Sometimes, you need to get your team together outside of the office environment. That’s the philosophy behind Diversity’s annual Midsummer Games, which this year took place on a scorching hot July afternoon.
Diversity have a longstanding relationship with current University of the Year holders Nottingham Trent University (NTU). Through our participation in the Enabling Innovation initative we’ve been closely involved with NTU for a number of years, from providing work experience to supporting university students.
The Midsummer Games are the brainchild of NTU business consultant Emmie Studencki. Staff from both Diversity and NTU participated in the event, and teams of five faced a series of physical and mental challenges which tested memory, dexterity, physical prowess and, at times, pure commitment.
Highlights this year included tying a biro around the waist and then squatting the pen into a narrow bottle, passing a cucumber between team mates without using hands, and crawling around in a field (to the bemusement of onlookers) trying to collect potatoes while blindfolded.
Points were awarded for successful completion of tasks, and this year five teams progressed to the quarter-final stage – including all three Diversity teams.
Digging the Dancing Queen
While all the quarter-finalists braced themselves for more physical challenges, Emmie had something rather different in store. Instead of testing sporting skill, teams had two minutes to come up with a fully choreographed dance routine to an ABBA song of their choice.
As you might imagine the results of this were, shall we say, ‘mixed’. That was all apart from one of our Diversity teams who managed to nail an X-Factor worthy routine to disco stomper Super Trouper which secured their place in the semi-final.
After the Scandipop interlude, the physical challenges returned with teams fighting it out in a series of tug-of-war contests until one team was crowned champions. We’re delighted to report that it was a Diversity team that won this year’s Games, and they took home the popular Swedish outdoor game Kubb as their prize.
A massive thanks to everyone from NTU who came up to our offices and threw themselves into this year’s Midsummer Games, and to Emmie for organising yet another superb event. We’ll be back to defend our title in 2019!