It’s been a few days since we’ve come back from our team retreat, back from the wild.

I should have remembered that there are trips that take time to come back from. That spending time in the forest without phones, internet or Instagram, away from our families, and out of our comfort zones would be transformative.

Of course we had a plan, an overambitious list of basecamp to-dos of things we wanted to cover, a wish list of games, of recipes we’d try. We also had an intention, to reflect on our identity, our vision and how we each fit in that master plan, cause if three is a crowd, what were we now that we were seven, a Central mission?

So into the wild, there were birds - plenty of them - singing, feeding and even saved.

There was food. Geoffroy shared his now not-so-secret talent for bread making. He showed us and we imitated his way to care for the yeast, to knead the dough, to let it sit and watch it rise. And hours later, we enjoyed it together and it was seriously the best bread I have ever tasted!

There were bbqs started, slowly, for feasts that were enjoyed even more slowly. Quentin impressed with his mastery of meat and homemade sauces to go with it.

There were packets full of post-its - scribbled, exchanged, moved.

Loucas lead a workshop around our who, what, why inspired from Groove’s post and worksheet. We first reflected individually then post-ited our thoughts for the group, then rated all our ideas with sticky dots. The post-its that got votes were keepers.

What was most revealing was that we had plenty of keepers. For a value-driven agency our personal values were certainly aligned.

I ran a session that I’d recently run with a client using archetypes for building vision and story. I was thrilled to finally bring one of the tools I love most to team Central. Again, it was fascinating to have such similar ideas.

There were also plenty of moments just sitting in the grass, reading, talking.

And rituals we instantly created of morning coffees watching the lake…

and evenings sharing games.

I’m not sure we realised how much we would enjoy the experience, how much ground we would actually cover, how much we would actually discover about each other and about ourselves. What’s certain is that we’re all excited to soon build on this experience. In the comings days and weeks we will be sharing with you the outcomes of our retreat. More to come then!

For now, have a great week!

Sarah