It’s always fun to see the different ways companies come up with to do a team building event or meet and greet event. I’ve photographed cook outs, fancy dinners, extravagant parties with live animals and face painting, (yes, that really happened) private concerts, boat rides, golf, baseball games, stadium tours, wine tasting….basically, many different things. Team building activities, as well as meet and greets, are vital to improving the future progress for a company.  Employees learn to understand each other’s strengths, weaknesses, and interests, as well as meeting new (and old) people they’ve never seen face to face before. In learning these characteristics in others, it helps employees work on projects that involve teamwork, expands their networking base, and gives their job a personal side.

Out of all the events I’ve photographed, this past summer had some of the best team building/meet and greets I’ve seen!  They strayed away from the cliche and boring and went with things that were meaningful and out of the box.

The first of the three events I’m going to showcase was about building an outdoor environmental learning center for one of the Minneapolis schools.  About 60 people worked alongside HandsOn Twin Cities and the U.S. Green Building Council. They were divided into groups to work on part of the classroom. One group worked on building an arbor, one moved wood chips for the walkway, a few groups dug up dirt and laid stones for a rock river, multiple groups worked in the gym to build benches, there was a tiny bridge that was constructed, a Little Library, and also concrete pavers decorated with the schools letters.  Everyone looked like they were having a great time! When it was all done, they had a beautiful outdoor classroom for a school that was in need.