A Work of Art: Creative Team Building in Watford, Hertfordshire

With the high demand for creative team building days, CCC Events provide an excellent selection for our clients to choose from. We run the glamorous Fashion Works with teams designing fabulous outfits for the catwalk challenge, many different cooking workshops and our increasingly popular Work of Art paint'athon!

Last week we held a team building event in Watford for one of our client's annual conferences. Our painting workshops are a really good way to encourage a whole department to get creative, communicate effectively and work together to produce a giant masterpiece. Just how big the final painting is depends on the size of your group, your programme and where you might like it displayed.

This group was split into 8 teams in the morning and 8 in the afternoon, and provided with quality art supplies, aprons, brushes and acrylic paints, as well as a set of large stretched canvasses that later form some of the crucial pieces of the masterpiece puzzle. They did some really fun and colourful ice breaker activities to get their creative juices flowing, which lead flowingly into the main challenge.

Some of our clients have requested bespoke artwork to be designed to communicate a message or brand, but for this specific client it was the size that mattered. The bigger the better! Both the morning and afternoon teams worked really hard to get the 70 canvasses matched up with the correct shades of colour and adjoining lines, and just look at their achievements below...

If you feel a Creative Team Build would suit your business needs then call 0845 006 06 06 or visit our website where you can live chat our sales team during office hours too!

Outdoor Team Building: Rule The World at Great Fosters Hotel, Surrey

Spring is already on it's way and many of our clients are planning their summer team building events. It's a bit like booking a holiday - the thought of a long, hot day in the sun, with plenty of competitive fun, perhaps followed by a barbecue and some beers is enough to get you and your team through the last dark days of winter and keep everyone motivated in the months running up to the big day. One of our most-loved outdoor team building events, Rule The World, is the perfect solution: with our giant board game, numerous and varied challenges, and a life-size 'Jail' to send the boss to, you'll be kept entertained all day and see sides to your colleagues you never knew existed!

Our favourite ever Rule The World took place at the beautiful Great Fosters Hotel in Egham, Surrey. With its 50 acres of gorgeous gardens, Great Fosters is the ideal venue for team building events in Surrey, and was the perfect backdrop for our life-sized, Monopoly-style board game.

Teams couldn't wait to roll the giant dice and draw a Mystery card, which could task them with anything from solving a fiendish puzzle to tackling a physical challenge, in exchange for millions of pounds! When they started buying 'land', it was every team for themselves as they raced to accumulate the most countries and rule the board - and the world!

"Rule The World is a fantastic outdoor team building event because it brings to life everyone's favourite family game - with a twist. Great Fosters' grounds were a riot of colour and laughter and a brilliant day was had by all." - Zoe Taylor, CCC Event Manager.

If you're planning your summer team build, find out more about our fantastic outdoor team building events on our website, or give us a call on 0845 006 06 06 for a chat.

Team Motivation: Art for Your Office #3

The latest in our series on Team Motivation considers one of life's great stumbling blocks: procrastination! If you sometimes find that the planning takes more precedence than the doing, we hope these words will inspire action!

"You could make a wish, or you could make it happen"

Click here for a free, printable version of this poster. Alternatively, call 0845 006 06 06 or visit our website to find out how you can boost motivation through team building.

Team Building Venues: The Palace Hotel, Manchester

Struggling to find the perfect venue for your team building event in Manchester? CCC are here to help! Over the past 20 years, we have run events at literally thousands of venues across the UK and offer a free venue finding service to all of our clients. Our Venue Profiles series takes a look at some of our favourites.

The Palace Hotel, Manchester

At A Glance

• Situated in the centre of Manchester
• 19 meeting and training rooms, with the largest seating up to 1000 delegates
• Purpose-built business centre with full business support
• 252 Bedrooms
• Recent £7 million refurbishment

Why We Love It

The Palace Hotel boasts the largest hotel conference space in Manchester - at a huge 2,500m², the aptly-named Grand Room seats up to 1000 delegates theatre-style, or 850 banquet style, with The Buckingham Suite and The Whitworth Suite also offering ample space. As well as being perfect for conferences, gala dinners and awards ceremonies, huge rooms such as these are also the answer to your team building prayers. Practically any team building event that is usually run outdoors (such as our Cryptic Challenge or the fabulous Monte Carlo or Bust) can be run in these spaces, meaning that you don't need to leave the city, your team will stay warm and dry, and the stylish hotel bar is nearby for post-team building drinks!

