AUIP’s Donna writes:

The team from AUIP headed away from Christchurch on their annual pilgrimage for a few days retreat.  It’s a great time to de stress and catch up with staff who live outside of New Zealand and talk over all that’s happened over the last year and to plan for the year ahead. This year we went to the charming little town of Akaroa, which is situated on Banks Peninsula in the harbour of the same name. Akaroa is a lovely little place that was settled by the French in August of 1840 and still has many French influences, which can be seen in the street names. The photo below shows part of the harbour.

We spent the morning travelling and purchasing supplies for our stay and then settled in to a great house that Sara had found for us. An afternoon of business followed and we were joined by Kevin and Steve which gave us a chance to have a full staff debrief. Dinner was a great team building exercise where we broke in to 3 teams. Sara and Eleanor were on entrees, Sheena and Laura dinner and Lee and I finished up with dessert. It was a lot of fun and it set the scene for a great couple of very productive days.

We spent the final day with a very big agenda but managed to get through it all on time which meant we could be part of the Rugby World Cup celebrations. We had booked a table in a local restaurant and settled in in front of a big log fire to enjoy the evening. The opening was more than most of us had imagined and it was a very patriotic moment when we sang the New Zealand national anthem as the All Black’s got ready to kick off against Tonga in the opening match. The whole restaurant joined in with the singing but Eleanor decided she would sing the American Anthem which got some strange looks! After dinner we headed to a local pub to watch the game and the atmosphere was amazing and a great night was had by all of us.

It was a great couple of days and we are all looking forward to next year’s retreat!