For our second team day in three months (check us out), we took full advantage of our locale and met at a hotel overlooking the beautiful Canal Wharf.  This part of Leeds looks particularly nice under blue skies and bright sunshine, and we were treated to a full day of it.  Anxiety about heading into a city for the first time in weeks or months - and the packed commute that entails - seems to melt away when the sun’s out. 

Since our last team day in June, we’ve hired four new people across production and post production, so it seemed like a good opportunity to go back over our progress and have another look at our plans for the future. For our new faces, it’s a chance to see the bigger picture; understand their role in the context of the wider team, and how their work directly feeds into the success of the company. They were less thrilled, no doubt, to discover it’s also the time for taking team photos for the website. Cue a quick fixing of hair and shirt collars, while those of us content with our previous mugshots recline in the sunshine.

Something we used to do regularly in pre-pandemic days was a ‘Show and Tell’ session, a chance for everyone to share and watch some of our best output from the previous few months.  We’re all working on so many different projects at the same time, we rarely have the luxury of being able to sit back and enjoy the work we haven't been personally involved with.

So everyone picked their favourite project from the last few months and said a few words about it, while we watched the highlights. The examples included a range of film and animation projects for internal communication and brand marketing, and some immersive content for e-learning.  It’s great to see what other people have been working on, and even better to hear why they’re proud of it. We have an incredibly talented and passionate bunch of people here, that’s clear.   

A bit more work chat followed in the afternoon, before we got down to the serious business of eating and drinking.  We’re big fans of good food.  We like cooking it, eating it, and talking about it. Tegan even pulled together some of the team’s favourite recipes last week.   

A quick stop at the bars under the arches to lessen the agony of the three-minute walk to the train, and with that, we rolled off into the sunset to join the thronging masses at Leeds station, wondering how many days there were between now and our Christmas gathering.