As many of you know, twice a year Sassafras gets the whole team together in Kansas City for a few days of meetings, team building, learning, and fun. These meetings are essential to our agency’s growth and to our team’s morale since our company is virtual. Yes, we love to see each other every morning on our video call, but there’s nothing like being together in person, especially now that we have a few more new team members who’ve recently joined the gang.
Last week was our first team meeting for 2017 and we knew we were in for a treat when, a week before the meeting, we each received a personalized bus ticket in the mail. We were told beforehand that this ticket was essential to our participation at the meeting and we quickly realized, as we deboarded the plane in KC, exactly why this was the case.
It wasn’t too long after that we learned the theme of this meeting was based on the bestselling book by Jon Gordon, The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work, and Team with Positive Energy. This book reveals 10 secrets for approaching life and work with the kind of positive, forward-thinking that leads to true accomplishment at work and at home. The book’s content set the tone for the next three days and when it was all said and done, we left KC feeling energized, reinvigorated and ready to accomplish our goals.
We had a productive few days of meetings at beautiful Lake Quivira and welcomed two outside presenters–Tom from J&J Printing and Darla from Instore Innovation Group. Tom and Darla shared some really cool and new concepts in printing and merchandising display. Our account and creative groups had separate breakout sessions, and as part of a team-building exercise, we decorated our own “energy buses” to take home as keepsakes and little bits of desktop inspiration!
The real bus returned on night two to pick us up and take us out on the town. We headed to Tom’s Town Distilling Company, a neat, art deco-inspired distillery and restaurant that happens to be Kansas City’s first legal distillery since Prohibition. I have to say, if there’s one thing the Sassy team knows how to do well, it’s eat (and drink!).
We enjoyed a packed few days and left full of ideas, inspiration, Kansas City BBQ and, of course, memories of the bus! (Seriously, who could forget the bus?) We look forward to seeing each other again (in person) in a few months!