Away Day

So today we had an away day with work. This day has been looming for a long while.... I'm sure it was before Christmas that Janet and I were clearing out the cupboard to make more space and we decided that this massive bass drum had to go; we don't use it and David even said we could get rid of it. So we took this drum from the cupboard to the office. We asked facilities management to chuck it out for us, but they said there wasn't enough room in the skip at the time. So it sat in the office for sometime... until Janet decided we could try selling it on ebay. So she put it on there, started the bidding at £50 and we expected to maybe get about that for it. So anyways, much to our surprise the drum went for over £1, 200... and work decided we'd have an away day.

A few weeks ago we had a timetable of the day emailed... morning sessions led by Sandstone, who we googled to discover they're some sort of team building people and afternoon sessions led by Croydon Music and Arts, my company. The prospect of the day didn't fill us with much excitement at all!!

Then last week we received another email telling us to bring a long an artifact from home that displayed the meaning of our work at Croydon Music and Arts. And we also had to prepare a question that if we knew the answer to, it would improve our work, the work of our service or our service to customers. Well, that set us all off!! Too much thinking, very ambiguous and general lethargy towards it!

Anyways, at the weekend I decided I wanted to bring a soft toy dog; as I feel, well not so much now, but in my old role very much felt that I am treated as a general dogs body. So I went into work on Monday and Janet asked me about my artifact... we weren't supposed to share by the way... but we did... and to our amusement, we'd both come up with the same thing!!! We found it pretty hilarious, but it also made us think... what does that say about our work? What does that say about how we're treated?

So, today was the day... we arrived to Selsdon Park Hotel; lovely venue, sun shining, bacon baps and fresh coffee... mmmm :-) I was one of the first there, so Helen showed me into the room... which was filled with cardboard cut outs of people like Captain Kirk, Angelina Jolie, Buffy, Bart Simpson, Scooby Doo, Arnold Schwarzneger etc... my gut reaction was 'wft is this about? what on earth have i let myself in for?'!!!

So anyways, we ate breakfast (!) and then went in... firstly we had to write down our questions... I decided to go with something that Mike and I always moan about... 'why do we try to do so many things in such a short time frame instead of doing fewer things to a higher standard?' Well, I didn't have the guts to even write the full question, I stopped before 'instead of''. We then had to go around the room with post-its either trying to answer each others questions or write suggestions... random, but cool.

Then we had the guy from Sandstone to lead us in an activity... we were split into 3 groups and I happened to be with Mike and Janet... whooop... good group :-) We had a bag of props, and a camera and had to take a photo which would be a screensaver... we had to represent how we could 'encourage schools to broaden their horizons in what we now offer as a service', or something to that effect. We worked pretty well as a team I felt... and it was hilarious coz we had random props like an inflatable pumpkin, an inflatable banana, a whip, various costumes!! So we did that and then there was a vote on which of the 3 groups won. I really struggled to vote because although group 1 had a really clear image, I didn't actually feel they had met their objective... whereas group 3 had met their objective, but they hadn't communicated about the link between the images (which we were supposed to do) and their picture was really 'busy', therefore hard to see. Anyways, our group won and we got a bottle of wine each! Whoop!

Then we had lunch; buffet thing... very tasty and awesome carrot cake for dessert!

After lunch Helen led us in finishing the exercise with our questions... we had to read people's responses and identify one word which stood out. We then had to write this word on the back and pass our cards around getting people to write questions about this word. Then we had to read through people's questions and identify our own response or an action to our original question. The aim was to get us thinking in a different way and to empower us to do something to change our work. I found it a bit frustrating that the questions weren't then collected in. With a lot of issues, I feel it's only the senior management who have a say in what actually happens and changes within CMA, so I feel it would have been good for them to see what our questions were. Especially seeing that half the time they're never in to actually speak to, and even when they are, I feel too low in the scale of things to even raise questions... so I had mixed feelings about that exercise.

Following that it was time to share our artifacts... we had to place them in the middle of our table and then walk round and look at each others. We did that, and then we all had to explain out artifacts. To be honest, most people's were pretty profound, so I felt a little embarrassed/scared to share mine, but hey ho, it's important I feel... who knows what SMT thought of it... then Graeme spoke last and he went on about future plans regarding funding and how he;s been off meeting people lately to help us in overcoming the puzzles we'll face in the future. I was so unimpressed at one point... he asked Chris about the impact of music on her children's life... and to be honest, it doesn't seem like it's had a lot... possibly not the answer he was looking for. He then asked Ify about the one thing she wants for her child as it grows up (she's 6 months preggers)... she said to know the Lord, which Graeme had anticipated... he then asked how she'd bring her child up to know the Lord... which I felt was a bit wrong, but hey ho... she went on to talk about her and her husband's lifestyle and reading the word... 'HA!' I thought coz Graeme blatantly wanted her to say about music and she didn't!! So he probed it by mentioning what he heard on her voicemail... which was music... worship music! So anyways, he went on to say about his first hair raising, spine tingling musical moment which was when he went with his wife to a Polish Christian church... he is an atheist, but his wife a Christian and there was some spontaneous singing and he said it was amazing and it was the spirit of music that united them and blah blah blah... he was basically trying to say music is superior to anything else and what can we do to ensure musical opportunities for children in Croydon... hmmmm

I have mixed feelings on that one... how he went about it I don't feel was right, but I do feel that he's got the right amount of passion....