An Office Full of Superheroes
On Wednesday 14th November our team of superheroes decided to dress up as characters from the movies to raise money for JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Ltd). It was World Diabetes Day 2018 and the JDRF, a charity close to a few hearts within our team, called for all #type1superheroes to come out in force and don their superhero pants, cape and mask in support of life-changing medical research.
And don our superhero pants, capes and masks we did!
As you'll see from the spectacular photos, our team went to town on their efforts to one-up each other and win our best-dressed vote!
It was a great day, most importantly raising over £600 for the JDRF, which is way more than we set out to achieve, so we're proudly giving ourselves a collective pat-on-the-back in recognition!
Deadpool, or CVP should I say, won best-dressed, even though I think CVP himself had voted multiple times for both Danielle/AKA Storm from the X-Men! And Alice/AKA the Invisible Woman from the Fantastic 4! (can't think why?!).
It's been a while since I've felt a 'sense of team' quite like it. I'd be lying if I said that our team dynamic hadn't changed a few times this year. You can't be too precious about not rocking the team dynamics boat when you're growing a business. We've taken on 15 new members of staff this year, so it's extremely satisfying to be able to write about a successful team-effort to round-out the year. It's also quite a relief to be honest!
The culture and team-spirit within any business is number one, in my opinion. If it's not quite right, then things won't be as good as they could. When you add new people to any group environment, it always takes a while for the group to adapt and settle, and then hopefully find a way to work with each other, complementing each other.
As a side note to emphasise this point, you'll know exactly what I mean about group-dynamics if you watched the opening episode of David Attenborough's new show 'Dynasties', with the chimpanzees. Wasn't it amazing! Try being a newbie looking to 'fit-in' to that troop! Thankfully I don't think joining Graf UK has quite the same risk to it - you're not going to lose an ear or finger or toe in a fight here! (well, it hasn't happened yet!)
Anyway, back to my point... Strange things bring people together. Unexpected things, like charity days dressing up as superheroes, for example! You try your best to get people working together, by having meetings, discussing strategies, removing obstacles, encouraging openness and honest communication. And then you realise, all you actually needed to do was ask everyone to dress up in tight pants, capes and masks and there's suddenly more camaraderie than there's ever been before! Simple! Why didn't I think of it before?!
And to top it off, you raise a few quid for a good cause in the process. A proper win-win.
Off the back of this recent success and bit of fun, we're already planning the next time! But we're thinking; should we do something together?!
If you're up for joining us in our quest for doing something a bit silly and fun and raising some money for a good cause at the same time, then let us know. There's even more fun to be had if we get a few of us involved! It's fast-approaching the time of year for fun & frolics, but this doesn't have to be a Christmas only thing - let's plan something to kick-off the new year and keep people laughing and smiling. You never know, it may bring your team even closer together. Which is only ever going to help you all achieve more, which is surely the aim of all of us in business.
Whatever fun & frolics you're getting up to in December, we hope you have a great one and thank you for being part of our troop in 2018. Have a wonderful month and when the time comes, a very Merry Christmas!
