Team portrait drawings
Above you see the winning portrait drawing of operations administrator Emma Skirton by Project Coordinator Liam Symes.
Team portrait drawings
Every now and then after a team meeting we play the Jenga game here in the office. The person that knocks it over has to come up with an idea to improve the general performance of the company or like in this case a suggestion of a different kind like a competition of some sort. When our designer Deborah McAulay knocked the tower over with a very daring move of one of the blocks, she called a team portrait drawing competition. We each had to draw a name from the fishbowl and draw their portrait. A week later everybody had to vote for their favourite portrait. The portrait with the most votes would win the honour of the competition.
Apart from great fun, it is an excellent way to explore unknown talent among team members. The winner Liam Symes joined our sister company Incognito Heat Co earlier this year as a Project Coordinator, so we knew he was talented. However that this tough ex military-service man had such great talent in drawing came as a pleasant surprise to all of us! So Liam, congratulations and we hope to see many of your drawings in the future!
Sarah Harper by Deborah McAulay
The second prize went to Deborah for the portrait of Quantity Surveyor Sarah Harper. A pleasant and joyful person who doesn't miss a penny in project calculations!
Liam Symes by Sam James
The third prize was for Sam James for the portrait of the winner of this competition Liam Symes.
Andrew Skirton by Emma Skirton
In this portrait made by Emma Skirton of the Incognito Sales Director Andrew Skirton, Emma captured the true a-symmetric character of this hands-on underfloor heating expert!
Roy James by Cigdem Ozluk
No surprise of course that creative talent Cigdem Ozluk comes with this portrait of Project & Operations Director Roy James. She managed to visualise his gimlet eyes and 'on the ball' character very successfully.
Simon James by Fiona Rennick
Also here it is clear from a distance that this portrait of founder and Finance Director Simon James comes from a member of the design team: Fiona Rennick. A free interpretation of the sincerity and experience of one of our senior team members.
Gavin Anderson by Ross Skirton
Ross Skirton managed to display that Business Development manager Gavin Anderson finds it hard to disguise his friendly face, however hard he tries.
Deborah McAulay by Vincent Hartman
Some artistic license loosely applied to portraiture by Vincent Hartman in this digital portrait of Interior Designer Deborah McAulay.
Chris Fielder by Grant Ker
Grant Ker really tried his best with this portrait of Accounts Administrator Chris Fielder. There is some resemblance but fortunately we haven't met him grumpy yet!
Andrew Robertson by Chris Fielder
Chris on his turn drew this transparent and recognisable portrait of Plumbing Trainee Andrew Robertson, of Incognito Heat Co. Prior to his arrival in the office early in the morning is always the unmistakeable noise of his motorbike.
Cigdem Ozluk by Andrew Robertson
Our young and bright plumbing trainee Andrew drew this portrait of Interior Designer Cigdem Ozluk. Very well executed and recognisable, but fortunately Cigdem is a joy to have around.
Fiona Rennick by Robert Milne
We could more or less say the same about this portrait of the then current Design Manager Fiona Rennick, drawn by Robert. She really does come to work in a car and fills the office with warmth and professionalism.
Julian Fielder by Andrew Skirton
Andrew took on the task to draw the portrait of Project Leader Julian Fielder. In all fairness, we had to look twice but it really does seem to be Julian! It looks like Andrew drew it very quickly and shows of a bit to make it look like easy to him, but we do expect him to have put in way more hours than he is willing to admit.
Sam James by Gavin Anderson
We are unsure who Gavin had in mind when he drew this portrait of Sales Director Sam James. We all know Sam James very well and surely this is not him!
Vincent Hartman by Simon James
An easy task for Simon to draw the lines of egg-headed Marketing Manager Vincent Hartman. Spot-on indeed, but what about that saloon car in the back ground?
Robert Milne by Roy James
Story teller Roy must have missed the brief about what he was supposed to be doing here. He came up with a cartoon of Installations Team Leader Robert Milne who is apparently spreading Australian Genes in the Scottish population?
Grant Ker by Sarah Harper
And last but certainly not least is this sketch by Sarah of our Managing Director Grant Ker who will tie the knot in December and seems a bit distracted the last few weeks...
Design and Build our Team @AmosBeech
At Amos Beech in Scotland we Design and Build commercial interiors and furnish them. We pride ourselves that our design solutions exceed customer expectations and that we finish each project on time and within budget. This is not always easy, but with our team we manage to achieve customers goals again and again. To be able to rethink, restructure and redesign office interiors we also work on the continuous development of our staff and on how we work together. So on the first of August we set off to BlueSky Experiences in Perthshire. As this is an official Scottish public holiday (harvest day) we thought that we should be guaranteed to have good weather.
Team building
In the capable hands of Iain McPhee and his colleagues James and Mike we were led to believe that our flight to Los Angeles had to make an emergency landing within dense woodland in Scotland. Our team was split up into three and we had to regroup and together, find clues hidden in the woodland to be able to contact the emergency services. Before we set of in blacked out Land Rovers, Iain gave us a crash course on communication; the characteristics of high performing teams, leadership and the different roles team members have within a team.
In our group the real leadership quickly surfaced:
As we all have great confidence in the sense of direction that our interior design manager puts into her work, we followed her in humble acceptance. By navigating our way through fields and forest we learned about communication within our team and interaction. Unfortunately this didn't prevent us from getting lost:
When the going gets tough, the tough get going and that's where great teamwork fell into place! Other team members with a bit more sense of direction stepped in, formulated a plan and got us back on track:
This plan allowed the team to navigate out of the dense woodland to a site of sanctuary where three daring team members climbed the tallest tree to look out and find clues. Others created shelters and fires with natural materials, testing their bush skills.
Because carnage or not, we Brits need our cup of tea, whatever the circumstances!
The real adventurous types got on with the job of climbing the look-out post and getting the final instructions to locate the ballistic signalling device.
They felt confident that their other team members were there for them to provide safety and encouragement.
Design and Build
Eventually we had to put our brains together for some number crunching before we could get on with designing, building (design and build again?) and launching our signalling rocket. This is where the accounts department suddenly stepped in and proved their skill once again:).
Harnessing the skills of all the individuals once more for the common good. Clear communication, the formulation of a plan, the ability to react to the circumstances and the successful sharing of knowledge and expertise ultimately lead to the launch of the rocket:
Apart from the learning experience, it was above all good fun! Working together with your colleagues outside our own office interiors and venturing into the outdoors of rural Perthshire Scotland, was both useful and a treat.
Thanks to Grant for all the organisation that made this such a great team day out.