Portland Children’s Museum Cooks up a Staff Retreat with a Dash of Fun

Posted By Decisions Decisions on June 11th, 2010

 

Portland Children’s Museum Cooks up a Staff Retreat with a Dash of Fun. Over 45 staff members of the Portland Children’s Museum gathered for a two-day staff retreat on Wednesday, June 2^nd to contribute their collective wisdom to the organization’s current strategic planning process. In an effort to ensure the strategic plan reflects input from – and is owned by – all of the Museum’s critical stakeholders, PCM sought out Decisions Decisions to lead the process. Decisions Decisions guided the retreat, engaged the staff, and made sure everyone had fun along the way – right from the get-go. During dinner the first night, staff members were asked to share a story that highlighted one way in which their work had made a difference in a child’s life. And since the stories involved children, naturally, they were everything from laugh-out-loud funny to fill-your-eyes-with-tears tender. People shared stories that involved language barriers (a child asked for help in finding his sister who was wearing a “skate” – staff discovered shortly thereafter he meant “skirt”) and creative problem solving (in an attempt to attend to an overflowing fountain, one child used a small cup to try to scoop the excess water into another container). By the end of the meal, everyone had smiles on their faces, full stomachs from the delicious meal, and renewed energy to dive back into the planning process with the excitement and curiosity that seems to come naturally to anyone who sets foot in the Portland Children’s Museum.

 

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