Tony Nicholls
Last week saw the second our company and Yuuguu staff day out of the year; this time coming in the form of an ‘It’s a Knockout’ extravaganza.
CEO’s Paul Lees and Andrew Pearce present Nicole Stadler with her ‘Employee Of The Quarter’ award before the shannanigans begin
Not ideal for those of a prissy disposition, the day contained more ice-cold water drenchings, puffy sweaty faces collapsing on the grass, and visits to the medic than any other staff outing we can remember.
Customer Service Manager Aurelie Zahm; in arguably the best costume of the day
Split in to four teams, with the genius titles of ‘Pow’, ‘Wow’, ‘Now’ and…erm, ‘Purple Cow’ – the day was a time to make men of boys and women of girls. Or should that be lolloping fools of everyone? Either way, who’d have thought four people walking on one set of skis could be so hopelessly difficult? Not us, that’s for sure.
Steward Millard, Account Exec’ wishes he could do this everyday.
Later in the day, certain members of each team were blindfolded, spun around, and then told to move quickly down a dark tunnel. On coming out the other end they were then met with a bucket of water and soaked to the bone whilst trying to build blocks being ordered to ‘Move quicker! c’mon, left, right, now left, no I said right! Argh! C’mon, faster, stack those blocks, stack those damn blocks!” – Jealous much?
Now, as much as there were countless tired looking faces by the end of the day, there were just as many beaming grins from staff having had the sweet satisfaction of getting one over on their ‘superiors’.
Aptly named Team ‘Wow’: There had to be a winner
Thereafter a BBQ, ‘DJ Social Media’, and oh yeah, a free bar helped day turn to night. Just as our very own robot was tearing up the dance floor with (you guessed it) ‘the robot’ and our more senior citizens were busting out their best ‘Dad dances’ – the music stopped. Mic stands were brought out, a sound engineer scrambled around his desk, and then four women (all of whom looked like catwalk models) strutted out across Richmond Athletics Club’s one-time-pristine floor.
There had been rumours of a girl band all evening – ‘maybe it’s Girls Aloud??’… ‘No way, it’s gotta be The Sugababes!’. In fact, what we got was ‘Fanfare’.
Their website tells us “Every once in a while, a band comes along that seems so right – so perfectly of the moment – it’s hard to believe they don’t already exist. But unbelievably, Fanfare have only been together for a mere matter of months and already the chemistry between them sizzles.Without doubt, this is one group set to take the world by storm…”
Now, they didn’t exactly take our collective 40 semi-sober employees by storm; but that said, they did put on a surprisingly good show. With expectations levels way above ‘laughable’ but definitely below ‘this is of Sex Pistols at the Free Trade Hall kind of importance’ – what actually happened made all those prejudgements seem irrelevant. Why? Because Fanfare were quite simply really great fun. Watch footage of the girls performing here.
That said, no sooner were they on stage, they were off again, leaving a trail of wagging tongues and tapped out feet in their wake. A fantastic, if slightly unexpected way to round off a day that won’t be forgotten any time soon.
You can see more photo’s on our Flickr steam: http://www.flickr.com/photos/powwownow/
Shaz Manelli
