for from it – whatever that is.

I enjoy giving this personal touch. The client has a single point of contact for all things Sandstone and we find that people appreciate this. I don’t attend all events, but I do use our excellent systems to ensure that our comprehensive briefing packs give my colleagues everything they need to deliver and at least meet - and usually beat - our client’s expectations. Those same systems ensure that if I am unavailable when one of “my” clients needs to speak with someone (even I have been known to take the odd holiday!) that my colleagues have everything at their fingertips and will be able to help.

I’ll blog again soon…

Nikki

If you have looked through our website you may already know we have designed our options to be completely mobile so we can run them anywhere a client would like well, as long as we have the space to safely do so! We’re happy to host our team building events anywhere in the UK and abroad. In fact our facilitators have recently gone as far as Dubai, Malaysia and even the middle of the Sahara desert! Of course, we also work closer to home, including venues near to our head office such as Chester Racecourse. We really aren’t fussy!

And our activities aren’t the only things which are mobile - so are our staff. We have team members based all over the UK - in Cheshire, Merseyside, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, Kent, Sussex and Cornwall to name but a few! I myself spend most my time at our Nottinghamshire office or our Head Office in Cheshire well that is when I’m not out at an event.

And that’s one of the great things about this job the variety. One day I can be running a very intimate small team event the next I can be organising a 250 plus person event. It’s great, no two days are ever the same whether I’m in the office or out at an event. And that’s what we all like it keeps it interesting for us … and who wouldn’t want that?

Nikki

Well, we’ve finally taken the plunge and decided to join the blogging community having resisted the urge thus far. So why have we done so? Two reasons. Firstly, people we respect have been asking us for a blog for a while. At least that’s what we think they said! Secondly, we finally owned up to enjoying a little voyeurism with other folk’s blogs and it seems churlish not to reciprocate.

This left us with the problem of what to write for this very first entry. Or more accurately, left me with the problem of what to write as the others “felt” (nice word) that as MD I should be the one to kick this whole thing off. OK, never let it be said I shirked in my…

I reckon I should start with us. We’re a family owned and operated company, I’m delighted to say. Some might find the prospect of working with their wife, offspring, offspring-in-law, brother, cousins, nephews and nieces a daunting prospect. From which you’ll gather I don’t have a sister and just the one brother. Believe me, one brother is enough! Back to the daunting prospect theme, I can only say that it works for me - and I hope my various relatives too! It helps that they are not alone. The rest of our team is not related to us - though some are to one another, keeping the family feel going. They help keep us sane. Well saner than we would be otherwise anyhow.

What has any of this to do with team building, surely the most relevant content for our first blog? Well, I don’t see how we can help others build their teams without some experience of doing it ourselves. All teams have work related challenges to overcome and ours is no different. But I think is fair to say that adding the heavy family connection into the equation creates some fairly unique ones. Our definition of a team is one in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Whilst the family connections adds some advantages such as the natural connection to begin with, it also makes it harder for us to appreciate and harness the differences to create something that really flies. The fact that we have succeeded at that is a huge source of pride for us all. We reckon that managing to achieve that for ourselves makes it easier for us to help others with more traditional issues achieve it also.

The family connection also means we care about our business and that means we care about our clients, so everyone is a winner.

Surely that will do for now? I reckon it is someone else’s turn next time…

Alan