We know here at XP that spending time with your team outside of the normal office environment has endless benefits for team morale, so we try to organise an away day every month.
This month, we decided that the team needed some fresh air and excitement so we booked local events team, Holmbush Events, to take the team through archery, axe-throwing, rifle shooting and blind 4×4 driving.
The day was kept a surprise, with just a cryptic dress code clue of ‘something you don’t mind getting dirty’ – inspiring an array of bizarre guesses as to what we may have planned for them.
Luckily everyone was over the moon with the surprise and we threw ourselves into the activities straight away.
First up was archery target practice, which proved a hit with everyone. The girls’ team even won one of the competition rounds (‘not fair though as Ian owns his own bow’).
We then took on rifle shooting, which (worryingly) it would seem Lizzie has quite the affinity for, much to Ian’s dislike. Lizzie well and truly destroyed everyone else’s scores and we have all officially made a pact to never upset her again.
Our third activity was blind 4×4 driving; one team member sits at the wheel of a specially modified car which will run without the need for pedals, the rest of the team are then asked to verbally communicate the correct directions to safely guide everyone in the vehicle through the course. What happened in reality was a burst of screaming ‘right, right right!’, ‘left, left left!’ as loud as we could and often both directions at the same time. Luckily we didn’t crash (thanks entirely to the instructor’s dual brake system) but it was hilarious none-the-less to see the control shift when sight was excluded from the equation.
Our final task was axe-throwing which actually proved to be the most difficult of the day. A few knockout rounds soon boiled down to a husband v wife tense stand-off as it would seem Angelina is more than comfortable throwing sharp weapons.
To top the day off, the team took a trip to the local Indian restaurant where we ordered enough food to sink a ship.
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