Friday Club
We have a Friday tradition at Open Systems for celebrating the end of the working week. We call it the Friday Club. The deal is that any employee, or group of employees, may organize an event on company premises and use company facilities to do so. The decisions, and the responsibility, lie with the organizers. In the past, it has also been a great opportunity for those interested in working here to find out more about the company vibe.
I've organized three Friday Clubs so far, with three entirely different themes, and I enjoyed it tremendously – both their organization and the events themselves, and just being around my colleagues.
Salsa Friday Club
For my first Friday Club, I decided on a Cuban theme, including cooking a warm dish in the company kitchen, preparing Cuban snacks and serving typical Cuban beverages. Members of our Salsa Dancing club helped with the organization.
Salsa Cubana is danced in a circle, where the leaders weave figures and switch places, interchanging steps with the followers. When you get the figures right and stick to the beat, you have beautiful group harmony. And if you get them wrong, you have joy. And you try again.
Rollerskating Friday Club
The idea of a roller disco came to fruition one lunchtime in a passing comment from a colleague. I decided to go for it and began planning.
At first I thought we could do without a disco ball. There wasn't one handy on site, said the King of Logistics.
"A disco ball?IS?essential for a disco," people told me.
"Okay, you have a point," I conceded and turned to our event organizer in Marketing who happened to know where a disco ball could be found. It was easy to pick up, pay, and to drop off again. I was seriously impressed by the place we rented it from – it had?everything?to do with building stages for concerts.
I'd made a list for skaters to enter their names, so I could rent the right number of roller skates in the right sizes for them. We also ended up borrowing building-site helmets that were around from a previous event, for safety. My Marketing colleague happened to be a qualified chef, and he very kindly helped me with the food for the Sandwich Building Station. The engineers helped me move all the tables out of the dining area, and to move the beverage crates into the cafeteria. The IT and video people managed to sort out the sound system and set up the beamer to project selected YouTube clips onto the wall.
The skaters who knew roller dances then taught others, whereas some people preferred not to skate at all, but to just enjoy the vibe, sandwiches, drinks and music.
I think back to that evening fondly. Even the cleaning up seemed easy.
Borsh Friday Club
Borsh is a soup of many vegetables, the main of which is beetroot, hence its color. Any stock can be used for the base: beef, pork, chicken, or vegetable. The soup is supposed to have a sweet + sour taste, which is achieved with a touch of sugar and apple cider as well tomato paste. What exact veggies go into it depends on what’s available. Most people have their own family recipe.
The basic recipe is many centuries old. I made it into an individual piece of creative cooking, after having practiced three times at home. On the important day, when I thought the Borsh looked ready, I tasted it and pulled a face.
Far too sweet!
In went the tomato paste and tomato.
Still far too sweet.
In went 2 spoons of apple vinegar.
Still too sweet.
In went more tomato paste.
And another spoon of apple vinegar.
And garlic.
Aaah, that was more like it.
Many of my colleagues came to try the soup, some with their families, and the ambiance was fantastic.