Corpies live it up in Liverpool and lord it in Crewe

The whole Chillisauce corporate team left the office on Monday to enjoy perhaps the most action-packed FAM trip in the history of company.

Departing London just after 9am, the team travelled 1st class to Liverpool where the first stop was Revolution cocktail bar. The group mixed the best of breakfast and boozing with a cheeky shot of porridge vodka before having a look around the venue and a quick chat about new corporate cocktail making and vodka tasting events. Then it was onto stop no.2- Knowsley Safari Park.

The team weren't to see the animals but to go 4x4 off roading and quad biking. As well as playing host to some of the world's most frightening animals, the park witnessed some of the world's most frightening driving as the Chillisauce crew took turns behind the wheel of a Land Rover which was pushed to its limits as it careered around rugged terrain which wouldn't have looked out of place in Jurassic Park. After tearing up the quad biking track and shooting at a variety of testing targets on the air rifle range it was time to bid the wilds of the safari park farewell and travel down to Park Royal hotel in Warrington.

The staff at Park Royal threw in an unexpected 'treat' by booking the Chillisauce crew in for a Thai Chi class. With a number of the team having run a 10k the previous day, they were stiffer than concrete corpses and proved quite a challenge for the tutor, particularly 6ft 6' Will and 6ft 4' Tom, whose longer limbs apparently put them at a huge disadvantage. When the session was over there were sandwiches, cakes and drinks for the team to feast on which definitely helped soothe everyone's aching bodies.

From Park Royal, it was back on the road to Crewe Hall in Cheshire, the final stop of the day. You couldn't help but be impressed by the stunning Jacobean country residence which is a Grade 1 listed building and former residence of Lord Ranulph Crewe. After a tour of the superb hotel and a couple of refreshing drinks on the patio overlooking the grounds, the team retired into the brasserie where they were served a fantastic chilli-themed three course meal featuring chilli duck, chilli tuna and chilli ice cream. After a few more beers and glasses of wine at the revolving bar to toast a fine day, the team retired to their bedrooms for a well-earned sleep in the lap of luxury.

A full Spectrum of events

For pure enjoyment you simply can’t beat a multi activity day. Where else would you get to speed around behind the controls of a hovercraft and then get to shoot a crossbow a couple of minutes later?

Spectrum wanted a full day of outdoor activities so Spencer sent them to Chingford just outside of London to enjoy a classic multi activity day where they got to have a go at no less than eight great activities; rage buggies, hovercrafts, blindfold driving, crossbow and air rifle shooting, archery, a GPS challenge- a modern twist on the treasure hunt, and the team building game ‘Diffuse the Bomb’ which involves teams answering questions to crack a code.

The great benefit of a multi activity day is that there are so many activities that everyone will find something they enjoy, as the feedback shows the Spectrum team had a blast.

'I would firstly like to say that everyone thoroughly enjoyed the day and all the activities included. I think the ones that went down well were the hovercrafts and the buggies. The team on the day was all very organised and good teachers.

In all honesty there isn’t a bad word I can say. We all had a fantastic day and would definitely use Chillisauce again in the future.

Thanks for all your help.'

http://www.chillisauce.co.uk/corporate-events/activity-days/multi-activity-days/

Fashionable corporate events

What the Chillisauce team don’t know about fashion isn’t worth knowing. Just one look around the Chillisauce office and you can see most of the major fashion houses represented; Primark, Marks and Spencer and George at Asda are all on display, so it was no surprise when Dior, one of the world’s other foremost fashion houses, got in touch with us wanting to go cocktail making in London.

When it comes to corporate events, cocktail making is a timeless classic. Any opportunity that a group gets to have a couple of tasty drinks in the name of team building is always going to be a winner and so it proved for Dior:

'Thanks for all your help with the event - it all went really well and everyone had a great time. The location was very central and handy for us and the fact that it was in a bright cafe rather than a dark bar was appreciated!

It lasted the right amount of time and the food was very good. I would be happy to use you again.Thanks for everything and for turning it around so quickly and professionally - it made my life a lot easier!'

http://www.chillisauce.co.uk/corporate-events/team-building-days/cocktail-making/

University challenged

Hylands Park in Chelmsford, Essex is most famous for hosting the V Festival but on Wednesday it played host to Chillisauce and the University of East London for a day of team building.

The UEL wanted some fun activities to follow a departmental meeting so Ian suggested a Quintessentially English which is a great mix of traditional garden games such as croquet, badminton, lawn bowls, giant chess and draughts, and some not so traditional games such as giant Connect 4, giant Jenga and Twister.

After the early morning meeting at Hylands House, the team headed out into the park eager to get underway and despite the slightly inclement weather, it did nothing to dampen the team’s enthusiasm:

'Thank you for helping us to arrange our team building event at Hylands Park yesterday. We arrived at the venue to be greeted by Debbie(our event manager) and her team who were all lovely and very helpful throughout day. The weather was changeable between showers and sunshine but that didn't spoil the day at all, everyone took part and really enjoyed themselves.

