Last week, the Synergy Vision team in London took to the trees of Battersea Park for a little reprieve from soaring temperatures for our third Team Day of 2022.
Over the course of the day, we:
- Listened to 5 business update presentations
- Partook in 1 general knowledge quiz
- Gorged on 1 delicious meal from 9Kitchens through The Sisterhood Project
- Got competitive in 7 team-building games
- Brought home 24 Go Ape survivors, AND
- Raised £2104.10 to donate to 4 different charities
Not to mention all the things we learned about each other!
Here’s a snapshot of who is most likely to:
- Partake in some (good-natured!) cheating: Orla
- Painstakingly explain to everyone that, although they "didn’t technically win the quiz", their team "actually got the most answers right because..." blah blah… no one cares: Alex
- Give me a heart attack for how blasé they were about their own safety while dangling 6 metres above the ground: Ven
- Hold up the entire course because they were afraid of jumping to their death (i.e. do a zipline): Me
- Skip the treetop adventure to, instead, drink beer: Ais
- Be a show-off: Andy
- Buy a round: Kirsty
- Be the best plank race coxswain: Jaz and Arti
The day kicked off with a business update, covering everything from our company vision to finance. This included an introduction to our new Programme Development team who have been brought in to integrate our Account teams, elevate our programme offerings, and enhance our ability to join the dots between strategy and delivery. An ever-uplifting presentation about our ongoing corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives was shared, and a new CSR initiative, ‘In the Spotlight’, was introduced, where charities with which employee-owners are volunteering will receive a £250 donation from Synergy Vision. Christina was the inaugural recipient of this initiative in recognition of her fantastic work with The Trussell Trust, a charity supporting a nationwide network of food banks.
Then, for the main event: Go Ape! This was an idea borne from Orla (the good-natured cheater and CSR enthusiast to boot) after finding out that Go Ape is a fellow employee-owned company. Once we had arrived and got a good helping of typical weather chat out of the way, it was time to flex our general knowledge for a team quiz hosted by Richard Foster. Never ones to miss an opportunity for a healthy dose of CSR, the winning team chose Epilepsy Action to receive a donation equivalent to the amount of points they won, and the entire event was price matched and donated to the young people’s charity, Princes Trust.
Having worked up an appetite with a bit of friendly (but heated) competition, we tucked into a delicious meal from 9Kitchens' The Sisterhood Project, an initiative set up to provide an income to migrant women facing challenges in accessing foreign labour markets. I think I speak for everyone when I say that we’re still dreaming of that food!
Following the feast, we moved away from brains to brawn with a set of games that tested our athleticism (as well as strategy and collaboration skills) – don’t be fooled by the pictures into thinking we were simply throwing bean bags into buckets! Any post-quiz aggression was certainly unleashed on the field.
We were then harnessed up. As they tightened the straps, I began to regret the third serving at lunch. There was a clear mix of excitement and trepidation at the upcoming activity, but a great time was had by all. It was lovely to see the camaraderie between the two camps. During the ultimate, most terrifying, stretch I got a bird’s-eye view of those that had completed the activity and were kicking back with a beer – that was all the motivation I needed for what felt like a sprint finish but was more of a sloth-like crawl.
All jokes aside, it was a fantastic day, and we all left on a high (I will not confirm nor deny whether the pun was intended).
Written by Amanda Hyne, Principal Medical Writer.
