June 2007
All in a day's work
Corporate parties and picnics
By Laura Freeman

Melanie Larkin, party department manager at Sun Rental Center in Mentor, serves up an ice-cold margarita. Sun Rental has margarita machines, tiki bars and all the games and other party accessories for an enjoyable company picnic. Photo by Rick McPeak

It’s a beautiful, sunny, 75-degree day. Looking around the office, you see your employees staring wistfully out the windows. It sure would have been a great day for that company picnic or corporate team-building event.

Don’t let the too-short Northeast Ohio summer pass by without planning an outing for your employees. Corporate parties and picnics show employee appreciation, help boost morale, and go a long way toward improving inter-company relationships.

So say corporate party planners like Bridget Novak, sales and marketing administrator at US Endoscopy in Mentor. Novak plans the company’s national sales meetings each year at Lake Metroparks Farmpark where employees play volleyball and in the evening gather around a bonfire.
 “It is a fun event for our company,” Novak said. “We’re a smaller, family-owned company, so we invite everyone from all the different departments. It’s a good way for everyone to interact.”

Novak and other planners list team-building opportunities and improved productivity among other reasons for holding such events. One area vice president of human resources said outings to Geauga Lake or Pioneer Waterland are fun, but if there isn’t a central meeting area for employees to meet throughout the day, they don’t build those relationships.

“It’s good for people to see their leaders are just regular people,” he said. “A lot of times you only see them in the office or in a meeting. It’s really hard to build relationships there. It’s good for people to interact because you work for people, not corporations.”

You probably have fond memories of attending fun picnics held each summer by your parent’s employers. While there is much more to it than fun for the employees’ children, he said there is something to including the employees’ families.

“Lots of companies want the families to participate because companies take their employees away from their families on weekends and long days,” he said. “We want to appreciate their families and educate them on who their family member works for. It’s great when people have worked for a company their whole lives and their families can come in and see what they do. It builds support.”

Team-building challenges

Does your job have you climbing the walls? You can literally climb a wall at the YMCA’s Outdoor Family Center in Perry. Dick Bennett, district executive at the OFC, said a number of area companies plan to use the OFC this year.

“It’s a year-round facility, but the spring, summer and fall offer more opportunities for a business or corporate group to have company picnics with the three pavilions and large aquatic complex,” Bennett said.

In addition to the climbing wall, Bennett said the low ropes challenge course is good for team building. The course is designed to enhance leadership potential, improve creative thinking and problem-solving, strengthen communication skills and create trust within teams.

Lisa Lewis is administrative assistant at Malish Corp. in Willoughby, a manufacturer of commercial brushes and specialty products for maintenance equipment. She starts planning Malish’s annual picnics in January. This September will be the fifth picnic at the OFC lodge. Lewis said she looks for cleanliness, size, flexibility and help with planning. She likes that the facility has a kitchen as well as indoor and outdoor accommodations, in case of rain.

 “We use the rollerblading facility, play mini-golf, do rock climbing and hike the trails. People really look forward to it,” she said.

The picnic used to be held onsite but was moved to offer more of a variety of activities.

“It’s a more intimate gathering, with everyone all in the same area,” she said. “People can mingle and socialize. It allows them to meet their families and watch each other’s kids grow up.”

Lake Metroparks Farmpark has team-building opportunities as well. Planners can choose from milking contests, scavenger hunts and three-legged races. Border collie and sheep demonstrations are popular for showing people how to work together as a team.

Or plan a race at All-Season Raceway in the former Taft Elementary School on E. 332nd Street in Eastlake. Owner Steve Pinkerman will set up a car race for four drivers at a time. Racers use a full-sized steering wheel to steer slotless, radio-controlled cars on a banked track.

Pinkerman said this allows for healthy competition.

“There’s a lot of cheering and yelling that goes on while they’re racing,” he said. “It’s just good, clean, wholesome fun.”

For more information, call 440-269-1991 or visit www.allseasonraceway.com.

