On Monday we received a call from one of our clients requesting a last minute team building event for 140 people in two days time! At first we were a little unsure as to whether we would have the capacity to manage this event on top of an already busy week but I’m pleased to report we were able to create a high quality event at short notice and we rose to the challenge of delivering a “last minute team building event”.

The activity we provided was Mexican Railway - and it showed that we can manage events with really short lead times if needed. Can your team work together to design and build a unique railway to a specific brief?

OUTLINE
An ideal activity to build into a wider conference programme to give delegates a lift and get people working together.

OVERVIEW
Mexican Wave is a popular activity that can be tailored to your products and really get your team working together.

Participants are provided with specialist building material and have to construct their own section of railway track. These are then linked together to form one main Mexican railway line.

The group is then provided with a number of balls that must be manoeuvred around the track by working together. By co-ordinating the team’s movements by lowering and raising the track the ‘wave’ creates the energy required to move the balls.

For more information of the up to two hour team building event and more unique team building ideas contact Kaboura or use our ideas generator.

That is exactly why community and charitable team building events were created. These events were created to unify workers through community and charitable events that benefit your local community and promote corporate social responsibility.

Here at Kaboura Events we have run over 100 Community Team Building Events which provided over £500,000 and over 10,000 person-hours worth of benefit to local communities. Based on our extensive experience on the subject we compiled a list of five unique charitable team building events that are guaranteed to make a difference with your team and your local community.

1. One World, One Team: Supporting Kids in Need

One World, One Team is a team building event that focuses on local action with a global reach as teams work together to create, produce and pack unique ‘gift boxes’ for distribution to children in need - it’s an event that literally changes the lives of children in developing countries around the world.

2. Make a Difference Days - Go Mad

They’ve been described as ‘Ground Force’ meets ‘Changing Rooms’ and aim to provide teams with a really different, worthwhile and meaningful way to work together to support others.

Working in partnership with a wide range of worthy causes and charities such as Hospices, Scout Groups and environmental charities, our Make a Difference team building days provide teams with a really different team building opportunity that’s both fun and rewarding.

3. The Charity Challenge

The Charity Challenge team building event is a unique team event that promotes team work and provides real benefits through ‘fun and fundraising’.

4. Building a Dream

Building a Dream is an exciting and new team building event that benefits teams and results in kids bikes being donated to charitable children’s projects throughout the UK.

5. Going for Growth

‘Going for Growth’ is a really creative and unique event that’s being developed by our team to provide you with a worthwhile and fun event that has a really positive impact on the environment.

As a team, you’ll need to work together and undertake some environmentally focused team tasks in order to identify a unique secret location.

If you don’t think any of the afore mentioned team building ideas are suitable for your team use our Ideas Generator, simply outline your options and click the find event button. Yes it is that easy to find a team building event that tailored to your needs.

Imagine a football team where the left back runs up and down the wing whenever he feels like, without even caring if the right back is covering for him or the midfielders don’t know what the strikers best foot is. I don’t see a team like this going too far, that is exactly what happens to businesses that don’t invest in team building activities for  their employees.

The Team is the building block of every successful business. A good solid team should be the motivation behind the success of any company.

By incorporating activities that help bring your employees together, you are not only alleviating stress from the daily work environment, but you will also have the opportunity to observe the dynamics of your group as well as any hidden skills that some of your employees might have.

For instance, the person that is always quiet and unassuming, during a team building game this person could reveal an extraordinary organisation skill as he or she create a plan to help the team win the game. This hidden skill can then be used within your organisation in every day work.

Going back to the football team analogy, team building activities are ideal to connect people from different departments creating key relationships within your enterprise and infusing new life into dormant departments. Remember the left and right backs?

Successful team building also helps to raise the morale of your workforce and the byproduct of that you will notice on your productivity levels. When employees feel good about themselves and their work environment, they not only work better but they also take pride in their daily tasks with many going the extra mile to produce something they are proud of.

Implementing a team building schedule into your calendar will require an investment of time and money but the benefits of connecting different personalities and background within your team are far greater than all the investment needed.

Nowadays in UK there are hundreds of companies specialised in creating team building activities tailored to any business, be it small or large corporations.

A charitable team building event for your team

Team building events are specially tailored to unify your work force through all sorts of activities. Over the years, innovative charitable and community team building activities have gained in popularity thanks to the wide range of benefits generated, not only to your business and its employees but also to your local community.

If you like the idea of community and charitable team building activities then look no further as that is exactly what this article is all about. There are countless benefits that these types of team building events provide. From my point of view these type of charity focussed events are the most beneficial and complete team building activities currently available.

Why Community Team Building Events are so valuable?

Because they benefit you, your employees and your community. In addition to providing your team with a valuable team bonding experience these events provide real tangible benefits to a wide range of charitable, community and voluntary organisations.

With that in mind, I would like to highlight the real benefits that these type of team building events bring in three specific areas - Business Benefits, Community Benefits and Employee Benefits.

Business Benefits of Community Team Building Events

Charitable and community team building events provide a practical solution to help your company meet its social responsibilities.

By providing real life experiences they motivate your employees by achieving tasks of real value.

Enhance your brand awareness and develop better public relations through working in you local community.

Effective vehicle to develop team and personal growth. Working to support worthy causes and benefit others is one the most rewarding and unifying tasks a team can undertake.

Powerful tool for enhancing communication skills, team work and problem solving through real life situations.