If you're not deterred by the great outdoors and want to explore your surroundings, The Palace Hotel's central Manchester location means that it is perfect for a Treasure Hunt, which is a great way to brush off the cobwebs and take in Manchester's most popular landmarks after a morning of meetings.

"My favourite ever team building event in Manchester has to be the Enigma Challenge we ran for the Team GB Water Polo guys before the Olympics. They had so much energy and the Palace Hotel's huge Buckingham Suite was the perfect space for them to let off some steam!" - Zoe Taylor, CCC Event Manager

CCC are Recruiting!

CCC Events are looking for a full time Sales & Event Coordinator to join our friendly and professional team at our head offices in Hove.

To find our more information about the role and to apply, please visit www.cccevents.co.uk/jobs

Easy Office-Based Team Building Ideas #4

This week's Easy Office-Based Team Building Idea takes a classic family game that everyone is familiar with and turns it into the perfect brainstorming or icebreaker tool - whether you are a new team, or just want to get to know each other better.

Conversation Jenga

Sometimes icebreaker sessions can be difficult to structure and as a result can seem forced, making people shy and guarded - which is the opposite of what you are trying to achieve. Take the pressure off and make it into a game by playing Conversation Jenga - it's just as you would play it at home, except each block has a question on it which must be answered by the person who pulls it out.

Before the session, source a Jenga set (use the classic version or go for a giant garden set for extra impact) and either write directly onto the blocks or print off labels to stick on. It's up to you what you ask, but we'd suggest a mixture of work-centred and personal questions (without getting too personal!) Some examples are:

• What skill would you like to learn?
• Whose career do you most admire?
• Where is your favourite place you have travelled to?
• If you were to write a book, what would it be about?
• If you could have one super power, what would it be?

NB: It almost goes without saying, but the words "...and why?" should be assumed after each question - you're after interesting information, not a one-word answer.

To avoid putting people on the spot, have each person pull out a piece each before going back to the first person for their answer - this gives everyone time to think about what they want to say. After listening to their response, make it the start of a broader conversation by opening up the question to everyone, before moving onto the next person.

As well as being great for icebreaker sessions, Conversation Jenga is also perfect for brainstorming. If you have an issue or upcoming project which isn't resolving itself, no matter how many meetings you call, have a think about what you really want your team to reflect upon, and add them to the blocks as before. For example:

• How can we manage our time better?
• How can we ensure that we come in under budget?
• What past examples are there of when we performed best as a team?
• Under what circumstances do we work best together?
• If you could re-structure your day, what would it look like?

In this way, you make resolving issues into a fun team building activity, whilst ensuring that the topics you want to address are approached. Keeping the discussion points limited to what is already on the blocks means that your session will be more structured, and you will avoid going off-topic.

If you want to take your team building further, call in the professionals at CCC Events! Visit our website or call 0845 006 06 06 for more information.

Team Building Venues: The Grosvenor, Central London

Choosing the perfect venue for your team building event can be a daunting task - but CCC are here to help! As a mobile company, we have produced events at thousands of venues across the UK and Europe and offer a free venue finding service to all of our clients. This week we are profiling The Grosvenor, an ideal venue for team building events in London.

The Grosvenor, London

At a Glance

• Central London location near Victoria Station
• Nine meeting and event rooms, with the largest catering for up to 150 delegates 
• Free super-fast Wi-Fi throughout
• Recent multi-million-pound refrubishment

Why We Love It

If you are looking to treat your delegates to something a little special, the recently-refurbished Grosvenor would be the perfect location for your team building event. A spectacular blend of period features and modern luxury, this 4-star, Grade II listed hotel is the ideal way to 'wow' your team or your clients.