Business perks

Holden Arboretum in Kirtland offers a Business Partnership Program. Depending on the level of participation, partners receive recognition in the annual report, free gate admission, free use of the shelter house, complimentary meeting facility rental and more. Partnerships are available from $250 to $5,000+.

Holden venue choices include the Warren H. Corning Visitor Center with the Corning Visitor Center lobby and the Reinberger classroom. The Shelter House has a picnic area and grills available year round. Lantern Court, a Georgian/Colonial-style estate house is used for meetings, lectures and workshops. Lake Metroparks has a similar program.

Choosing a theme

Can’t find a venue that exactly meets your needs? Turn your venue of choice into the party of your dreams. Want a beach-themed picnic? Or to make employees and their families feel like they’ve just stepped off a plane into Mexico?

Larry Felice, part owner of Sun Rental Center in Mentor, said Sun Rental has a lot more than just tables and chairs. Everything from tiki bars and ’50s-style soda shops to chocolate fountains and margarita machines – even money machines are for rent for adding a fun flair to a picnic.

 “We’ve got a ton of children’s games, we have ice cream and hot dog carts, and tents of all different sizes,” he said. “The tug-of-war ropes are big – they go out every weekend.”

Matching party & place

Lake Metroparks facilities like Penitentiary Glen Reservation, Lakefront Lodge and Painesville Township Park are good for offsite meetings. For outdoor picnics, Farmpark and Hogback Ridge are popular choices.

Amy Kapostasy, in sales and corporate services at Lake Metroparks, said today’s corporations want a place where teams can get away from their hurried environments.

“Coming to one of the Lake Metroparks facilities provides them a creative, relaxed atmosphere while encouraging productivity,” Kapostasy said. “It gives them an opportunity to kind of work outside of their box a little bit, take a different perspective on their views.”

Susan Mikolic, owner of Stepping Stones Mental Health Educational Consulting, holds public workshops at Penitentiary Glen on how to live in peace no matter what is going on in your life. She now is planning to hold quarterly workshops there.

“The setting added to the first meeting remarkably. It matched the function,” Mikolic said.

She holds workshops, often company-sponsored, for organizations that want to help their employees learn how to live in health, peace and joy.

“It’s all about how we use the energy in our daily lives to manage stressors,” she said. “By mulling things over and over in our heads we lose a tremendous amount of energy. If your employees can stay peaceful and calm then they can be more productive. They aren’t spending half the day upset over something their husband said.”

Some choose a certain venue not for the activities or amenities it can provide, but what it stands for instead. Dee Aufuldish is a board member of the League of Woman Voters. She helped plan the organization’s annual meeting at Lake Farmpark. Aufuldish said they chose the location carefully.

“We wanted to have it at Farmpark because of the science center, wind turbine and solar panel. We are interested in alternate forms of energy and our concern about the energy crisis and global warming makes it a perfect place,” she said. “It’s a Lake County facility that has so many examples of using the earth well.”

More productive meetings

Danialle Lynce, human resources manager at University Hospital Systems in Chardon, recently planned an offsite event for the facility’s extended management team at Farmpark.

“For us going offsite does changes your environment by taking you away from your desk and your phone,” Lynce said. “And it takes you completely outside of your comfort zone and sets people up to think differently.”

The group did team-building exercises then spent the afternoon in small group break-out sessions, generating brainstorming ideas.

“I think you can accomplish so much in one day as compared to doing the same thing at your regular worksite,” she said.

Lynce plans other events such as a recent employee health fair and onsite picnics like the recent Memorial Day picnic and a fall clambake for employee recognition.

“These types of events have definitely been well received,” Lynce said. She said employees feel more appreciated and gain a sense of camaraderie.

“They spend so much time at the job that it’s nice to be able to have a casual conversation with someone and not always be the patient’s caregiver, or the person who cleans the floor, or the accountant who is always crunching the numbers,” she said. “You get to be a person too.”

Laura Freeman is editor of the Lake County Business Journal