Community Benefits of Community Team Building Events

As the name suggests these types of activities provide support to the community with projects that are in most need of help. Prior to undertaking a community or charitable team building event, try to identify a charity or worthy cause that you feel reflects your values and then speak to your event management company and let them take care of the rest.

Such events often encourage your employees to get involved in other volunteering activities within the local community which helps provide a longer term benefit too.

But above all these activities will provide a valuable link between your business and its neighbourhood as well as local community organisations.

Employee Benefits of Community Team Building Events

Your employees will have an opportunity to support and become involved in worthy causes within their own community. Working with real life experiences helps them develop unique personals skills that will have wider benefits in your business.

Community team building events are not only focused on raising awareness to the local community they also open the eyes of your employees to wider community and global issues.

Working with colleagues outside the work place and in their own local community is a priceless experience that brings many benefits and helps to develop personal skills.

And the reason why it’s so important to hire an event management company is to ensure that the project is managed safely and effectively, meets your specific requirements and provides the team with a fully packaged event that not only helps bond and develop but also benefits a worthy cause in the community.

Charity Team Building Days continue to grow

Despite the recession continuing to bite deep for many businesses, a large number of companies are still recognising the importance of maintaining morale in the team and bringing their staff together for a good old-fashioned bit of ‘team bonding’.

And with budgets being continually squeezed, many businesses have chosen to give their team building day a charitable aim to ensure that the events still continue despite the sweeping cost cutting that is being seen across the corporate world.

Peter Barker, Director of Kaboura Events, states that ‘whilst many of our team building events have seen a down turn in the last year, the specialist ‘charitable team building‘ that we provide is almost 20% up on last year. Clearly the message of developing teams is still firmly on many peoples’ agenda and having an opportunity to provide some tangible benefit to a worthy cause as part of this is helping many teams justify the budgetary spend for on-going events’.

Community Team building events clearly provide many benefits to worthy causes and charities and enable teams to bond and work together on real life challenges that really make a difference.

For further details contact Kaboura Events on 08450 780453.

Charitable team building events

Despite what people say about the recession biting large areas of the Events Industry, we’re delighted to report that our unique charitable team building events continue to be a popular choice for many teams looking for a worthwhile and different team building activity.  And BBC Television thinks so too - see the BBC television feature on our Charity team building to see just how these unique CSR team building events can really make a difference.

If you’re looking for an unusual team building event then let Kaboura Events  Community team building activities are a great way to motivate, inspire and bond the team.

In particular, our One World, One Team event and our Make a Difference Days have been popular with people looking to add a CSR team building angle to their activities.

Our unique CSR team building events and charitable team building activities have contributed over £500,000 worth of benefit to the local community and enabled corporate companies to enage in the community and really make a difference.

For further details on these events call our Events Team at Kaboura Events on 08450 780453.

Over 100 staff from the Channel took part in a unique fundraising Charity Quiz Night, organised by Kaboura Events, to raise money for the Haiti Disaster Fund.  And a fantastic night was had by all!

Well done to everyone who took part in this unique charity team building event and helped raise money for an extremely worthwhile cause.

Make a Difference Day - Smiths Medical

Well done to the team from Smiths Medical who successfully completed a charitable team building event by undertaking one of our unique Make a Difference Days last week.  The team of International Managers flew in from around the world and found themselves at the Rare Breeds Centre in Ashford, Kent, supporting The Canterbury Oast Trust.

As part of the community challenge team building event the team undertook a range of tasks to support the charity - everything from painting the craft centre to refurbishing the outdoor furniture.  And the huge pigs that live at the centre were cause for much interest amongst the team!

Make a Difference Days enable teams to undertake a charity team building day that supports a worthy cause in the community.  Kaboura Events designs and delivers a unique range of charitable team building events that get teams working together for the benefit of others.

Further details on our Community Challenge team building events is available by contacting us on 08450 780543.

Team building business games

Well done to the team from Lablogic who successfully completed their two-day team building event this weekend at Centre Parks, in Nottingham.

Day one saw the team undertake our Decisions, Decisions team building Business Game and take on the role of the Board of Directors for a Travel Firm who were responsible for looking after a trekking group in Borneo.  As the game progressed the team were faced with a range of scenarios that had to be managed as part of the activity - everything from guests missing flights to overnight accommodation being overbooked!

Day two saw the team undertake our Eldorado team building Business Game and saw them working together to identify the location of the missing treasure and find the right key to the treasure chest.  A great activity for exploring how well a team co-operate to achieve an end task!

All in all a great event that was enjoyed by the team and highlighted some interesting areas around team working.

We have a range of team building Business Games that can be run for teams of 8 upwards - please feel free to contact our team or give us a call on 08450 780453 for further information.

Christmas team building event

Our ‘Christmas Card Campaign’ seems to have been the biggest team building event we’ve ever run as hundreds of people scrambled to join in the fun and vote for their favourite charity!

A huge ‘thank you’ to all those people who took the time to vote as part of this campaign and help choose where our Christmas donation was sent in lieu of sending Christmas Cards.

We were overwhelmed by the response to this initiative which certainly seems to have received a big ‘thumbs-up’ from all our clients, staff, suppliers and business contacts.

The voting was pretty close but after a final count up we’re delighted to report that the winning charity with the most votes was…………… Click here to find out where this year’s Christmas donation ended up!

We wish you all a very Happy New Year and look forward to working with you in 2010.