Virtual Retreats Can Be Fun!
Each year The Spark Mill blocks our calendars for a team retreat day before we close our office for the holidays to let our brains rest. The day's agenda typically includes time for reflection on the past year, a little planning and goal setting for the coming year, a shared meal, and some type of fun team activity or outing.
It was important to us during these pandemic times to continue this tradition – because we have two additional team members since this time last year, because the day is fun and we like spending time together, and because this year was tough y’all.
So, what does a virtual team retreat look like?
We Zoomed in from our homes in varying levels of “Christmas outfits” that included ugly sweaters, lights, and fancy jacket costumes
We ran TSM through some facilitation exercises we use with clients and worked through the results. One takeaway - we are all pretty aligned!
We used a fun online tool to anonymously answer questions about TSM - like what we love, what drives us crazy in our day-to-day, and we got dreamy about the next 5 years
TSM arranged for each of us to order lunch delivery from the restaurant of our choice and we shared a meal (mostly) together
Throughout the day we had one eye on the bingo card Sarah made us of things that regularly happen when our team Zooms, like: Courtney complains about team building (check), a dog barks (check), a kid interrupts (check), we break out into spontaneous laughter (check)
We escaped from a super awesome and challenging virtual escape room with 4 minutes to spare!
We played Mad Gab, facilitated by Rain, whose Louisiana accent really came through, and we learned only two of us are any good at that game
We laughed, we caught up about families and holiday plans, we reflected, we had big conversations, we planned, and we laughed some more
It was different – but it wasn’t.
We did all the same things we normally do, we just did it 2020 style. It was important – vital even. It was FUN! I left energized to finish out the last push of 2020, genuinely looking forward to 2021, and reminded of why I think I just might have the best job in the world.