Our 2018 Company Retreat to Kamperland
For this year’s Userlike retreat, we went to Kamperland, the Netherlands. The weather wasn’t on our side, really, but that didn’t stop us from having one hella good time. A recap.
Finding a house like the one we’d had for last year’s retreat , one that would both meet our expectations for comfort and design and fit all of us 30+ Userlikers , turned out to be difficult. But because we wanted a more unique experience than we felt we'd be getting in a hotel, we decided to rent several adjoining houses in a bungalow park .
On Friday, we shut down our office in Cologne so we could start our trip early. Instead of organizing our trip in car pools like in the previous years, we’d booked a bus company to bring us to our destination. Field trip feeling!
When we arrived at Kamperland, the sky cleared up for a short time – the only time for that weekend, actually – and shed some sunlight on our beautiful bungalows right by the water.
After sharing a delicious breakfast together, we met in one house for a brainstorming session. A week earlier at our Userlike Thursday event, the Chairman of the Atefa girls’ school charity had done a presentation on his project which provides access to education to girls and young women in Estalef, Afghanistan. Userlike had already been supporting this charity for some years but we all felt we wanted to do more charity work. The retreat seemed like a great place to expand on this important topic and discuss our ideas.
However, this was the only ‘official’ point on our agenda. This year, we had no lightning talks or any other work-related stuff scheduled. We wanted to focus on bonding as a team and simply enjoying our time together.
No matter how many agenda items you whiz through, a retreat without any downtime won't lead to connected, productive employees upon your return.
Inc.
Our team has grown fast in a relatively short amount of time. Four years ago, Userlike was a group of 4 – now we’re 8 times that many. A company retreat is perfect for getting to know your coworkers better, outside the usual office environment and everyone’s day-to-day work routines.