The jewel in The Grosvenor's conferencing crown is undoubtedly The Orient Suite. With its dramatic marble pillars and glittering chandeliers, your conference or team building event will be laced with a large dose of glamour. The atmospheric space would be perfect for a Murder Mystery evening - you'll feel transported back in time to an age of sophistication and grandeur.

If you're after a more intimate setting for a smaller group, The Grosvenor also boasts another eight meeting rooms in which you can dine, hold meetings or entertain clients. The central London location (it's walking distance from Buckingham Palace) means that these rooms would also be the perfect base for a Treasure Hunt. After a morning of meetings at The Grosvenor, use a Treasure Hunt to boost motivation, get outside and explore London, or simply show off our capital city to your international delegates.

"The Grosvenor is the epitome of elegance and luxury -  a perfect oasis in the hubbub of the capital. Guoman venues are always brilliant for meetings and team building events, and The Grosvenor is no exception" - Tamara Nasser, CCC Event Manager

To find out more about team building in Central London, call 0845 006 06 06 or visit our website.

Team Motivation: Art for your Office #2

This week's free team building poster is a quote from Henry Ford, and will give your office a much-needed burst of colour in the winter months. "Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success" - Henry Ford

Click here for a free, printable version of this poster.

Need a bigger dose of motivation at work? Call 0845 006 06 06 to discuss the many team building events on offer with CCC Events.

Easy Office-Based Team Building Ideas #3

This week's Easy Office-Based Team Building Idea is inspired by The Farnsworth Family, who used it to build friendships and unity within a local youth group - but we reckon it would work brilliantly as a motivation-booster at work, too.

The idea is to have one person sit with their back to a whiteboard, and allow everyone else to come forward and write a positive adjective about that person without letting them see. You can then take a picture of each person with 'their' whiteboard, giving everyone a lovely memento to keep.

To translate this into an Easy Office Team Build, we'd suggest having the whiteboard set up in a separate room and allowing people to go in and write their adjective one at a time, keeping things anonymous to avoid any shyness.

It's a great way of promoting positive feelings with your team - and if you want to go the extra mile, you could even blow up the photos to display around your workplace as a constant reminder of what you value in each other.

If you want to take your team building to the next level, check out our website for ideas or call 0845 006 06 06 to speak to our fabulous team.

Indoor Team Building at it's Best: The Enigma Challenge

The Brief:

Create an innovative, animated team building event that boosts motivation and encourages participants to work together. It must have plenty of challenges, with something to suit everyone, whether they are a brainteaser-loving whiz-kid, an aspiring creative, or an active ball of energy.

Oh, and just one more thing: it must be completely winter-proof, allowing our clients to inject excitement and fun into their working day without leaving the warm comfort of the conference room.

The Solution?

The awesome Enigma Challenge!

Boasting over 100 different and varied challenges within one unique event, the Enigma Challenge is a race against time as teams frantically complete as much possible before our Giant Countdown Clock runs out!

Individual challenges are split into four categories, which enables participants to delegate and play to their team member's strengths. There's a wealth of tasks to suit every taste - are you feeling creative? Compose a 'replica' Mona Lisa to earn yourself 40 points! Enjoy the Sunday crossword? Get stuck into the Brainteaser category to solve our fiendish  puzzles. Maybe you're feeling energetic - try capturing a photo of your entire team jumping in the air!  Or if you're simply great at sniffing out answers, head to the Aroma area to try and decipher our mystery scents.

You'll be having too much fun to realise it at the time, but the Enigma Challenge carries huge potential benefits for your working relationships. Because everyone - no matter their interests or strengths - can play a valuable part in getting their team to victory, every participant will come away with a sense of achievement and value. You'll also see sides to your colleagues you never knew existed, which breaks the ice and provides office banter material for years to come.

With our dynamic scoring system, we are able to break down your scores into categories - so as well as there being one overall winning team, you'll also get feedback on who completed the most challenges, which groups worked best together, the team that was the most creative or observant, and the champions of puzzles and brainteasers. As well as allowing victories to more than one team, this is also a great way of assessing how people think and work - many of our clients take this feedback and use it to implement changes in how they operate as a team.

