Planning a meeting in Las Vegas or attending a convention in Las Vegas and having to organize satellite events?
| Put the Meat Into Team Building |
Let employees build a cake and eat it, too, with a friendly cake-decorating competition. Using tasty premade sheet cakes, employees sketch out their vision as a team then sculpt, frost and decorate their cakes with teamwork, diplomacy, bargaining and creativity. You also can steer them toward the meeting’s theme and have them present and explain their metaphorical masterpieces. At the end, let them enjoy their just desserts or donate the culinary creations to a local charity or food bank.
The company TeamBonding offers an ice cream–making challenge that requires participants to use teamwork and leadership to churn out delicious ice cream as a group. Throughout the complex process, participants engage in “research” and learn the specific skills, techniques and marketing fundamentals to bring back to their group to create homemade waffle cones and a unique ice cream flavor. Better yet, at the end, participants get to sample their creations for an experience that will be unforgettable and delicious.
Ultimate teamwork is necessary in a successful restaurant kitchen, so why not bring that experience to employees and see how they measure up? Through the conception, preparation, creation and production of a multiple-course meal—all without a proper kitchen and under time constraints—teams discover how important coordination, communication and cooperation really are for success and productivity. Beyond the intrinsic reward, participants get to share a great gourmet meal they cooked themselves. TeamBonding offers services to coordinate such activities, providing recipes, equipment and supplies to create this fun and filling team-building experience.
Give a Little, Get a Lot
Striving to make team building meaningful as well as memorable creates the ultimate challenge for event planners. A great way to infuse a meeting or conference with energy and an appreciation for something larger than the day-to-day work challenges is to create a project that gives the results to a charitable organization. TeamBonding provides nationwide facilitation for a variety of events that not only foster teamwork and relationships among participants but also give back to the local community in a fun and significant way.
One of the best ways to be charitable is to provide food for those in need. Options abound for how to accomplish this and build your team in the process. Host a cooking competition to prepare and package hot food that can be donated to a local soup kitchen. Contribute to local schools with impoverished children by making and bagging peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in a friendly competition that requires coordination and communication for a cause. Coordinate a challenge for teams to earn and collect items and assemble bags of nonperishable household food items for local families in need. However you pack it, providing for others creates pride, community and a sense of purpose within an organization.
Many families cannot afford the essential tools children need to be successful in school, such as notebooks and pencils. What could be more meaningful than helping supply these basic tools to help foster access to education and thereby improving the future of the community? In an activity like this, teams participate in fun, mental and physical hands-on challenges that help them fill a backpack with vital school supplies by using teamwork, communication and involvement. This also could be adapted to create school first-aid kits, art-supply kits and more.
For teams who don’t mind using a little elbow grease, consider a bicycle- or dollhouse-building activity for local charities. Every child should have quintessential childhood experiences like riding a bicycle down the street or playing make-believe with a dollhouse, but many families cannot even afford rent and food let alone pleasure items like toys. Through friendly competition, corporate teams engage in fun, innovative puzzles and challenges to earn enough “money” to purchase the essential parts needed to construct the bicycles or dollhouses. The task requires teamwork and enthusiasm, and the result is making sure children from impoverished backgrounds get to experience the cherished childhood memories most of us take for granted when your group donates the bicycles or dollhouses to a local organization. For a heart-wrenching twist, bring local children to the event and see the smiles and maybe tears when they receive their new toys.
Many local police and fire departments have “Rescue Bears” on hand to give to children who have been displaced or traumatized by events that befall them or their families. Providing these Rescue Bears is a positive and emotional way to give back to the community and a powerful way to ease the pain and confusion and worries of children in these frightening times. During this team-building event, groups solve puzzles, decipher codes and unlock “secrets” to get the materials they need to build custom teddy bears for this cause. Friendly competition melded with a great charity makes this a memorably altruistic event that exercises critical-thinking and problem-solving skills outside of the daily grind.
The company TeamBonding offers an ice cream–making challenge that requires participants to use teamwork and leadership to churn out delicious ice cream as a group. Throughout the complex process, participants engage in “research” and learn the specific skills, techniques and marketing fundamentals to bring back to their group to create homemade waffle cones and a unique ice cream flavor. Better yet, at the end, participants get to sample their creations for an experience that will be unforgettable and delicious.
Ultimate teamwork is necessary in a successful restaurant kitchen, so why not bring that experience to employees and see how they measure up? Through the conception, preparation, creation and production of a multiple-course meal—all without a proper kitchen and under time constraints—teams discover how important coordination, communication and cooperation really are for success and productivity. Beyond the intrinsic reward, participants get to share a great gourmet meal they cooked themselves. TeamBonding offers services to coordinate such activities, providing recipes, equipment and supplies to create this fun and filling team-building experience.
Give a Little, Get a Lot
Striving to make team building meaningful as well as memorable creates the ultimate challenge for event planners. A great way to infuse a meeting or conference with energy and an appreciation for something larger than the day-to-day work challenges is to create a project that gives the results to a charitable organization. TeamBonding provides nationwide facilitation for a variety of events that not only foster teamwork and relationships among participants but also give back to the local community in a fun and significant way.
One of the best ways to be charitable is to provide food for those in need. Options abound for how to accomplish this and build your team in the process. Host a cooking competition to prepare and package hot food that can be donated to a local soup kitchen. Contribute to local schools with impoverished children by making and bagging peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in a friendly competition that requires coordination and communication for a cause. Coordinate a challenge for teams to earn and collect items and assemble bags of nonperishable household food items for local families in need. However you pack it, providing for others creates pride, community and a sense of purpose within an organization.
Many families cannot afford the essential tools children need to be successful in school, such as notebooks and pencils. What could be more meaningful than helping supply these basic tools to help foster access to education and thereby improving the future of the community? In an activity like this, teams participate in fun, mental and physical hands-on challenges that help them fill a backpack with vital school supplies by using teamwork, communication and involvement. This also could be adapted to create school first-aid kits, art-supply kits and more.
For teams who don’t mind using a little elbow grease, consider a bicycle- or dollhouse-building activity for local charities. Every child should have quintessential childhood experiences like riding a bicycle down the street or playing make-believe with a dollhouse, but many families cannot even afford rent and food let alone pleasure items like toys. Through friendly competition, corporate teams engage in fun, innovative puzzles and challenges to earn enough “money” to purchase the essential parts needed to construct the bicycles or dollhouses. The task requires teamwork and enthusiasm, and the result is making sure children from impoverished backgrounds get to experience the cherished childhood memories most of us take for granted when your group donates the bicycles or dollhouses to a local organization. For a heart-wrenching twist, bring local children to the event and see the smiles and maybe tears when they receive their new toys.
Many local police and fire departments have “Rescue Bears” on hand to give to children who have been displaced or traumatized by events that befall them or their families. Providing these Rescue Bears is a positive and emotional way to give back to the community and a powerful way to ease the pain and confusion and worries of children in these frightening times. During this team-building event, groups solve puzzles, decipher codes and unlock “secrets” to get the materials they need to build custom teddy bears for this cause. Friendly competition melded with a great charity makes this a memorably altruistic event that exercises critical-thinking and problem-solving skills outside of the daily grind.
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If accepted, your submission will be edited for length and clarity. There is no monetary payment if your item is used; instead, you can publicize yourself through a five-line biography with your contact information that will appear at the end of the article.
Send submissions to
editorial@MeetingPlannerResources.org. We will contact you if your submission is chosen.