Ella Gore, Sales & Marketing Executive at XSEM, talks us through her recent experience at a 24-hour 'Destination Retreat' where she built bikes for Ukrainian refugee children.
"Last month, I was given a great opportunity to be part of a 24-hour 'Destination Retreat', hosted by Moulden Marketing at the New Hall Hotel & Spa, a Hand-Picked hotel, in Sutton Coldfield. It included a meaningful CSR activity, as well as meeting and networking with suppliers within the industry. It was fantastic!
The retreat was a great way to network but I particularly liked the team-building activity – Great Bike Build Challenge.
The activity supported refugee children from Ukraine and involved building, and then donating, bikes to the charity 'Dnipro Kids' in Scotland.
For this challenge, we were split into 4 teams of 6 people, with a mix of hosted buyers and suppliers. The activity was divided into three parts:
scoring points to obtain the parts we needed to build the bike
actually building the bikes
making a sales pitch for the bike
In order to get points and secure the missing parts needed to build the bike, we competed against each other in 4 different team games. The games involved memory skills, rapidity tests, thinking outside the box, team communication, and more. It was a really fun way to work as a team and get to know everyone on the retreat.
We then got assigned a bike to build, depending on how many points we'd scored. Each team had a different size bike to build; accommodating children of varying ages, from infants to teenagers. It was clear bike building wasn't my team's forte as we came last in the competition, but we all gave it our best shot and had a good laugh in the process!
This was my first business trip since I've been with XSEM, and it was such a fun way to discover and learn more about the industry, as well as meet and connect with people from the events world - all whilst contributing to a great cause!"
If you are looking for a fun, light-hearted and unusual type of team-building activity, the Great Bike Build Challenge ticks all the boxes!
Fancy giving it a go? Get in touch for more information.
Ella Gore
Sales & Marketing Executive