Every second year we have a company retreat, in order to take time away from our day-to-day responsibilities and focus on bigger-picture topics that matter to us as individuals and as a company.
Always themed, our retreat focus this year was on Health and Wellbeing, a topic that is dominating conversations all around the country at the moment.
On our agenda was a half-day session with Brad Hook from The Resilience Institute, which was extremely well liked by all. His information was simple, and his Toolkit and Tricks – which we are reliably informed are backed by science – resonated with all of us. And then, not to make you laugh, we also did an hour’s Laughing Yoga session the following day! Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be a photo of that for some reason…
At the end of the retreat we had a surprise team challenge: to build an innovative putt-putt golf hole. Through a series of quiz questions and tasks the team won ‘purchase power’ that enabled them to buy products from our ‘shop’: the theory being that the more items you purchased the better the hole became. In the end, after good team competition, a crazy hole was devised and we donated nearly 200 food items to Auckland City Mission.
White Associates Business Manager Michelle Pou said, “We’re big fans of the Auckland City Mission. Not only are we working to help the Mission redevelop its campus, but we enjoy every opportunity we get to get involved personally too.
“With Christmas coming up our focus turns to giving, and especially to those who are struggling in our society. So, to try to pull our weight with the Auckland City Mission, we’ve done a few small things to help. A number of our team, plus some friends and family, recently volunteered at the Auckland City Mission Distribution Centre, packing up a total of 157 emergency food parcels in three hours. We also ran a can drive in the office, with our staff donating about $200 worth of canned goods. And we all enjoyed the challenge on our retreat.
“We know these are mere drops in the bucket of support that the Mission needs, so we encourage you to see how you too can help them create and distribute the family food parcels that more and more people need each year.”
Please visit https://www.aucklandcitymission.org.nz/fundraising/food-parcels/ to see how you can get involved too.