However, in this post I’m going to focus on one concept I picked up last year from fellow Liverpool Girl Geek member IGOO – an idea called ‘Happy Monday’.
I thought this concept was brilliant! It encourages inclusivity, and it enables people to share experiences, entertainment, or just their favourite food, with their colleagues in a really fun way, as part of a team. It gives the team something fun to look forward to, it’s social and is a nice treat for everyone.
The basic concept:
Everybody in the team takes a turn to pick our lunchtime event. It can be something simple and easy, such as taking everyone for a meal at your favourite restaurant (or ordering food in), to bringing in supplies to create a meal in the office. If there are any chef’s or bakers in the team(!) who would like to prepare us all some delicious treats, that’s very welcome too. My personal favourite is picking a certain theme, for example, to all play a game, eat related food etc. The possibilities can be as varied or as simple as you’d like.
I thought I’d share a few of the ideas we’ve done so far:
#HappyMonday Video Game edition!
I started our first session with sandwiches and snacks supplied by a local catering company. We then split our group into teams for a video games quiz and everyone was tested on their computer games knowledge. The winning team were ‘The new old guys’. We then took turns playing a game of Crash Bash. One of the good things about this theme, was it gave me an excuse to make some computer game themed cakes – not something I do every day!
#HappyMonday Halloween
Organised by Mim and Claire, the session started with a fresh tasty buffet eaten around our communal table. The office was decorated with a selection of spooky Halloween themed decorations and a pumpkin was provided to each team member, along with a variety of tools to take part in an office pumpkin carving competition. The stakes were high – with the winning design (and the two runners up) winning Hotel Chocolat Halloween themed goodies. Some of the results were fantastic and we had lots of fun with the preparation of our pumpkins.
#HappyMonday Christmas
Our final get together was a combination of lots of lovely food, Christmas treats, beer, plus some good glugs of baileys and cognac! Ant designed a game of Christmas Elf beer pong, where we each were supplied with our own little elf selves and competed against each other to win chocolate coins! We also played a rather unusual version of pass the parcel, complete with many layers of wrapping paper, which created lots of laughs as everyone attempted unwrapping as quickly as possible whilst wearing oven gloves. And of course, what office Christmas get together would be complete without Secret Santa?
#HappyMonday will return..
This year, we’re hoping to do lots more fun events. Our next scheduled Happy Monday is being organised by Ant, who is already busy planning a beer themed session for March. Make sure to look out for our pictures on social media!
Thanks for reading, I hope you found some of these ideas interesting and perhaps might encourage you to give a #HappyMonday a go in your own workplace!
