Team Building Events

We've in the high season and although business has been affected by the economic situation we've been undertaking plenty of team building events around the country. Treasure Hunts are always popular and we've been doing a lot of our Crystal Challenges and It's a Knockout events.

Earlier in the year we got some Segways and they are very popular. Clients always enjoy them and typically it's their first experience of them. As one of our instructors said, we do these activities all the time and it's easy to take it for granted - but for the clients most of it is a new experience.

Corporate sailing events

Now that summer is coming many clients think about having a day on the water on a corporate sailing event. This is a very popular corporate option because you get a very powerful team building experience in a very nice environment, complete with glamourous locations (for example the Solent) and fabulous restaurants close to the water.

A real test of a team is to spend a couple of days living in close quarters on a yacht. Facilities on board are limited and you really do have to work together and learn to compromise to survive this event!

Solent Events are an excellent provider of corporate sailing events and we work alongside them for this activity.

Istanbul Treasure Hunt

March saw a crack Progressive team head out to Istanbul to carry out a spy themed treasure hunt. A day's travelling each way hat the team installed in the luxurious Hyatt Regency hotel. The event itself was centred in the Grand Bazaar and involved plenty of local interaction and even a visit to a Turkish bath.

The event was a great success in spite of rain and even hail at some points early in the event. Meanwhile, back at home everyone had enjoyed a glorious sunny Spring day.

We're good, but we can't control the weather! Mission accomplished:- client delighted.

Why is Rob so excited?

Rob Baxter is our logistics manager based in the warehouse at Progressive. He also looks after all the vehicles.

Rob is delighted because tow new vans have arrived. They are Citroen's and the new models are a full 18 inches longer. They also have Trafficmaster built in. This provides satnav and an interesting little feature which tracks the vans, so Rob can log in and see exactly where they are at any moment in time. The question is whether to tell the crews of his new all-seeing powers!

We buy new vehicles every three years because reliability is of critical importance in our business. A van broken down on the motorway can mean 50 people standing around with nothing to do and a very embarrassed organiser. We believe that we have the newest vehicles and equipment in the business.

You don't get a second chance with events. It has to be 'right first time'.

Nicola Abad is one of our project managers

At the moment I’m working on putting together a new event which is based on a “Going Green” theme. The teams will each have their own low carbon vehicle with driver along with GPS, maps, clues, riddles etc which will help them make their way around the New Forest finding activities along the way. All of the activities have a“Green” theme that is eco friendly, they then finish with a Tree planting group finale. My job is to ensure that all of the details for the event are in place and all staff as well as the client knows how the day will run by putting together a detailed Event Schedule and Itinerary for the day.

David Getzig's blog

David is Progressive's Director of Operations and has responsibility for the warehouse team in Ringwood and the entire field operation, ranging from vehicles to equipment and managing our team of more than 50 instructors. It's a key role in the Progressive Resources team.

What is David up to at the moment?

I am currently in the process of introducing a new activity into our event portfolio. We have purchased a Pinzgauer, which has been described as one of the most “competent off-road vehicles in the world”. This will be used for delivering 4 x 4 activities to clients up and down the country.

The Pinzgauer is a remarkable offroad vehicle Its capabilities are comparable to that of the American Hummer.

45 degree approach and departure angle
100% slope or until tyres lose traction
700 mm (27.6 in) fording depth
Can climb down a 360 mm (14.2 in) wall
43.5 degree side-slope
1000/1500 kg of payload (4x4/6x6)
335 mm (13.2 in) of clearance (lowest point when fully loaded)
110 km/h (68 mph) / 100 km/h (62 mph) top speed(4x4/6x6)
Full engine power available at 4 km/h (2 mph)
M body type carries 10 people (4X4), 14 people (6x6)

Hannah from the Projects team

Hannah is with us on a placement and, sadly, will be going back to uni soon. However, she's determined to come back and work for us after her studies, so we won't lose her for long. What has Hannah been up to recently?

"I am currently working on updating and finishing a few larger projects before returning to University. The first of which, event analysis, has involved recording all events and activities within the events to identify which are most popular and what equipment does or doesn't get used. This goes with the dot board analysis to find out hot spot days and which months are busiest at Progressive, such as a record July this year with 84 events.

I am also analysing expenditure on suppliers and where operations buy equipment from. This will allow us to see where we spend money regularly and find out if we can set up trade accounts or bulk discounts for loyal custom."

