How do you plan a gathering for 25+ team members and their spouses? With love and patience! What date on the calendar looks the most open? Who can make it and are they bringing a spouse or partner? Does everyone have directions? It’s really not so different from planning a company event for any business. Except DemGen is a virtual company with team members scattered all over Ontario.
Where can we meet? It’s not like brick and mortar offices where everyone comes from a general perimeter surrounding the location. We need to find a central location that can work for everyone at a time that allows for ease of travel to and from the chosen destination.
Since we began over five years ago, we have had numerous gatherings, from simple luncheons to more formal brunches to a Hawaiian themed luau with games and a barbecued meal. Each and every time, new people finally get the chance to put a face to the voice they hear often. Imagine walking into a room of co-workers and hoping that a laugh or sound of someone’s voice will confirm who they are. At our latest gathering, we decided many of us need to update our photos! We also rekindle that love affair we have with each other with real hugs … not just virtual or Skype emoticons.
We are a dynamic team that have the ‘best of the best’ because we don’t have to rely on geography to fill openings. We can source from anywhere in the world – although we aren’t there yet – it is part of our future vision!
Our gatherings allow us to break bread together, laugh (so much that our cheeks hurt), cry tears of joy, touch someone’s hand that you have worked alongside of for months – even years, hug some more, act silly, share stories, and take pictures. We cherish these few hours together and celebrate what we have created – and then we part ways once again knowing that we will be together virtually the next day … by Skype, email, or conference calls. Now when we pick up the phone or send a Skype message, we can see who we are talking to from that time we spent together and that makes our interaction even more special.
We hope our next time together will be another DemGen Family Fun Day – a chance for us to be with even more of the people we love. The last one included the President and Director of Operations climbing the rock wall along with team members and their children, most of us getting soaked during water balloon wars (what a blast!), connecting for laughs during mini-golf, and knocking the heck out of baseballs in the batting cages.
Cheers to many more years of fun, love, and get togethers!
Pamela Christie
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What a delightful article! Lots of beautiful smiles! We are a happy bunch!
Great article! Nice to see everyone in the photos, too 🙂