It’s hard to believe that Summer 2020 is finally here! We talk a lot about our virtual environment and a key to ensuring we stay connected, even though we’re spread across various states, is coming together twice a year in Kansas City for team meetings. This year we were unable to do that for obvious reasons, but in typical Sassafras style we rolled up our sleeves and made the best of it with a virtual team meeting instead!
Our “Spring” meeting took place last week on June 10-11. As always, every Sassafras team meeting has a well thought out theme that is carried out throughout the days and activities that we do as a group. We moved our live event to virtual and decided that our theme for this team meeting would pay tribute to something else we’ll miss this year: the Olympics! From breakout games to competing against our coworkers to gift bags with inflatable torches (yes, inflatable torches), Sassafras employees channeled their inner Kerri Strug. Here’s a quick rundown of what we did when we met last week.
Day 1 — Opening Ceremony, Our Values and a Virtual Escape Room
Since our out-of-town teammates didn’t have to carve out additional time to travel to KC, we were able to start bright and early. Our day kicked off with an opening ceremony – a video compilation including all of the Sassafras employees and their inflatable torches they received in their gift bags. After laughs and morning conversations wrapped up, we dove into meetings covering overall agency capabilities and refreshed on our mission.
After our meetings wrapped up, we divided into teams and tried to ‘break out’ of a virtual escape room! Many of us had tried our hands at an in-person escape room and weren’t sure if this virtual version was going to work – we were wrong and many of us actually liked it better! Shout out to Wildly Different for the amazing setup! The winning team was Trevor, Jenny, Ashley, Paige, and Jessie.
Day 2 — Company Roadmap, One Minute Manager and Games
We started day two debriefing on the escape room, learning about challenges, strengths and weaknesses of our coworkers under pressure. In the next presentation, we reviewed the new and improved company roadmap that will create efficiencies in our agency processes.
After lunch, we held an all-agency book club to review the One Minute Manager and talked about the lessons we took from this short, but effective book.
At the end of a long day of meetings and fruitful conversation, we recognized some of our team who have been living our mission, vision, values with the Recognition Tree.
Creativity: Allison, Shannon and Trevor for Diageo 365 Essentials and Brilliant Basics training decks
Excellence: Jennifer G. for College modular work
Collective Genius: Tamie and Krista for Brill 3D Printer collateral
Passion: Ashley for her Sassafras Awards presentation
Happy Anniversary
Typically, we celebrate anniversaries for the first half of the year so shout outs to the awesome teammates below and we’ll catch ya at the Fall team meeting!
Tara — 6 years
Madi — 5 years
Trevor — 4 years
Shannon — 3 years
Ashley — 3 years
This team meeting was surely one of our most creative yet. We always look forward to coming together and we really can’t wait until October for an in-person adventure in KC. We hope you enjoy some pictures and videos of our virtual time together!