This week the FieldHouse team were whisked away on our company away days. It felt not a lot like a work trip, and much more like a mini holiday – with the name ‘FieldFest’ that it was given being very apt. Here is a whistle stop tour through what we got up to.
For everyone apart from the directors, the details of the trip were a complete surprise – despite our collective best efforts over the last few months to trick Cordelia into giving us some information! Our only clues as to what was in store before heading off were a train ticket to Stonegate (it’s a village in East Sussex in case you were wondering), and a vague packing list (which included things like ‘bring shoes you don’t mind getting muddy’). As is always the case with surprises, this meant expectations were high, and we were definitely not disappointed.
The directors picked us up at Stonegate and drove us through many a country lane to our destination, which turned out to be a beautiful country estate called Fair Oak Farm. Made up of a 1600s cottage, converted farmhouses and tree houses – all nestled in 12 picturesque acres that featured alpacas, plus peacocks roaming the grounds freely – there was definitely a level of school trip excitement as we all set about exploring and finding our rooms. On each of ours beds there was a rucksack filled with treats (FieldHouse branded of course), plus an itinerary for the next two days.
An abundance of activities
The fun started with a literal bang in our first activity on Monday afternoon, of a drumming and physical workshop. Our eccentric coach Yaron had plenty of us almost crying with laughter many times in the various activities we had to do. The session culminated in us making a piece of freestyle music together, which was definitely a type of team bonding different to the norm!
After a dinner of paella cooked al fresco in front of us, everyone relaxed for the evening. Half of the team set up camp in the cinema room to watch Love Island (if you’re a fan of the show you will understand that this kind of dedication is required), before everyone hit the hay ready for another full day on Tuesday.
In the morning after breakfast we all sat down together for a corporate update, looking at our growth and achievements in the last year, as well as our upcoming plans. We are continuing to grow – both our client base and our team – at an incredible rate, and being part of an agency making waves in the way that we are is very exciting.
To continue this inspired mood we then had a workshop with Stewart Bewley, a story-telling coach. Stewart taught us how to speak more confidently, and how to keep our audience captivated when we are talking. With various members of the team saying at the start of the session saying that they wanted to improve things like their clarity, reduce their nerves, and have an impact on their listeners, there were definitely lots of breakthroughs by the end.
Although everything we got up to was great fun, I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that everyone’s favourite activity of the trip was the Falconry on Tuesday afternoon. We had two hours holding, flying, feeding and learning about the incredible owls, hawks and falcons from Sussex Falconry. Some of us were so taken with the birds (in my case a tiny 7 inch owl named Bing Bing captured my heart, and for Iain the firm favourite was a falcon in a headcap named Hyde), that there was the odd joke that maybe we had chosen the wrong career path in tech PR!
And that’s a wrap
For our final night we got glammed up and had more of a formal sit down dinner, followed by games and dancing into the night (and also into the morning for quite a lot of us!). There were many moments over the course of this evening when I was laughing my head off with everyone, or dancing enthusiastically to The Streets, where I looked around and felt very lucky that FieldHouse is where I work, and these are the people that I work with.
On boarding the train back to London the next morning we all looked a whole lot less fresh eyed and bushy tailed than when we had arrived two days previously. But in the words of Nicky, we may have had sore heads but we also had full hearts, and in my opinion that’s a pretty good price to pay.
Not sure how we are going to top this one next year!