As many of the challenges involve you taking photographic proof of success, you'll end up with a brilliant collection of hilarious team photos to decorate your office with, allowing you to re-live the day to your heart's content!

If you'd like to find out more about this brilliant event, call 0845 006 06 06 for a chat.

Team Building for Charity

CCC Events are experts at providing clients with a good solid team building activity to meet particular needs or just a good fun day out as a reward. One great way to encourage staff teams to really throw themselves into their competitive nature is to provide incentives, and one way to do this is to play for charity!

Take for example the recent Starcom V's MediaVest Games, who chose to hold their annual team building event at Beaumont House in Windsor. The clients request was to design an Olympic style event involving sporting games for 400 people - an amazing 42 teams! What's more, Starcom were playing for Centrepoint and MediaVest for The Fred Foundation, both charities close to their hearts - and they were playing for money. £1000 to be donated to the charity of the winner!

With £1000 at stake and 21 teams playing for each charity, the seven fantastic activities were ready and waiting to be played. From target tennis and go-karts, to a giant ski biathlon and our hilarious (and rather wet) 4 x 400ml relay were some of the best! But the Human Table Football pitch was a sure favourite of the day, where team members are harnessed to the giant table football poles and have to try and score goals in the opponents end. It's hilarious to watch, as naturally it's hard to play football when you can only move sideways! There was a lot to play for and the scores for each of the charities teams would be totalled at the end of the fun filled day!

The staff on the day put the teams to the test on one area to the next in half hour slots, and the midway scores at lunch time gave them the incentive to give it their all in the afternoon to try and beat the opposition. Starcom, playing for the charity Centrepoint, had taken the lead by just a few points!

The whistles were blown at full time in the activity fields and the teams flocked to the outdoor bar for a well earned beer! The teams had slogged their guts out for a full day of hardcore sporting activities and this was the moment they were all  waiting for... the final scores.

And the winner is... MediaVest playing for The Fred Foundation! The teams roar in glory and there is jumping for joy across the field. But then an even more generous gesture is made... they announce that Centrepoint also deserve a donation for Starcom's points and they are going to match the winnings for both charities! That was £1000 donated to both charities for everyone's efforts for the day. Ahhhh, everyone's a winner, and fun was had by all!

For other fantastic ideas for team building events you can run for charity or to suit any bespoke brief please call our sales team on 08450 06 06 06 or visit our website.

Team Motivation: Art for your Office #1

If it's been a while since your last team building event and you need some motivation, try decorating your desk area with this week's free, printable poster. Instant office chic and a good motto to live by, all in one.

"None of us is as smart as all of us. Work together, achieve more"

Click here for a printable version of this poster. Alternatively, give us a call on 0845 006 06 06 to discuss how to boost motivation through team building.

Team Building Venues: New Place, Southampton

Choosing the perfect venue for your team building event can be a daunting task - but CCC are here to help! As a mobile team building company, we have produced events at thousands of venues across the UK  and Europe and offer a free venue finding service to all of our clients. We'll be profiling a range of venues to provide an at-a-glance guide to what's on offer.

New Place, Southampton

At a Glance

• 40 meeting and training rooms, with the largest catering for up to 110 delegates
• 110 bedrooms with the latest mod cons
• Free WiFi and internet access throughout
• Refreshment stations with free-flowing coffee, tea and snacks
• 32 acres of outdoor space and parkland, including a motorised vehicle circuit

Why We Love It

New Place's ample outdoor space means that we've enjoyed many a sunny summer's day running Cryptic Challenges and Time Trackers in their grounds, while the Grade I listed manor house at the heart of the venue is the perfect setting for a Murder Mystery. The free-flowing coffee stations are brilliant because it means that our clients can extend their meetings and events at leisure, without having to comply to set 'refreshment break' time slots. The meeting rooms are light and airy and more often than not, groups will stay for a few days, incorporating conferences, team building and leisure time in the pool, steam room and sauna.

"Being a De Vere venue, New Place is fully geared towards meetings, conferences and team building events. My favourite event to run there would have to be an Activity Day as their motorised vehicle circuit is perfect for our quad bikes and rage buggies" - Zoe Taylor, Senior Event Manager

To find out more about team building in Southampton, call 0845 006 06 06 to speak to our  lovely team.

