Team Building Latest Events

Last week, teams from KDM stepped in to the Dragons’ Den to present fantastic new product ideas. Unfortunately, Peter Jones wasn’t available and Graeme, who was running the event, refused to invest any of his hard earned cash but we still had plenty of fun.

In this team building event, teams have to develop a completely original product write an accompanying presentation and then pitch their idea to the dragons.

Surprisingly, after a lovely long Christmas break brains were in gear and we quickly came up with ideas for a product and got cracking on making a proto-type and developing snazzy presentations to accompany our pitch.

The two brand new products created were ‘Glide’ a tool to help the elderly put their coats on and ‘The Happy Mouth’ an aid for when your drinking arm becomes weary after prolonged pub sessions!

Top things I’ve learnt from this event:

~ Sometimes you really can make something out of nothing

~ This event is suitable for all guests – even those who know nothing about the famous TV show this event earned its namesake from

~ It’s highly flexible and easily tailored to a specific company

~ No one from KDM is a budding James Dyson***

~ Don’t make up the budgeting section of the presentation and then try to ‘blag’ your way through questions from the dragons – it won’t work

~ Sam does an excellent impression of a drunk person

***James Dyson is the billionaire inventor of the Dyson vacuum cleaner! So, now you know.

For more details on Braving the Dragons’ Den or any other KDM event please contact us on 01782 646300.

Oh and Happy New Year from everyone at KDM! Best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2012!

Kreative Drama Magazine beat FHM and Water Babes to a publishing deal following a competitive pitching process to a top publishing mogul on Tuesday this week. The winning entry, imaginatively entitled Kreative Drama Magazine, is a KDM gossip magazine detailing scandals and drama in the exciting world of corporate events. Unfortunately, it won’t be available on the shelves of your newsagent as it was only the brain child of KDM’s very own Alan, Craig, Katie and Sam who were taking part in Magazine Mogul training.

The whole KDM team took part in Magazine Mogul training led by, Senior Event Manager, Garry Holford. Divided into teams the challenge was to produce a magazine layout for a particular type of publication. Provided with costumes and a press pack, including laptop and digital camera each team worked as the design, copy and photographic departments to pull together the magazine.

There is plenty of scope for cross-dressing – though the KDM team were very restrained with Sarah posing as a gladiator, Darran as a fireman and Craig as Kevin! We had a hobby magazine for those with a love of animals that reside in water including otters and beavers and a men’s lifestyle magazine with a focus on heroes who save cats from trees but end up getting attacked like a ‘gang of angry otters’. Using props including a giant anvil, a rat cuddly toy and a pound costume the event was lots of fun, had something for everyone and really allowed the creative juices to flow.

Magazine Mogul is a highly interactive and fun team building event designed to stretch participants’ minds, test communication skills and reinforce the value of good time management and teamwork. To enquire about this or any other event please contact us.

Seeing Red … KDM’s Team Building Event. Well not really but to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the British Heart Foundation’s “Red for Heart” Campaign, the KDM Events Team saw this as an opportunity for our own team building activity! We organised the day so all 16 of us wore red items of clothing, and could participate in the mini-games we organised which included how many red M ‘n’ Ms are in the jar! We also had a ‘bake off’ between the ladies (not very pc round here! and anyway the blokes are useless at cooking) which included jam tarts, cupcakes and a whole tart which Sarah McGregor won for her scrumptious tasting, red coloured cupcakes!
Our Team Build raised £46.75 for the British Heart Foundation, we all had a lovely, fun day and then went down the pub to get red noses!

With my hen party weekend approaching I’m sitting here wishing the weather was much better and instead it looks as though we will be in for a wet one!

Some of my clients that have booked outdoor Team Building events have been asking me the question ‘ What happens if it rains?’. As it is not possible to book the sunshine along with our team building events then KDM always have a wet weather contingency in place. For our outdoor events, as standard we will provide disposable waterproofs for each guest and also coloured tepee marquees where guests can shelter in the event of a heavy downpour. Plus, for a nominal fee, our clients also have the option of booking our wet weather contingency. For this an additional indoor event as a backup activity is available should you decide not to proceed with your outdoor event due to bad weather. Options include a Mega Quiz or Play your Games Right, to name just two! This can be arranged at a nominal fee and gives our guests peace of mind during our good old British Summer!

Sam

When a major retailer introduced a programme for its junior employees to participate in the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme as part of their personal development they approached KDM to help them implement the physical element of the programme. (more…)

Whilst Lord Sugar may well be back on our screens searching for his new Apprentice, he’s a little off the pace! KDM’s clients beat him to the punch and have spent the summer looking for their own Apprentice. Our fun-filled team building event contains several key messages and we ensure that the delegates enjoy themselves as well as learning. Not just that we ensure that the client receives a tangible return on their investment.

Leadership, time management, teamwork and communication are all demonstrated in a team building event which is flexible enough to be either team or individual based … and in which no-one gets fired!

I was asked to do a short piece for our local radio station the other day on how team building might be effective for the new Government coalition. My instinctive response was that the issues of bringing together two political parties with what would often be two contradicting views on issues would be an unusual challenge – but, as with a lot of things, my instant reactions were wrong.

After all each party is itself a mix of individuals and factions with conflicting views, aims and ambitions – it is just that with the Liberal / Conservative coalition there becomes an even wider mix of aims.

What is the difference between political team building and corporate team building – very little I would say after giving the matter some more thought. In a corporate environment individuals are seeking to achieve their personal aims which often might conflict with or to a lesser extent deviate from the corporate goal – ever heard of office politics? The team leader has to recognise this and establish clear objectives for the team as a whole and then create the environment in which the disparate ambitions of the individuals are harnessed to the good of the team – and this is the area in which team building plays an important part.

Every day the corporate world brings together different teams and competitors to work together in mergers, acquisitions and more pertinently joint projects, ventures and major engineering works. It’s just taken the politicians a while to catch up.

I’m awaiting David Cameron’s call.

Whilst we all know that a poor journalist has to make a living somehow however that cannot be accepted as an excuse for poor journalism.  Not so for Kate Devlin the Medical Correspondent for the Daily Telegraph.

   She wrote a fascinating article on Team Building when, obviously feeling in need of a break, she took time out at the British Psychological Society’s annual conference in Stratford-upon-Avon. (more…)

My client was looking for a fun and interactive team building event to run after dinner on the evening of their event conference for sixty sales staff and managers from regions across the UK. It needed to be memorable and within a strict budget, whilst taking the delegates away from the bar! (more…)

The message was innovation and profitability as my client was trying to become the most profitable insurance provider on the market. We provided a two day conference event for forty six regional managers to push home the company message and outline the steps needed to achieve this. They required corporate team building with an emphasis on communication and working together to solve business problems and we had just the thing. (more…)