Member Article

Beaulieu based team building specialist welcomes NHS back to the river

A New Forest location that specialises in family activities and corporate “away days“ has revealed an NHS burns and plastic surgery unit nurse as the winner of a major competition designed to get the UK “back to business“.

Back in May, with the UK slowly coming back to the office and the “new normal”, New Forest Activities launched a competition for firms with up to 15 employees to win one of their team-building packages.

Over 500 companies and organisations entered from across the UK, with a perhaps unsurprisingly larger percentage hailing from locations closer to the south of the country, eager to spend a day on the picturesque Beaulieu River with the organisers New Forest Activities.

The winner was a member of NHS Salisbury District Hospital’s Burns and Plastic Surgery Unit, Plastics trauma nurse Charlie Eadle.

Commenting on winning the competition, Charlie said;

’I came across the competition on social media and felt it was a great opportunity for some fun team bonding. When we entered I never thought we would win, especially when I saw it taking off on social media but one can but hope! When the New Forest Activities team got in touch we were of course, totally overjoyed.

‘Working throughout a pandemic has been a challenge for all the team and it is great that some of us can get together outside of work to have some fun doing some great outdoor activities in a beautiful setting.’

New Forest Activities was set up by university friends Sam Sutton and Rich Pearsall, with the mission of making it easy for people to enjoy time on the water.

Moving on and expanding over the years, New Forest Activities is now the largest provider of outdoor activities within The National Park.

In recent years, the team has expanded, along with their offering, which until last year saw team building and corporate away days growing in popularity as busy professionals sought a break from the boardroom whilst developing their team and their vision.

Sam Sutton, co-founder of New Forest Activities explains;

’As Charlie said, it has been tough times for everyone. I think the overwhelming response we had to the competition shows that there is a huge need to recognise and reward the hard work that people have been putting in to keep things on an even keel, if you will pardon the water-based pun!

‘Any one of the 500+ organisations that got in touch would have deserved to win this team building package but ultimately, I think we can all agree that the NHS and team’s like Charlie’s might benefit from it the most right now. We all salute them and look forward to welcoming them down to the river.’

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Mac Watson .