A Bite-size Taste of Camden Lock!

The World has taken one giant size culinary leap in my lifetime, from Cooking with Mother jam tarts to Delia's baking, through watching in amazement at Keith Floyd's wine fuelled outdoor cooking adventures (Shhhhh, nobody mention the Puffin), to the gigantic platter of celebrity chefs that delight us with mouth watering recipes from around the globe today! And I LOVE food. I love cooking, and I love eating! Cooking events are becoming more and more popular as the hype of new foods take off, baking programmes become more competitive - even grown men cry on The Great British Bake Off, and new global cooking techniques emerge.

CCC Events also run really experimental Canape Creations events, which not only teach guests how to make some easy but impressive professional looking party pieces for their own social events, but gives the teams a chance to be introduced to a whole array of delicious ingredients which they may never have worked with before.

Having recently managed one of these events for one of our global clients I would like to thank the Holiday Inn, Camden Lock for being the ideal venue to hold our cooking events. The function room is built with floor to ceiling glass windows looking directly onto the Camden Lock, so it's beautifully light and a perfect setting. The staff were really helpful, and the exclusive use of the function room kitchen was absolutely perfect for the cooking master class.

As far as Team Building goes, the cooking events are my favourite to manage, enabling the teams to work well together to create some very ‘interesting’ results! The teams in this Canape Creations event paid great attention to detail and managed to produce perfect quail scotch eggs, mini lamb ragout pies and some delicious bite sized Tiramisu! I’ll be using some of these recipes at home!

For more information on our food events, chocolate workshops and general team building days please call our sales and events coordinators on 0845 006 06 06, or visit our website.

iSpy - High-Tech Team Building in London

We had a brilliant time basking in both the sunshine and the atmosphere in London last week, running an iSpy for a fantastic group of clients.

One of our newest events, iSpy was created with high-tech gadgetry in mind - each team is armed with an iPad, radio, video camera and digital camera and tasked with a quest around their local city, tackling a range of entertaining challenges.

The teams had a great time playing with their new toys - the radio in particular providing the chance to indulge in childhood dreams of being a 'cop' - before the competitive streaks took over and they began their adventure.

As well as completing radio, video and photo challenges, the teams used GPS tracking on their iPads to locate costumed characters at popular London landmarks, who were ready and waiting with bonus clues:

London itself was looking fabulous - with the city still buzzing from the Games, it was the perfect backdrop for some competitive fun:

When the teams had tackled as many challenges as possible in the time they were given, we finished up at Browns in Covent Garden, where everyone was treated to some well-deserved drinks before the winners were announced - ending the day on a massive high.

If you'd like to hold your own iSpy, call 0845 006 06 06 to speak to the CCC Team.

Sports Day Team Build at Old Deer Park, Richmond

Our clients gave the professionals a run for their money on Friday, taking part in a Sports Day event at Old Deer Park in Richmond, Surrey - whilst the London Welsh rugby team trained alongside them! It was only a matter of time before our sporty set up attracted the attention of the players, and as soon as training was over they headed straight for a go on our Free Kick Frenzy:

Old Deer Park is a favourite venue of ours as it offers plenty of outside space whilst being only a stone's throw from Central London. Add to that the friendly staff and the clubhouse bar and you have the perfect venue for London-based clients after an outdoor team building day. Being home to the London Welsh Rugby Club, working at Old Deer Park means that we often get to see the players in action - although in this instance, our clients were the superior athletes of course:

As well as the Free Kick Frenzy, the six teams competed in a host of other challenges, including the always-hilarious 4x400ml Relay:

The whole group gave it their all, but at the end of the day there could only be one winning team - and they were delighted with their victory!

We left the group to enjoy some well-earned drinks at the bar, but not before promising to come back with another sporting event so that the winners could defend their title.

If you'd like to claim victory in your very own Sports Day, visit our website or call us on 0845 006 06 06.

Easy Office-Based Team Building Ideas #2

If you're looking for a small team build you can run yourselves, from your office, with minimum planning or fuss, look no further than our Easy Office Based Team Building Ideas!

