‘5 to 9’ boosst team update

After a lovely long Christmas break, the team returned to the office fully refreshed, ready to kick off 2024.

Spring is springing here at boosst HQ, the bulbs are peeking through and the wildlife is settling around the lake.  The swans have visited, we have resident ducks and we all have our fingers crossed for some ducklings!

 

As ever, the team are getting their 2024 off to a flying start. Some seeking winter sun, a few following the England Rugby team around the 6 nations, and others taking the time to explore new places on home soil.

Team Activities

December saw Laura and Riah handover the baton as our team Wellness Ambassadors, with myself (Jennie) & Dawn stepping into the role for 2024!

With a jam packed agenda for the year, we have already improved our livers throughout January, with varying levels of Dry January success reported across the team!  We have also been completing our meditation minutes and reminding ourselves of the benefits a little time-out can bring.

We had the first of four Bake Off rounds a fortnight ago when we all brought in our delicious bakes for CAKE week! We’ve included a full gallery of our efforts at the end of this post. With more Bake Offs planned in May, August and November, we are concerned that Tom may have peaked too soon with his amazing Creme Egg cake, a real showstopper!

Dawn & I were somewhat relieved, however, that the Apple Cake won the taste test… as surely an apple falls into ‘Wellness’ somewhere!?

February also saw six of us support local charity, Willen Hospice, at their annual quiz night.  We were feeling somewhat out of place when the first round left us rock bottom of the leaderboard, but we ended up a respectable ‘mid-table’ after playing our joker for double points on the TV theme tunes round and gaining maximum score. All in all, good fun and the event raised almost £7,000 for an excellent local charity. We will brush up on our architects, composers and artists ready for next year!

Travel & Fun

Nick and Martina continued their worldwide exploration with nearly 3 weeks spent travelling in Thailand, during which they celebrated their second wedding anniversary 🥂.  With Nick’s passion of spontaneity, they left the UK with only one hotel booked for the first night of their trip!

The emerald green water includes no fake “filters” (it was genuinely that stunningly green!) and was one of the best snorkelling places they’d ever seen (up there with the Maldives and the Galapagos islands). The food was generally amazing,, but Nick found a new favourite Thai dish… “Tom Kha Gai” (Coconut Soup ):

Nicola has enjoyed a few firsts with her son Arthur; his first trip to the Natural History Museum to see the Titanosaur Exhibition.  The sheer size of the Titanosaur was made evident by the full size reproduction cast, which took up most of the hall. A great, if somewhat tiring, day out for the family!

Then a trip to Hertfordshire Zoo let Arthur meet some new furry friends, with the Snow Leopard ‘Jessie’ a firm favourite, along with the cheeky sun bears. 

Josh and Gabby decided to head off for some winter sun and spent 10 days in Doha in February. They diligently saved up their air miles to travel First Class and it was certainly an experience! The food was the highlight of the journey, although a personal bathroom (each!) was quite the treat! Doha offers a more restrained Middle East experience compared to Dubai, with trip highlights including a sunset in the middle of the Qatari desert, epic architecture at the Islamic Arts Museum and a camel ride (Gabby’s personal favourite!). 

You may remember that this time last year, Dawn adopted two beautiful Schnauzers, Rufus and Luther.  The dogs have settled in wonderfully and Dawn has recently completed a scent detection course with Luther.  They have both had great fun unleashing the power of his nose – Luther has loved searching drain pipes, bags, chairs, cars and tractors! Perhaps a police career will be next on the cards for Luther…?

Keith and Linda have been busy supporting the England Rugby boys! From their walking holiday in Rome (where they were treated to the rare sight of England winning!), to a crazy few days in Edinburgh at the Calcutta Cup, they have been kept very busy!  In Edinburgh, they met up with their Scottie pals – Keith first met these guys in 1990 at an England v Scotland game at Twickenham, and they’ve been the best of pals ever since, even travelling as far as New Zealand and Australia together, enjoying the wonderful game…well sometimes anyway!

Keith and Linda also attended the 60th birthday of one of our longest standing clients and friends, Steve Hardy. As a great advocate for boosst, Steve has introduced lots of friends, family and colleagues over the years, so there were plenty of familiar faces at the party!  A wonderful celebration all round.

Riah and Harry headed to my favourite county, Norfolk, for a long weekend away.  They stayed at The Pigs where they enjoyed a sauna and steam room in their bedroom.  They took a break from all the luxury and headed to Horsey beach, where they were lucky enough to see the cute seal pups lazing in the winter sun.

Finally, just this week Keith, Josh and I attended the Accredited Financial Planning Firms annual conference.  One of the highlights of the year, this event brings the very best Financial Planning firms into one room, allowing us to listen to some great guest speakers and collaborate ideas on how to further improve the services we deliver. A popular speaker was the Hotelier from the Hotel of the Year 2022, Rudding Park, based in Harrogate.  Whilst we work in completely different sectors, he spoke passionately to the room about Customer Service and what phenomenal looks like. His desire to always striving for improvements certainly resonated with our culture and outlook.

We hope you have had an enjoyable start to 2024 and are making all your travel plans – we love hearing about them when you arrive at the office and are waiting for your meeting to start.

Take care,

Jennie

P.S Want to see more from the team at boosst? Connect with us on LinkedIn to see every update we share. 

P.P.S Here are the promised cakes…