On Sunday, 26 July 2015 we car pooled our way down to Wollongong and met for a lovely lunch at North Beach Pavilion Restaurant overlooking North Wollongong Beach. The weather was spectacular and the food plentiful and delicious. Returning to Novotel, North Wollongong to check in and begin the first of our strategy sessions, “Looking Back”. We reviewed the previous year’s action plans, financials, client reviews, field and coding outcomes and discussed all the facets of business that have kept us very busy this past year.
In the evening we all donned our comfy shoes and had a fairly brisk walk to the Illawarra Brewing Company for a craft beer tour and tasting. Our guide, Luke talked us through the processes of creating their signature brews culminating in a tasting where beer drinkers and non-beer drinkers alike tasted and chatted about the different levels of bitterness and flavour achieved in their selection. After this event, the team went to the Illawarra Brewery Restaurant for another delicious meal and some paired their meal with the beers they had learned about at the tasting. It was then back to our more-than-comfy rooms at the Novotel to rest up for the next day’s Strategy meetings and events. However, there were the few night owls who enjoyed a night cap and some laughter playing Heads Up down in the lounge.
The following morning, yet another beautiful day, our morning strategy session involved discussion around “Looking Forward”. We walked through strategies for developing and increasing our capacity, particularly in relation to innovation and technology, marketing and reporting tools and techniques. We had all provided one idea for improvement prior to the strategy and it was quite astounding that each of us had provided a different idea. By the end of this session we were all feeling inspired about how to implement many of these ideas. Across the weekend, there were also a few clever exercises used to get us thinking and hold our attention. Thanks to Maria O for helping us to value the power of communication in her paper-folding/tearing exercise and to Rowan and Arne for helping us to find numerous and various uses for a small ceramic dish!
Lunch was served at The Lagoon Seafood Restaurant, a short stroll from the Novotel. We all enjoyed a delicious meal and were all very grateful for the shuffle back to the motel after yet another fine repast. On our return to the meeting room, we were greeted by Hayley and Ramsey of HiddenDoor who led us through some lively, hilarious and seriously competitive “Minute to Win It” games. All staff had the opportunity to reveal their true talents in games like Head Banger, Bucket Head, Sticky Face and the unforgettable Oreo challenge.
We finalised our strategy meeting by consolidating the learnings of the previous years and the weekend’s discussions and put our heads together to come up with action plans for making our company grow on its already solid foundations using all our resources to evolve our methods of reporting, our day to day working processes and developing committees to help drive our future direction.
We are most grateful to Angela for providing such an enjoyable and generous balance of facts, facilities, food and fun on these events. We hope you enjoy our photos.
Your TMIC blogger, Kerry