Newsletter and new website

Our Spring Newsletter headed out this afternoon. We publish this quarterly and send it out to our steadily growing database of now 5,000. We hope you all enjoy it!

We have also launched a new website; www.productlaunch.co.uk. We were able to get this url towards the end of last year. We feel that only having the best domain names underscores our commitment to any service that we promote and we now have an impressive stable of names. We added www.treasurehunt.co.uk earlier last year.

We feel that this approach says that we're serious about what we're doing and that if we do something we do it well.

Sea Business Launches

Sea Business, the water based event division of Progressive Resources, has officially launched with a mailshot to the company database. Chris Welch has moved from Progressive in Ringwood to head up the new division backed up by experienced event manager Sam Griffiths. Sea Business is based on the historic Quay Hill, the cobbled street at the bottom of Lymington High Street which leads down to the Quay.

Business is reported to be brisk after the launch. Sea Business arranges a variety of events including team building on yachts, ribtec treasure hunts and sailing regattas.

Preparing for the 2008 Season

It's all hands on deck at the moment preparing for the main season. We're painting, reparing and building to get our kit up to scratch and cope with higher demand this year. The world seems to be full of doom and gloom but we're experiencing a higher volume of enquiries than usual. One theory is that companies who are doing well are organising team building events to keep their employees feeling positive and motivated in the face of the media onslaught of negativity.

The Parmesan Job

The Parmesan Job is one of our most popular premium events. It's a themed event based on the classic film The Italian Job and at the end of it teams get to blow the doors off a white van to get to the gold bars. Each team is given a Mini for the day which they get to drive for themselves. We can hire as many of these as are needed for an event, the record being more than 20 on one day; that was fun.

We've just taken delivery of our own Mini Cooper. This will be used on the events and also in promotions. We had one on our stand at an exhibition and that really attracted attention. The things the team here is really interested in is borrowing it for the weekend when it's not in use. They're great little cars and the Cooper really has oomph.

When team building gets a bad name

Police were called to a mass brawl on a Dieppe to Newhaven ferry between 25 passengers which started as an argument over which team (Arsenal or Chelsea) would win the football league. The news report, which has featured in most of the national papers during the past week, went on to gleefully state that the group were on a team building day out.

It's easy to see why the media would revel in this story so much. There is a inescapable irony in a team building event resulting in drunken fisticuffs.

The reality is that the purpose of the event was defeated by too much booze. It happens all the time and you just can't get it through to some clients. A little alcohol is a social lubricant and can be great for bonding, but too much and it often gets out of hand. People say things they regret or don't mean - I don't think that the old adage In Vino Veritas holds true. You tend to get a sort of extreme thruth; thoughts you wouldn't usually express because they are unmitigated.

So, if you're planning a team building event bear this in mind. In Vino Big Trouble.

Hello 2007

We've undertaken our most significant marketing activity to date with a quarter page advert booked in The Business Magazine every week for 52 weeks. James Coakes buys and sells internet domain names as well as using them for our own marketing strategy and he happened to have http://www.thebusiness.co.uk/, purchased from the receivers of a bust company.

The advert is a swap and it has lead to a significant increase in traffic to our website, particularly from London and the EC1 city area where many of the companies with a budget for events are based. We're now busily brainstorming new ideas for the year ahead. Ours are sophisticated clients and they need creative new ideas. Quad bikes, clay shooting and archery are all very well but clients increasingly say they've done it all before and want something different.

This, combined with the launch of our brand new brochure at Confex later this month, will mean a big marketing push forward. Details of the new events for 2007 will follow shortly.

Team building and Sustainability

I was looking at an article covering a speech about sustainability given by the CEO of a global multi national. At around the same time I saw a company report from another blue chip company and the Chairman's statement was all about sustainability. It seems that it's the big trend in business at the moment.

Then I was thinking about team building events and how they fit with sustainability. If the CEO is saying that nothing is more important than sustainability but then the next day a group of the company's executives is burning around a field on quad bikes, leaving a scar on the land that will take months to heal, then you wouldn't be completely out of order pointing out the hypocrisy. Words are important, but actions speak louder than words.

The sustainability issue is going to start to impact on the sort of team building events that corporate clients choose. Quad bikes and tanks will be out, Community Projects will be in. Speedboats will be out in favour of sailing.

