We wanted to treat our staff and their families to a day of fun and one to remember to thank them for all of their hard work and dedication to the business.

This was the first year we took on this exciting challenge and what a success it was.

We kept everything which we had planned a secret from the staff so all they knew was the date, time and venue. We did give them a few hints such as ladies to wear shorts or trousers but that was all the help they received.

We hired an Event company Jezo to help us bring our ideas to reality and to ensure that everything went just perfect on the day. Even the weather was ideal for the event, it was forecast to rain all week but we were unbelievably lucky as we didn’t have rain until the very end.

As mentioned we wanted to create an event which they would remember and one which all ages would enjoy. Although we didn’t have a specific theme I would say our mission was to ensure that fun was had by everyone who attended and that work was forgotten about and with the help of Jezo we certainly achieved this.

We hired a field where we are able to have free reign of how much space we wanted which meant we were able to ensure that all the activities we hired fitting into our summer party. Jezo cornered off the space and added a welcome banner so that when the staff arrived it was like they were entering into their own mini festival. Within our mini festival we had a rodeo bull, a bungee run, a surf simulator, a gladiator duel, a bouncy castle, plus other items such as comedy cut outs, giant jenga and connect four and a volleyball net. As you can imagine from all of these activities that everyone was kept busy for the whole of the event.

Below are just a few of the pictures showing staff enjoying the many activities.

As all staff entered they were passed a drink and also asked to enter their fellow colleagues into the ‘AJW Awards’. These were just silly awards but we felt it was important for the staff to vote their colleagues rather than the Directors decide. Read on to see which of our staff won an award.

As with all parties catering is so important and so we chose to offer our guests a ‘Hog Roast’.  Along with the bread and hog there was a selection of salads and pasta plus some amazing crackling. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the food as it was of a great standard.

Dessert for everyone was a luxurious ice cream from Gerald at Charlottes Ice Cream. www.charlottesicecream.co.uk

The other option which was more for the children was a sweet table where they could help themselves to sweets throughout the day. These went down extremely well with none being left by the end of the night.

As the event got under way everyone made the most of all of the activities with everyone getting involved. We also hired a caricaturist for a couple of hours who staff queued up for to see how he portrayed them. Here are a few of the results.

Our Director Tom had a great idea that each Director would be placed in stocks so that the staff could throw sponges at them to soak! As it was Tom’s idea it was only fair for him to start this off and it went down brilliantly. Following on from him a couple of our Depot Managers went in the stocks followed by myself, as one of the Directors I felt it was only fair to let the staff soak me! I had no idea how drenched I would get but the drowned rat look springs to mind.

After the craziness of the stocks we moved into the marquee as we had a magic show which was performed by Jezo himself and what a performance it was. It amazed every one of us and was great to see the staff being pulled up to be part of the magic.

We ended the night with the presentation of our ‘AJW Awards’ We only presented around 15 of them but it was hilarious as some could not understand why they had been voted whilst others it is so obvious who was going to win. Our MD presented them with a certificate and a chocolate medal.

This was the end of the activity we had planned for the day and so everyone was free to enjoy the free bar, have a boogie on the dance floor or carry on playing on the activities.

We feel that the event was a great success, which is down to the incredible planning by Jezo and also by our staff getting involved with everything and thoroughly enjoying themselves.

As a family we have known Jeremy who owns Jezo’s for many years so it was a pleasure to employ his company to help with this event and I would certainly recommend him to anyone who reads this who is looking for an event management company. I could not fault their organising or passion for the event and can only praise them for doing such an amazing job of the first AJW Summer Party 2016.

http://www.jezo.co.uk/