Creation Through Communication

The aim of this activity is for each team member to create a piece of origami by being given only verbal instructions by their team leader. It is beneficial for groups who are having communication issues, as it encourages everyone to assess how they listen to instructions, how they interpret them and how they implement them. It's also a great way of looking at the art of giving instructions, and is a fantastic DIY team build because the only equipment it requires is paper.

To prepare this activity, trim some A4 paper into squares and print off some Origami diagrams. There are plenty of resources online but ideally you want something easy and without written instructions, so that the instructor describes what they see in their own words. We like Origami Diagram - try the Flutter Fly as it's nice and simple.

If you have a small group (ten or fewer), this activity can be run as one large group, with the person running the activity giving instructions. For more people, divide the group into teams of about four to six people and ask them to nominate a team leader who will be giving out instructions.

Give each person a piece of paper (using coloured paper is nice but not essential) and explain the activity. Ask the team leaders to give out a series of instructions to best describe the diagrams you have given them, which everyone should follow. People should avoid asking questions, but they can ask for instructions to be repeated or re-phrased. Do not let people know exactly what they will be making, although you should have one example already made up to reveal at the end.

Give the teams a time limit, depending on the difficulty of the design you have given them (fifteen to twenty minutes for the Flutter Fly would be ideal).

If you are working in teams, when the time is up come back together to de-brief.  Reveal your "Here's one I made earlier" example, and explain that it's okay if not everybody's is perfect - that's the whole point of the exercise!

Some points for discussion to consider are:

• How do the end products compare to each other? If there are noticeable differences, why do you think this might be?
• What did people find challenging about this exercise? Are these challenges similar to those you have when communicating at work?
• Do you think that if you could see diagrams of the instructions, or have an example of the end result, your product would look the same? This would have meant relying less on yourselves and your own understanding of the instructions - would that have been a good thing?
• Participants had to trust the person giving instructions - how did this feel?
• What can you feed back about how the instructions were given? Did those giving instructions speak clearly and slowly enough, waiting for everybody to be ready before they moved on to the next point, or not? You may find it's beneficial to repeat the exercise with different people giving out different instructions, so that everyone has the chance to work on these skills.
• What have we learned about communication - both listening and instructing - that we can transfer to our working lives?

If you want to take your team building further, check out our website for ideas or call 0845 006 06 06 to speak to our fabulous team.

Saracens Rugby Academy Brave the Wilderness with CCC

With the aftermath of the Olympic hype leaving us pining for all things athletic, CCC were thrilled when Richard Hill, MBE, former flanker for Saracens and England Rugby Union, approached our team and asked us to work with the future stars of the rugby world.

Often portrayed as the 'silent assassin', Hill was legendary in Rugby Union circles and one of the most respected players in the world. After playing his last game for Saracens in 2008, Richard now coaches the Under 18s team in the Academy, developing the next breed of Saracens stars. He approached CCC wanting to test the team as part of their pre-season tour and felt that team building was the way to go - and who better to take on that challenge than the Team Building Company of the Year?

The Brief:

Richard was keen to see how his young athletes reacted to challenges that took them 'out of their comfort zones'. Training with the boys at least four times a week, Richard said he was well aware of how they behaved on the pitch and the dynamics of the group during a match, but he wanted us to delve deeper and push them to their limits to see what they were really capable of when they weren't playing rugby.

CCC's Solution:

Knowing that nothing brings a group like this together more than a bit of high-pressured challenge and instinctive survival action, we created a bespoke event based on our popular Bushcraft and Time Tracker events, and it certainly seemed to fit the bill.

The Activities:

On what was possibly the windiest, rainiest, most miserable of Wednesday mornings in Wales, the boys were introduced to some basic survival techniques; knife skills, fire lighting and spear throwing - and the weather at Hill End Campsite couldn't have been more realistic of a true test of survival!

The results of each task then earned the teams various ingredients for their own lunches (what better way to motivate a group of teenage lads than with the promise of food!)

