AVentPro Retreat Recap

If you’ve been following us on social media, we’re sure you’ve seen a few posts about our first-ever company-wide retreat, which took place in July! After a busy year of incredibly successful events with a quickly growing team, we felt it was more important than ever to dedicate time to our team’s development. The entire AVentPro team gathered at Hecla Island for three days, which were fully dedicated to ongoing training and education, building stronger communication, bonding as a team and aligning on a shared vision for the future.

We wanted to share some of our greatest takeaways and memories from our team retreat with you!

Vision for the future

One of the most impactful sessions of the retreat was led by AVentPro Owner and President, Garry Hale, as he shared his vision for the company’s future.

The session began with Garry sharing the history of AVentPro, as well as his personal history in the events industry, painting a picture of how he, and the company, have come to where they are today. He then transitioned into talking about the future of AVentPro, sharing his goals with the team, as well as how he plans to achieve them, and where the company is headed. 

Garry compared the growth AVentPro has seen in recent years to a “snowball effect”. As AVentPro continues to grow, we are able to hire additional staff members, buy top-of-the-line gear, and improve our value to customers – which, in turn, leads to even more growth. 

The team found this session to be incredibly inspiring, as it gave them confidence in the direction the company is headed while helping them (for a few days at least!) stop thinking about the day-to-day details of each event, but to focus on the big picture.

Team communication

One of the top priorities for the retreat was building stronger team relationships to strengthen communication. While this was something that was highlighted throughout all three days of the retreat, there was one session specifically dedicated to it.

The session, titled the “Iceberg” session, began by having the team members break the ice. The session started with icebreakers that allowed all of the team members to get to know each other better and understand their colleagues’ backgrounds and communication styles.

This session focused on professional development around communication skills. Specifically, the entire team was challenged to begin to look at each situation like an iceberg. While only 10% of what is happening may be visible, focusing on and learning about the 90% that’s underwater (or not immediately visible) gives everybody the ability to better understand the full situation and become better partners and teammates.

Following the session, the entire team felt empowered to take ownership when communicating with each other.

Ongoing training and education

Throughout the retreat, the team spoke about the importance of constantly striving to improve your craft and take on new knowledge, especially in an industry that evolves as rapidly as live events.

The entire team was excited to share their passion and commitment to continuing to learn and acquire new skills to benefit the team and AVentPro clients. Together, we created a plan to continue ongoing learning sessions year-round, enabling team members to broaden their skill sets and deepen their expertise.

Team building

As most event professionals know, in our industry, it can be very difficult to get the entire team together, due to conflicting event schedules or other commitments. When we started planning the AVentPro retreat, we knew spending time together in relaxing environments and doing fun activities together would be the key to helping our team members bond.

Because of this, we dedicated plenty of time to relaxing, playing games and taking advantage of the pool – but we also scheduled a few fun activities along the way!

The first activity was a full team bonfire on the first evening of the retreat. During this laid-back evening, everybody was able to share stories and talk more casually with each other. Additionally, with so many international team members, there were many members of the AVentPro team who had never tried a s’more before! After the bonfire, that was no longer true, and everybody loved getting to try cooking (and eating!) their s’mores.

Another team-building activity was a 9-hole golf scramble. After breaking into teams of four, everybody had the opportunity to put their golf skills to the test. While some team members were experienced golfers, others had never so much as held a club before!  The entire team encouraged and cheered each other on, embracing the same spirit of collaboration we’re used to seeing professionally.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a golf outing if somebody didn’t hit the ball as hard as they could, only to end in a heartbreaking hook – or if somebody else didn’t sink a 30-foot putt!

After the three days were over, team members left the retreat feeling relaxed, revitalized and closer as a team than ever before. If the success of our first retreat is a good indicator, we have no doubts that there will be plenty more to come! Contact us to learn more about AVentPro and how our team can take your upcoming events to the next level. Email [email protected] or call us at (204) 226-5565