Last week, we decided to get together as an office and have lunch.

“So what?!” we hear you cry.

What made this get-together a little different is that it was a chance to practice our presentation skills – everyone was asked to stand at the front and present in a Pecha Kucha-style*. The strict rules of this format dictate 20 slides, timed to show for 20 seconds, but we were vague about content. Staff could talk about what they’d been working on recently whether it’s in the office or at University & College (5 of our 13 members of staff are studying part-time), or if they wanted to talk about something completely off-the-wall, that was fine too, we weren’t fussy.

We hoped to achieve 3 things:
– learn through sharing
– build confidence & practice presentation skills
– get to know one another a little better

As it turned out, the presentations were varied to say the least. Russell (Architectural Assistant, 6 years at BPN) revealed he had some poetry published a few years ago, Dean (Architect & Associate, 12 years at BPN) passed on some of his new-found knowledge about Part L of the Building Regulations and Richard (founding Director), shared his knowledge of bats and the most distinctive feature of a Brandt’s Bat.

It was such a success we’re going to do it all over again in a few months.

*Pecha Kucha = a japanese presentation style. Pecha Kucha pronounced “pe-chak-cha”, is the onomatopoeic Japanese word for the sound of conversation. The English term is “chit-chat”.