After sausages, spuds and spices had been won, the boys were then challenged to work together with some very basic tools to cook their own outdoor lunch, which definitely turned out to be the furthest from their comfort zone they could possibly be - and seeing as we ourselves only had these meals to feast on, it certainly became the most frightening challenge of the day for us all!

When chatting with Richard a bit later he commented:

"It was very interesting, to say the least, over the lunch break when there were quite a lot of decisions to make. I don't know how many decisions there actually are to make about cooking sausages - it was certainly an alien concept to them!"

Once everyone had refueled, the second part of the day took the group through some orienteering skills, searching for checkpoints hidden all over the site and completing fast-paced, race-against-time challenges. Intrigued, Richard and the coaching team tried their hand at a few of the tasks, and I think they'd prefer that we didn't tell you that they needed more than a little help... but you didn't hear that from me!

The finale of the day saw the teams culminating all their new-found skills as we threw them into a high-pressured, role play scenario where they had to rescue 'casualties' from the sand dunes. The teams had to build a basic stretcher, bring their casualties back to base and then construct a shelter using limited tools. There were given next to no time to prepare so that we could observe how quickly the teams managed to make potentially life-saving decisions and if they were able to keep calm under the pressure of a panicked (and screaming!) casualty.

Revelling in the opportunity to play hero, the boys really stepped up to the mark on this one, sprinting into the distance without hesitation to get our 'casualties' back to base camp in a matter of minutes. There was a real sense of satisfaction seeing all the teams come together so strongly in their final challenge and there was plenty of entertainment from the 'casualties' dramatic performances.

The Outcome:

When asked about his expectations for the day Richard went on to say:

 "It's been a great day organised by CCC - they've come in, organised everything from the word go and they're very professional. We literally turned up with our team and have just gone with the flow - and it has flowed exceptionally well and we are really pleased with the outcomes today."

All in all it was a pleasure working with Richard and his team, and we look forward to cheering on some of the guys to victory in the starting line up next year (with their new-found team building skills of course!)

If you think you and your colleagues would benefit from this kind of event why not give our friendly team a call on 0845 006 06 06 and ask about our outdoors events, or you can have a look at our 75+ award-winning team builds on our website.

Team Building Venues: Horwood House, Buckinghamshire

As part of our day to day job we travel all around the country and see a lot of beautiful venues. They might be in city centres, by motorway junctions or in the middle of the countryside, but they each have something that marks them out from the others. In this new series of posts we want to take a look at some of our favourites - venues that due to location, history, staff, facilities, grounds, décor or something entirely different are the best of the best.

First up...

Horwood House, Buckinghamshire

10 miles from Milton Keynes and just outside the small village of Little Horwood, Horwood House is operated by Principal Hayley, predominantly as a conference venue. It has 35 meeting rooms with all the options you would expect from a top rate venue, and can seat up to 220 delegates in their Cook Suite.

The building itself is a beautiful Grade II listed building, built in 1912. It boasts 182 en suite rooms and is perfect for longer conferences - or just when you want to turn that away-day into an away-day-and-night!

It is set in 38 acres of land, much of which is lovingly landscaped, and this is what we particularly love about it. There are almost no events that we can't run at this venue!

Venue Finder Annie had this to say about Horwood House:

"It's a lovely venue and they have a great team there which is why we keep coming back year after year. The sheer size and variety of the beautiful grounds means it's perfect for a whole variety of events".

Give us a call on 0845 006 06 06 to discuss the venue possibilities for your next event.

Corporate Entertainment in Buckinghamshire - The Ultimate Quiz

We had the pleasure of visiting one of our favourite venues recently, Horwood House near Milton Keynes, to run our Ultimate Quiz event.

The Ultimate Quiz is a great way of winding down after a day of conferencing or meetings, and usually runs throughout a meal.

Teams are given electronic keypads which allow them to answer questions and see the results straight away. This keeps the pace quick, the results real-time and rules out any chance of cheating!

Event Manager Dave Hall said:

"I love a good Ultimate Quiz, and the teams get really into it. The quick fire rounds are tense, but my favourite is always the TV Theme Round - they're always on the tip of your tongue!"

Give us a call on 0845 006 06 06 or visit our website for more information on our evening corporate entertainment.