Every year, we try to get everyone here at In Focus together for a whole day of team building, bonding and making art, and for the first time this year we had not only the delivery team members and company directors, but the steering group members and our latest assistant members – 9 people in total, laughing, learning and making.
The day would be filled with the whole team taking part in multiple activities, and were presented to everyone by the 4 core team members at In Focus starting at 10:00am until just after 4:00pm with a pizza break in between!
Led by Kristianne Drake, ‘A worm’s-eye/birds-eye view’ photography challenge activity gave the team 15 minutes to take 3 images from a viewpoint of a worm/bird. For the worms eye fo example, this means to look up to something to make an object appear tall and strong while the viewer feels childlike or powerless. Once completed the team had to print these images off and present them as a triptych.
…Birds Eye View!
In another short activity presented by Kristianne, the team had been given a sheet of paper with a variety of opening lines from famous poems folded over. Which then required them to each write one line and fold the paper over each time so the other person couldn’t see what was written before them, this was because at the end of the task each and every piece of paper would have something completely different on which then formed some interesting and unexpected (and sometimes random!) new poetry.
Presented by Faye Phillips, this next activity required the team to get into pairs of two and decide who would be (A) and who would be (B). After deciding who would be what, (B) would follow (A) but (A) would be acting out being stressed and their partner would have to mimic them and vice versa. Once finished we would tell our partners what we saw and tell them how it looks like they hold their stress in.
This made us discover things that we might have already known about ourselves or it told us things we never knew, for example you could hold your stress in your shoulders or your neck but you might not have known that until trying this activity out. We also mimicked each other having a good day too, which showed that some people are a lot more confident within themselves when having a good day.
For her second activity, Faye has put down multiple different postcard images that the team had to pick from as the requirement was for each of us to pick an image that best describes ‘resilience’ to you.
Once picking an image, we found some of the team picked an image that reminds them of their childhood/growing up, some picked an image that is personal to them and some just picked an image that does describe literal resilience to them.
After a break for lunch, Xavier presented his activity, which was all about photography and scavenger hunting! We had to take multiple pictures working in groups, and then building on top of your printed images, using any materials that you can find; as you can see in the photo below things like, ketchup, plants, berries and many other things were used.
After completing capturing these images, we had to find materials to be able to build on top of the image. Some people used screws, some used pins, some even used pizza. Using anything they could find the team made sure to have an amazing outcome at the end of the activity.
Lastly, the day was rounded out with a calm & interesting activity presented by Ben Cowley, involving painting and a steady hand!
In this activity we took our time to paint these tiny miniature statues (generously donated by the local Games Workshop Warhammer store!) using a type of dry brush method, which meant getting your paint brush and dipping the tip in paint and then getting most of it off of the brush and then getting the tiniest bit of water into the brush making it full with paint again. This technique means you’re applying the thinnest layer of smooth paint for it to dry quickly and to be able to paint over to get a really bright pigmented colour very fast. As you can see there are many different colours used to get different outcomes and the best painted miniatures.
The In Focus team day as a whole was filled with fun, laughter, jokes and interesting activities throughout the day. With soft drinks and snacks on tap, the whole team stayed fully engaged and active for the oncoming arts, which were all linked to the work we do here at In Focus – community, transferable skills, a wide range of outcomes and arts disciplines.
As always, the team can’t wait for the next whole team day! Bring on 2023!