Behind the (Code) Lines: Club Committee

 

Introduction to the Club Committee:

From the very beginning of our journey, Sparkers has always been about people! 

It is in this familiar atmosphere that a small group of volunteers took on the mission of making people happy or simply to bond colleagues (whose names will not be mentioned) together in a  setting outside of their hard and passionate work. 

From Tree-climbing to Digital Events bringing together all the offices, the committee is always working hard to offer unforgettable moments.

Quality time at Lac de lEau dHeure

The Christmas party is also one of the most eagerly awaited events arranged by the club committee, and sometimes requires several months of preparation by its organizers.

To know a bit more about the club committee, let’s meet Jérôme, one of its members!

From Tree-climbing to Digital Events bringing together all the offices, the committee is always working hard to offer unforgettable moments.

 

 

Interview with Jérôme: Club Committee Member

 Picture of Jerome at the Christmas party
What is the Club Committee? 

The Club Committee is a small group of colleagues, working together to plan and organize the diverse events and team building activities that happens along the year in our company. These range from small afterworks in the office to the annual Christmas party, along with some original events like the “Digital event”.

How long has it been around?

The Club was created at the end of 2019. I joined them very soon after I started at Sparkers. I began in August 2021 and probably joined them around September or October 2021.

How many members are in the Club Committee?

It has been changing a bit lately, but we are usually between 6 and 9 members.

Why did you join?

I’m not sure that I remember how I joined them, I think it was a colleague, who asked me for some help design-wise for the Club. As I didn’t know what it was, I asked more information and she asked if I wanted to join. I was happy to do so, because I thought it could be interesting to have a designer in such a team (a designer is always needed at least for some stuff) but I was super happy to join because I always enjoyed organizing some events. It must come from my studies in cinema where I was in a bachelor's program to be a director/producer/assistant director, and it always involved organizing big shoots around the country. 

On the other side, I always like to vary my work so it was a great opportunity to change a bit the kind of work I need to do sometimes.

How has the committee allowed you to connect with your colleagues?

Well, first of all, it helped me connect and feel closer to the other members of the Club. As we are all organizing events, and most of the time it’s all about the fun we’ll have with our colleagues, we are generally more excited than tired to organize all this. Sure, we don’t have a lot of time every week, and sometimes some members will work more on some events than others but it’s always a good moment for us to share. It’s not that stressful and is a good alternative to our day-to-day work. There’s no clients, no bugged feature releases, and no big rush, so it’s completely something different.
Since we are all a bit the same in that Club, with the same taste for games, board games or parties, it’s always good to see them for a moment during the week. 

Colleagues having fun after work around a board game

Most of the time it’s all about the fun we’ll have with our colleagues, we are generally more excited than tired to organize all this.

 

What events have you guys hosted in the past?

The most notorious one was certainly the small trip to Les Fagnes where almost the whole company here in Belgium joined all together and spent a whole 24 hours together. We started on Thursday afternoon with some classic teambuilding activities organized by an external company. Then we spent the evening in a cottage, where we had a diner served by a chef and then had a memorable night with a DJ and…well…some reasonable alcohol. The next morning we all went on a trek and answered some questions to help the Club or the HR department to improve the day-to-day work in the office, with some games like “Kill the stupid rule”. It was probably the best event we have ever organized, as people are still talking about it.

Another one that I already talked about was the “Digital Event” that we did in November. The idea was to gather all the offices with a big Teams call and play some games, because some of us never saw each other as we belong to different teams. The games consisted of some quizzes about video games and the company, movies and series blind test and a City Guesser. That was really fun even though the connection between offices was not that easy to manage.

The most notorious [event] was certainly the small trip to Les Fagnes where almost the whole company here in Belgium joined all together and spent a whole 24 hours together. .

 

Any future plans for the committee?

Not many, since we’ll probably have a meeting at the beginning of 2023 to brainstorm ideas and already schedule some activities for the upcoming year. We already know that we’ll obviously have a new Christmas party like every year, but we’d like to make a new version of Les Fagnes next year, probably at the Belgian coast (or at least it’s one of our ideas)..

How long does it take to make an event a great success?

It really depends on the scale of the event. For a simple afterwork, we can spend a few weeks preparing it - a few meetings to collect ideas and then to follow up on the progress of everyone on all the subjects (the reservations, the food, the drinks etc).
For more complex ones, like Christmas or Les Fagnes, we can spend several months organizing them. For example, for the Christmas party, we started during the summer as we needed to book the activities and locations as soon as possible to have some options. The closer we get to the deadline, the more often we have meetings all together to make sure everything and everyone is aligned. Overall, we try to have one meeting every Thursday when we are organizing any event.Christmas party diner at La Tartine

For more complex [events], like Christmas or Les Fagnes, we can spend several months organizing them.

 

Is it easy to get involved and how?

There isn’t any process actually. We always welcome new colleagues with fresh ideas... and are actively looking for new "clubbers" to have fun with us.