Team-building ideas?

melody921 · June 2014

So we do an annual team-building activity at work, and we are coming up empty on innovative ideas for this year. There are 8 of us, and we need something relatively inexpensive, since we're a nonprofit. We have a couple of team members who will not go for any kind of strenuous physical activity (one guy is actually kind of anti-outdoors in general). In past years, we've done kayaking (aforementioned team member didn't come), mini golf and bowling. The best we're coming up with so far this year is laser tag. So tell me what your teams do or what you would want to do if you were spending an afternoon with 7 other people, ranging in age from 33-63.

MomtobeNJ · June 2014

How about volunteering somewhere - soup kitchen, daycare, animal rescue? We do staff development all the time and just go out to lunch and walk around some place that has a cute downtown area with shops, bookstores, etc. I don't remember where you're located, but is there a beach, park or lake nearby? You can do a picnic lunch and bring frisbees, a volleyball, and stuff like that. The anti-outdoors guy might not be thrilled, but he can suck it up for one afternoon.

ellebee2 · June 2014

At my previous job, we did something like this for team building one year: https://www.drumcafe.com/teambuilding.asp It was pretty fun, didn't require any special skills, etc. Not sure where you are located, or if there is something similar.

Or what about a cooking class or something like that? Our local cooking school offers team building sessions: https://www.picachef.com/corporate_classes.html perhaps you local one does too? Or a restaurant?

MomtobeNJ · June 2014

Another idea on our list for this summer is a paint your own pottery place, if you have one of those nearby.

hmp1 · June 2014

We did board games sometimes. Scattegories is fun and can take up a good chuck of time if you go through all 12 rounds with a big group.

We also did quarterly drives involving the entire building and our team would spend the afternoon labeling, boxing up, and dropping off the items we had collected. We got everyone involved by offering up meal tickets (to our onsite cafe) to the top givers.

melody921 · June 2014

MomtobeNJ said:

Another idea on our list for this summer is a paint your own pottery place, if you have one of those nearby.

hahaha, the men on our team would rebel so hardcore at this. It's on my list of things to do with DS this summer though.

kelbel527 · June 2014

We've done:

Bowling

Baseball Game / Tailgate (do you have any sports teams nearby?)

Lunch @ a place that does trivia games

Lunch at a sports bar to watch a sporting event (usually we do one around march madness)

picnic at a park (works better with a bigger group)

Other ideas we've entertained, but haven't done:

boat tour

movie (not my favorite because you aren't socializing)

one of those places where you can drink and paint

Our company doesn't pay for alcohol at any of these events, but since some of them could involve drinking, it's allowed, with discretion, and the boss usually buys.

MomtobeNJ · June 2014

melody921 said:

MomtobeNJ said:

Another idea on our list for this summer is a paint your own pottery place, if you have one of those nearby.

hahaha, the men on our team would rebel so hardcore at this. It's on my list of things to do with DS this summer though.

We had 2 men with us and they were pretty good sports!

Cheenomae · June 2014

We've also done board games in the past and we've had so much fun with both the men and women. I've never laughed so hard as I laughed when playing Scattegories like HMP mentioned!! We've also done baseball and basketball games. One year we rented (pretty inexpensively) air hockey tables and placed them around the office and did a tournament. It was seriously such a good day!

plus12012 · June 2014

Last year for our team building day we went Geo Caching. I wasn't too excited about it at 1st but it turned out to really be fun.

https://www.geocaching.com/guide/

hmp1 · June 2014

plus12012 said:

Last year for our team building day we went Geo Caching. I wasn't too excited about it at 1st but it turned out to really be fun.

https://www.geocaching.com/guide/

This is a good idea. My MIL is way into this right now.

You could set up a couple of casino tables and whoever has the most chips at the end wins a couple movie tickets.

Flamingemu · June 2014

Baseball games and happy hours here - we are boring.

Hyaline · June 2014

Trust Falls!

But seriously...we've done winery tours, potlucks, backyard BBQs with bags tourneys and stuff like that, and a cooking class. All were fun. But I honestly can't say it was much in the way of team-building...small office and we were all close already.

mrsjenni · June 2014

We did a boat tour last year (Spirit of Philadelphia). In the past, we've done Dave & Busters, food tours, beer tours and this year I htink we're going to do a wine tasting!

Other team building things that we've done (and we're actually doing one next Wednesday) is a appetizer and wine pot luck. Everyone brings in their favorite bottle of wine and fav app and it's really fun and low cost.

MarisaKathleen · June 2014

At my last job, we were headquartered in Chicago and we always did something cool for at least 2 of our meetings per year. The coolest things we did were a boat tour (I can't remember where you live...) along the river and they pointed out different things about the architecture of the buildings downtown. It was really cool. Similarly, here in Milwaukee we have quite a few boat tour type things that we go on at least once a summer.

The other super cool thing we did was hike down to Merrillville, IN and go to a cooking class. There were approximately 30 of us, but we prepared a 5 course meal and then ate it. It was so much fun!

melody921 · June 2014

I'm liking the wine tour and cooking class ideas! We're definitely a group that can eat/drink, haha.

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