The Memory Box: First try at Corporate Events

Tee hee, with a new year and new office, I have new opportunities....

Flowers in waiting area

In the past, I always thought I only wanted to do weddings and the occasional party or celebration, but would not really enjoy doing corporate events. The reason being I thought corporate events would be quite boring, it's always just the food and very simple decorations, and the event is mainly people sitting at the table and nothing much happening...

But recently in January, February and March, I got to do events for the company, some are client focused and one for internal Randstad staff.

In January and February, we did a client cocktail and candidate cocktail event respectively. They were fairly simple, just some canapes and drinks and lots of people! But it was still a new experience to pull everything together and make sure that it fit what my boss was looking for and also my own expectations of a successful event! Sadly, no photos though! We were all too busy entertaining guests, or (I was) running around cleaning up... :) But that's part of the job.

Reception flowers for the week of March events

Then in March, we had another client event, but this was on a smaller scale (the previous ones were for 60-80 people in our office), with just under 20 guests, for lunch with our APAC director and our Randstad Board Member from the UK. And we also decided to host the the official office launch on the same day!

It was actually great fun planning the events, although at times also a bit frustrating and hectic, as it was the first time to work on a lot of things, but definitely a great learning experience. I did a lot of the flowers and as much of the purchasing and putting together of things myself as I could, even though this was a lot of work, but I think it's worth it. I like it when things are made personally for people to enjoy.

Lots of planning ahead of time, from the invitation design, table design, deciding the menu, deciding the content to be discussed (even though it's supposed to be a discussion forum but we still need to give it some structure), and creating gifts for our guests and more! I can't even remember every single thing in detail now.... lol...

So instead of going into all the boring details of planning, I will just recount them as I share photos, and I can always look through my file again in the future if I need to refresh my memory....

March 15th, 2012

Above: I shopped for a blue cloth that was as close to our Randstad blue as possible and used that as the table cloth. I also made grey napkins specially for this event.

below centre: I used black marble slabs for a cheese and antipasti platter, at first I wanted to use slate, but didn't know where to find them, and thought they might be really expensive in HK. So in the end I was told by my uncle that I could get marble slabs from these marble factories, and I was wondering where can I find a marble factory in HK? and it's actually quite simple, there are always these factories next to cemeteries in HK, so we went to one on HK island and we got three black marble slabs for only HK$ 270!!! Such a deal! and the proprietor was so nice!

A great turn out!

It was so crazy, because we put down 12noon for this event on the invitation and expected guests to arrive a little later than 12, but a lot of them actually arrived earlier than 12! We had to rush to put all the food on plates, and thanks to the help of my two very good colleagues, we got the food out all nice and presentable... :D

Once the lunch started, then I was able to relax a little and eat a bit and sit and rest.... I didn't have to prep for the afternoon cocktail until about after the luncheon was over.

The guests of the afternoon cocktail was all the core staff of Randstad Hong Kong, and some special guests from the APAC region: Brian Wilkinson (Board Member for APAC region), Deb Loveridge (Director of APAC region), George Wang (Managing Director of China), Roop Kaistha, Lousia Wilson, Karin Clarke and many others - there were so many guests here that week, it nearly filled out all the empty seats in our office.

For the cocktail, my boss wanted some Chinese traditions included as well, such as a Lion Dance, pig cutting, red pockets, and most importantly a fun time for everyone!

It was quite exciting to plan, as we had some surprises in store for everyone, such as the Lion Dance, and the gifts that we came up with.

We made cufflinks with the Randstad logo for all the men, and bracelet and Randstad logo charm for all the women.

Left: This was the set up for the cocktail, we had champagne, cheese, foie gras, truffle sauce and lots of other yummy nibbles.

So we started the evening off with getting everyone into the board room and just a brief opening speech. And then I went to get the Lion Dance troupe and had them get ready. Then the gong sounded and everyone came out for the surprise Lion Dance. It was a special ceremony for our APAC Director and Board Member, because they had never been to one of these. They had to dot the eyes and run their brushes down the Lion from head to tail, symbolizing from beginning to end. And the Lion grab the head of a lettuce to symbolize Wealth/Fortune, as Lettuce in Chinese ("Cai") sounds similar to Wealth/Fortune.

Above and below: photos by Chung Yeung

Photo by Teresa Wong

Photo by Chung Yeung

Then the Lion led everyone around the office once and then back into the board room, to spread wealth and fortune to all corners of the office. I have two videos of the Lion Dance, but I am not able to upload them here.... so if you want to see them you can email me and I'll send them to you - but you'll have to watch with your head tilted, because the camera man forgot that filming a video does not work in portrait orientation.... hehe

I think everyone was really surprised by the Lion Dance and truly enjoyed it. Even though a lot of us are Chinese, we have not ever seen a Lion Dance so close, and it's so much more special during this occasion... everyone had their iphones out taking photos and filming... I think I should ask them for photos and videos!

Once back in the board room, I had a roast pig on the table waiting for them. Our Board Member had the honor of making the first cut for us, and he really gave it a big "Whack" on the head! hehe....