The Guernica of the Team Building World!

An enquiry comes in from one of our top clients to provide a creative team build for a group of 150 in a meeting room in Northampton which accentuates the need for communication, dedication and the whole group working towards one spectacular achievement. "OK, leave it to us!" we said. This will require creating a painting so big only Picasso could rival it we thought! Pablo Picasso was one of the World's greatest painters, and one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, with some of his most famous works including Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and Guernica. But these paintings are not only an outstanding expression of his thoughts, they are on a particularly grand scale! Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which portrays five nude prostitutes from a brothel in Barcelona, stands 244cm tall and 233cm wide and is considered to be central to the development of cubism and modern art.

However, Guernica is a dark and moving representation of the terror and destruction of the German and Italian bombing, and the ultimate artistic anti-war symbol if ever I have seen one. The painting measures an outstanding 349cm high and 776cm wide! I have been lucky enough to view it in all its splendour and glory at Museo Reina Sofia, and it was truly magnificent.

So, what's this got to do with team building? Well, we have had years of experience of running successful team building days for our clients, finding them the best venue for their away day, and creating bespoke events, but to create a masterpiece usually only Pablo Picasso could be proud of is something that requires team work at its best.

Having commissioned a local artist, Kelly Penfold, to paint us our own 'Picasso style' work of art, we now set ahead to produce an 18 team event and scale it up to a 250cm high and 750cm wide masterpiece. Look out Picasso!

CCC Events have provided a wide range of bespoke Work of Art events for clients, and have commissioned artists to design branded images as well as abstract or modern art, but we don't often we get asked to provide a 750cm wide masterpiece (you require a pretty big meeting room for these!) The teams on the day had 75 canvasses distributed between them, and instructions on what their challenge was. But they had no idea what the complete image would be. Considering it was the hottest day of the year so far the Northampton Marriott staff were helpful in topping up cold water stations to keep our budding artists refreshed and cool. But the hard work paid off and the delegates couldn't believe their eyes when we did the big reveal at the end of a truly successful afternoon. And here is the masterpiece itself:

The client said:

"...feedback from all participants was extremely positive and it certainly helped the communication and networking theme around which our day was centred. While some of us are less artistic than others, cue some of the examples in the warm up exercise, it was a fantastic event which brought together many teams who work in different locations and never get to see or meet each other. It was arranged so seamlessly that it even managed to make me look good!"

For more information on our bespoke team building events, free venue finding service and creative options contact 0845 006 06 06 or visit our website.

What a Work of Art!

As Event Managers at CCC Events we're trained to run a broad range of team building days from Treasure Hunts, Murder Mysteries  and outdoor activities, to Chocolate Workshops and cooking master classes. The events are fantastic fun and designed to get colleagues working well together, communicating and competing for a winning prize! However one of our most popular events, the Work of Art, not only gets the delegates to work wonderfully in their teams, but the whole group is working towards the same goal, to produce a huge and colourful multi canvass masterpiece!

It was a beautiful day in London when CCC Event Managers Katrina Shoesmith and Kate Packham travelled to the city to run the Work of Art for Ernst & Young at their offices. After spending the morning in meetings, our clients were delighted to come back from lunch to find we had transformed their offices into an Art studio. It looked fantastic, and the view of Big Ben and the London Eye out of the windows on the 11th floor was just breathtaking!

We all take pride in helping companies enjoy good team building days, but there's nothing that compares with the sense of achievement the teams get when we do The Big Reveal at the end of the day. This was one of the best paintings I've seen yet though. The teams worked so well together, communicating to get all the joining canvasses with matching colours and sharing the shades of paint with each other. You can tell that a group has worked well together when the end result is so perfect. Well done Ernst & Young!

Kelly Edwards at Ernst & Young was thrilled:

"Our entire team enjoyed the the work of art event - it was a nice surprise to see the final painting and how well we all worked together to achieve the wonderful end result. I have been on quite a few team building days but none have even compared to this one. I would highly recommend Work of Art for a team building day to anyone. I look forward to planning our next Strategy day with CCC Events!"

For more information about our Work of Art team building day, and many other team building solutions call our sales team on 08450 06 06 06 or visit our website