The games were really were devised and although there was structure within the day Debbie and her team were not intrusive and allowed us to enjoy ourselves as a department. The whole day ran smoothly without any problems and we would like to express our thanks to the team.

With regards to booking the event and liaising with yourself in the office, once again everything ran smoothly, you answered any questions we had usually same day which was great. Thank you!!

We would also like to thank the catering staff at Hylands House who were extremely helpful and polite to us on the day. We run an event like this every year and we will definitely be in touch next time. Thanks once again.'

http://www.chillisauce.co.uk/corporate-events/quintessentially-english/

A cream cracker of a night

Some event companies just want to sell pre-built package days where you have to fit in with a format devised by them. We don’t blame them as it makes their jobs pretty easy, but in the end the customer loses out. At Chillisauce all of our events are completely bespoke which means that we build the day from scratch to meet your requirements. This can present quite a challenge but it’s the kind of challenge that our event team relishes.

United Biscuits, the makers of Jacob's Cream Crackers, Jaffa Cakes, Hula Hoops and McVitie's biscuits amongst others, got in touch wanting after-conference team building activities in London. They'd been studying our website and liked the look of quite a number of our activities so much so that they wanted to see if we could produce an evening where their team of 100 got to make their own adverts, learnt to mix cocktails and got to slip on their dancing shoes for some Salsa.

Isabel said ‘no problem’ and got on with organising what promised to be great evening at Royal Holloway University. She arranged a cross between Commercial Break and Den of Dragons where the teams competed against each other to impress a panel of judges with the adverts, brought in some top mixologists to teach the team some cool cocktails and had a Salsa instructor on hand to help the United Biscuits team burn up the dancefloor. On top of all of this Isabel also hired a top DJ to spin some tunes and play requests.

As we expected, the United Biscuits team had a tremendous fun-filled night:

'I just wanted to say a big thank you to you and your team for making our conference so successful on Thursday. Each event that we booked with you was superb:

Commercial Break- This worked really well and ran without any hitches - I am looking forward to seeing the DVD!
Cocktail Making- The display was fantastic and the cocktails were really nice! We had loads of Tequilla Sunrise's left over but they were poured into jugs and people helped themselves through the evening.
Salsa Dancers- They really engaged everyone and had loads of people on the dance floor - the lessons went down brilliantly and they made sure that the dance floor was full.
DJ- The DJ was very accommodating and played requests. He also made all the announcements that we asked him to. The variety of music was great and we had people dancing from 9pm to 2am.

I wouldn't hesitate to use any of your event managers again. They were all fantastic!'

Take at look at Commercial Break- http://www.chillisauce.co.uk/corporate-events/team-building-days/directors-cut/productid_3790/
and Cocktail Making- http://www.chillisauce.co.uk/corporate-events/team-building-days/cocktail-making/

Chillisauce give you extra

Crystal Challenge is now so popular that scientists estimate that by the year 2023 every single person in the UK will have taken part in Chillisauce’s most popular team building event.

Halifax wanted a relaxed day of team building activities for a team of 40 in Yorkshire and had liked the look of Crystal Challenge on our website. The group had already booked themselves into Yorkshire’s only 5* hotel so it was left to Isabel to put together the team building activities. They wanted a couple of hours of activities in the morning, lunch and then the same again in the afternoon, which Isabel was happy to arrange.

The Grade II listed 18th century mansion was a great venue for the event and the Halifax team had a go at all of the favourite Crystal Challenge activities including ‘chemical catastrophe’ and ‘diffuse the bomb’ before finishing the event in the legendary dome.

Unfortunately there was no sign of Howard Brown or the really massive woman from that advert where everyone sings, but the whole Halifax team had a brilliant time:

'I would like to thank you and everyone involved in making our away day as fantastic and fun as it could possibly be. The weather was great which was an added bonus. The events were well planned, fun and best of all they were suitable for everyone so everyone felt they could join in.

The event team were friendly and helpful and it was clear that they put allot of hard work into the day and it really paid off. I would definitely recommend Chillisauce to colleagues for their away days.'

http://www.chillisauce.co.uk/corporate-events/team-building-days/crystal-maze/

July newsletter jumps into inboxes

On this month's newsletter we're talking Christmas. You may think it's too early to start thinking about the festive season, but you'd be bang wrong. The weather outside is frightful (it's dark and pouring with rain as I write this) and if you want a Christmas event that's delightful, there's only one name to know- Chillisauce, HO HO HO!

We're also giving everyone the lowdown on our Rally Driving packages, you can win tickets to the 1st day of England v South Africa at Lord's and Dr David Tracksuit gives us his guide to the sporting summer.

Check out the newsletter here: http://chillisauce.cmail5.com/e/440332/f7dlijd/