Company Day Out!
On Friday 1st August 2014, Big Data Partnership took to London Fields for our first ever summer picnic. Armed with beer, pimms, numerous picnic blankets and even a gazebo, we set up camp in Hackney for the afternoon. In order to feed all thirty of us, everyone was asked to bring a dish. The individual effort that went into this varied from quickly grabbing a quiche from the supermarket en route to the picnic, to home-made lasagne, curry and bread. Initial worry that we wouldn’t have enough food was soon quashed when it became clear that we actually had the opposite problem. We had enough to feed the five-thousand.
After lunch, it was time for a game of rounders. We split ourselves into two teams and took to our make-shift pitch with a very loose grasp of the rules. A lot of shouting, running and arguing about bowling capabilities ensued. It was eventually agreed that the end result was a draw.
The more active members of the team then continued running around; playing football and Frisbee. The rest huddled around the cool box full of beer. Unfortunately for some, it was soon decided that we should do a human pyramid. This seemed like the best idea ever. In hindsight, we could have seriously injured some of our developers. We managed a successful pyramid with a four person base, but trying to extend this to five people proved impossible. This may have had something to do with the beer and pimms. A new ‘watermelon lifting’ competition was also established which involved holding half a watermelon at arms’ length for as long as possible. This was harder than it looked and resulted in the watermelon being dropped so many times that it was eventually inedible.
All the picnic events, especially the rounders and human pyramid construction proved great team building exercises with everyone working together to achieve the end goal. Team work is hugely important at Big Data Partnership so activities like this cannot be under-estimated.
As the sun disappeared, we packed up our stuff, took down the gazebo and donated our many leftovers to some fellow picnic goers. The first Big Data Partnership picnic had been a success, hopefully setting a tradition for years to come.
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