Bar-Be School, a day out of the office
Having worked in a few companies over the years, I’ve been through a fair few team events. They range anything from lunch down at the pub or the severely overdone afternoon of lawn bowls.
One thing I will admit is that I can imagine how difficult it is to organise team events especially for big project teams. It’s hard enough trying to organise lunch when you have a vegetarian in the group, let alone trying to find something which would appeal to 20 to 30 members of a project team.
It’s great to have a team off site now and then. When we are on projects, we often lose sight of the importance of taking time out and getting to know a bit more about our team members. We are so fixated on getting our deliverables completed on time or fending off office politics, that we sometimes don’t even know what the guy sitting five levels down does apart from write good requirements documents.
Clearly, our event organiser caught onto the Masterchef bug and organised a Masterchef like cook-off where our entire project team split into groups of three to see who’s cuisine reigned supreme. Organising the event were The BBQ School, who specialise in how to get the most out of your bbq when cooking. With a team which has worked at the likes of Hugos and Pier, surely they should know a thing or two about a bbq ?
For each dish, the chef would demonstrate what to do. Whether it be how to cut swordfish or how to cook steak to perfection, it was upto us to finish the task. It was easier for some than others, I remember seeing a few very average attempts at peeling prawns. Either way it’s a great way to learn a few cooking tips in a relaxed environment.
At one stage things got a bit heated up and people starting sabotaging other teams, it was hilarious because we had to end up eating each others food anyway! It’s amazing what a few drinks can do to open up the competitive streak in everyone, all in good jest of course.
The cooking workshop goes for about 2 hours and is finished off with a banquet style buffet. The dishes all turned out pretty decent with the Chefs even showing us a thing or two about presentation.
For the office social co-ordinator who has stumbled upon this post while researching corporate team outing events, do your team a favour and try something different. Ditch the lawn bowls and give a cooking workshop a go. It’s something that would appeal to most people and they might even learn a thing or two, even if it means knowing that someone in the office only has a two drink limit before they start breaking out into flash dance (not the team I’m in of course)
Bar-Be School
Classes are held around Australia.
More info can be found at : http://www.bbqschool.com.au/contact.html
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By Howard
We started eatshowandtell in 2008, it was meant to be just a journal of where we ate. The first thing I usually do when I'm looking for a restaurant is check out eatability and the restaurant website. But what is usually missing is pictures of the food, how do I know I'm getting what I expect? This blog hopefully plugs that gap.
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This article was written on 04 Jun 2010, and is filed under Australian, Lunch, Sydney, CBD.
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What a brilliant idea! Gone will be the days of boring team activities.. This is the first I’ve ever heard of this school, good on them for the services that they are providing. Sounds like heaps of fun
Haha yeah I've heard of some of the other departments here organising cooking team building events but it's just a little too complicated to organising things like this for the supply and manufacturing division I work in, plus we have more budget constraints compared to people in head office. And what is wrong with lawn bowls? I thought it was pretty awesome when we did it =p BBQ Sessions looks really fun though!
We do lawn bowls way too many times, nice to do something different!
awesome! wish i worked for a place that did stuff like this!
Fab idea for 'bonding'. We've tried to organise something similar (cooking) but the cost has always been quite high. So we always do lawn bowls, followed by a pub :p
Great looking activity. If I am made to do one more trust fall I am going to drop the on the ground. I would totally wear a full on Iron Chef outfit for an event like this.
Looks like fun! Have to say, am a bit over lawn bowls as the default form of entertainment/team bonding.