Team building providers are often small businesses who do not necessarily listen to the things that large corporates say are important. However, the industry needs to change and become more environmentally focussed. The corporate client is a very sophisticated entity and the days of petrol heads yahooing around a field will soon be over.

Progressive Resources has a wide variety of sustainable team building events.

2006 - Happy New Year!

The year has started well and all the signs point to 2006 being an excellent year for team building. We have a variety of new events on offer and added various new equipment over the Winter. We invested in a lovely old fire engine, a 1978 Bedford TK, and have created an event in which teams can take on the challenge of being a fire crew. This is great fun and involves rolling out the hose and hitting targets with a jet of water. She is also very useful for transporting water for our Water Wars event and It's A Knockout.

We are now prepared for the year ahead. It's going to be a good one!

September Team Building News

August was extraordinarily busy. Usually it's quiet because of holidays, but this year it was like a normal month. September is looking very busy too. We're having a night shift in for the first time to unload vans, clean and prepare equipment and reload ready for the following day. We have sold our old Lasersport systems and bought two brand new ones complete with electronic traps. These are extremely slick and a great improvement. We have also ordered two brand new vans from Virgin Cars. They had a very good deal on Citroen Relays offering a discount of nearly 40%. Citroen make a very good diesel engine. You can't cut corners on transport because we need it to be absolutely reliable so that we don't let clients down. Our policy is to have new vehicles and kit and replace them regularly. We're up to 50 instructors in the field and we're now recruiting actively. Our target for next year is 70 and these must be trained to full competency over the winter.



Preparations for Halloweeen are underway and people have already been caught out by heads appearing from holes in tables and a very spooky 6ft vampire which swoops down from the roof on invisible fishing wire. Every so often we've heard a scream from downstairs and some of the girls in the office are refusing to go down there until it's finished. Our product development area is like a mad cross between Department Q and Santa's Workshop!

As the Summer starts to draw to a close

Well, I suppose it's still a bit early to say that. We had a few events on today and the weather was just bizarre. Hailstones in August. August is usually a bit quieter because people go away on holiday and so clients avoid having events during the month. Still, we've had events most days. Now the busiest season of the year for team building events starts to build up. September through to mid November tends to be the big conference season. Hopefully it will be good this year, after all we're still owed a summer!

Busy year for events

2005 is going to be a good year. I estimate it will be more than 30% up on last year. The past five years have included a range of geopolitical events that have adversely affected the events industry. Foot and mouth, 9/11, Sars and the Iraq War are all examples of these events. Team building and corporate events are one of the first things to get cut when corporates aren't feeling confident and nothing affects confidence like uncertainty. This year, however, has been a level playing field (so far) and corporates are investing in their teams. This investment improves morale, teamwork and communication and these things have an accumulating effect in a business.

Team Building Galore

It is now clear that this is going to be an extremely busy year for our team. Bookings are very good and clients have reacted well to some of the new events we have developed. In particular our Parmesan Job treasure hunt event has been very well received. People love the new Mini Cooper and it does look fantastic when we have a group of them running around together - it really turns heads. Hunt The New Forest Beast has not been so popular as a team building event. It attracts interest on the website but we've only actually run a couple. I think that the idea of camping appeals to some but not others, personally I love it. My theory is that in a group of, say, 30 people between 5 and 10 people will be averse to physical activity and perceived hardships such as camping and they will veto such events. This explains why Treasure Hunts are the most popular event in the corporate event industry. They are acceptable to most people in any given team.

On the subject of camping I have signed up for two weeks' arctic survival in February of next year. I enjoyed the week surviving in the woods last year raising money for The Anthony Nolan Trust and so I have decided to go one step further with this event which will involve living in snow caves, fishing through the ice and travelling by husky and skidoo. I can't wait!

The year is underway

There is a day in the year when the events business, being seasonally affected, changes and becomes extremely busy. I have been monitoring this for the last few years and one date always comes up; 11th February. So, on 11th February this year I came into the office with a spring in my step and it there did seem to be some excitement in the air; more enquiries than usual and people actually looking to make decisions and pin down dates. This week, the week after the key date, has been extremely busy and that surprises me because it's half term and also Confex, the industry exhibition, is on this week. Given all of that I am expecting next week to be very busy, so it's all hands on deck again!