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June 30, 2017

Pascal

Our 2017 Retreat to Malmedy

Last weekend we went on our annual company retreat. After our previous one in the Vlissingen water tower, we now went to a beautiful spa/hotel/recording studio in Malmedy, Belgium.

In Vlissingen, we had tried to sneak in some brainstorming sessions; this time we focused on fun and bonding only.

An impression...

We drove from Cologne to Malmedy on Friday morning. We had a few hours to kill before we could settle into our place, so we had a scavenger hunt prepared in town.

The assignments included...

Climbing a statue...

Acting out a movie scene...

Putting on an undersized piece of clothing in a clothing shop...

Eating an apple in a trea...

Planking...

Taking a selfie with a local pet...

... and some other stuff. Then we headed to the retreat house.

It wasn't easy finding a place for our size of group (22). Most rental houses were too small, while we felt we'd lose the team-effect if we'd go for a hotel.

In the end we found the perfect place with Manufacture de Malmedy. It's a 2-floor Swedish-style house that can hold 32 people, so it was spacious for us. What's more, it had a great view, plenty of communal areas, a fully equipped kitchen, a meeting room, a bar, a cinema, a swimming pool with underwater sound system, and a sauna.

Living room.

Pool and sauna.

Cinema.

Outdoor area where we had our dinners and drinks.

The first night we did a pub quiz without a pub (but with drinks).

In the morning, Michael shared some American culture with us through his delicious pancakes.

Pancakes & Happiness.

Some of us also did some hiking.

We met baby goats.

Others preferred to relax.

These guys wouldn't stop playing their guitars.

For the first dinner we had meaty and vegan bolognese.

Before the second dinner, Jörn getting ready to do what he does best.

Marta keeping up the pace.

Queuing up for the burgers.

Few things beat a barbecue.

The second evening we also had some talks. Marta talked about strategic planning; Igor talked about server compartmentalization.

On day 3, we did nothing but relaxing, cleaning up, and heading home. Andrea created a nice page in the guest book to thank Manufacture de Malmedy for the awesome weekend.

This weekend will be hard to top, but we'll give it our best shot next year!