Culture: Market Dojo Team Day and Apprentice Game

The time came for us all at Market dojo to finally have our Christmas party and a team building day out…In April!

The day started with breakfast before splitting into groups for a team building activity that was yet to be announced. But we knew it was going to be based around procurement (being an esourcing software company).

After a filling “All you can eat breakfast” we were told that we were to split into 3 teams of up to 5 people but from all different departments so each team had a mix of Marketing, Support, Development, Customer Success and Sales. We were then tasked to find a list of items on a budget of £60 and take a number of photos before meeting back where we had started. The winning team not only would win the leftover pot of money but would also win the items collated. Sounding familiar yet?

All teams needed to meet the directors Sirs Alun, Nic and Nick “Sugar” back at the beginning of the challenge in order for them to judge who had most successfully procured the described items on the list and for the least amount of money.

The list of items we needed to collect

Each team had a “guide” from the local area. Our group started slowly attempting to grab a couple of photos of the Gromit Statues closest to where we had started in the centre of the city. 

This didn’t go well and we spent the first 30 mins finding only maybe 3 of the items on the list. One of which we had woken a disgruntled flatmate to say “Dry up Dursley you big prune”, the second item began to feel more and more appropriate as time went on being the album “Dummy” by Portishead on CD, particularly as we spent a long time looking for it in shops such as HMV. We later found the other teams had been here first and hidden the album somewhere else in the store to hinder our chances. 

The final item was the adult SS Great Britain ticket which Ben managed to snap up from online, after noting no actual hard copy of the ticket was needed. This was a huge save for the team as we realised after walking past the M shed that the exhibit was closed for the day, being a Monday.

After we had moved out of the city centre we decided that we may have better luck with some of the more home based items like the honey and the tote bag on Gloucester Road and so made a beeline for The Bonanza and chaos beyond The Bearpit.

Along the way we found a bottle of Goram IPA. We were struggling to find the book of “Goram and Ghyston” and this presented itself to us as a potential loophole in the making…

We managed to source the locally produced honey and Banksy poster on Gloucester Road before turning our attention to the tote bag and the tea towel.

Pete and Ben had managed to spot a firm called “Ghyston” Software, the bottle of Goram IPA felt more and more like a cheat code. We began to head to the Wallace and Gromit gift shop (near the hospital) to try and make up for the tea towel and tote bag with the bonus points before making our way onto “Ghyston” which wasn’t that far on from the hospital.

The Wallace & Gromit gift shop was truly “a gift”. After we had explained to the staff the nature of our challenge they not only took a photo of us with the Gromits in the background but also gifted us a Gromit pin. Wallace & Gromit Memorabilia and bonus challenge done! 

We had very little time left and were still on the hunt for the tote bag and tea towel.

With only 10 minutes left and in fear of being penalised for being late back we had to run, making it in time for 14:30 by just under 30 seconds.

In conclusion, we were unified in our team effort from all different departments. Jack and I being locals to Bristol were accountable to provide reliable guidance throughout to acquire these items.

We ran around for 2 and half hours to find this bizarre list of items, I think that demonstrates enough about our passion to win!

Items that couldn’t be acquired were not fraudulently created  (no marker pens on tea towels etc.- Those of you know who you are) demonstrating honesty.

There was a competitive respect shown between teams during the challenge, however, one team began hiding items in shops before others arrived. I would like to say within teams we all had a job to do and all members contributed to try and win.

Our efforts were indeed rewarded with the win! Noticeably by the bonus round with the Gromit statues. We won the items procured by each team and with our savings we managed to each take home £20 each and a trophy to commemorate our victory.

All in a day working at Market Dojo.

Special thanks to the 3 Sugars (Nic, Nick and Alun) and also to our Social coordinator Chris whom without this would not have been possible.