Thorntons Plc Celebrates Its 100th Year With A Family Gala Day

My day job at Thorntons plc is Training and Development Manager, overseeing all the training for our chocolate factory, head office and store colleagues. However, 2011 is a special year for us as we are celebrating our 100th year and as a result of this my day job is now being shared with my role on our centenary dream team.

Naturally due to my role I am responsible for all the people elements of celebrating centenary along with my dream team colleagues who are responsible for product, PR and all other things centenary related.

The first big employee event of the centenary calendar was a family gala day. We wanted our head office and factory based employees to get the chance to celebrate this momentous occasion with their families and loved ones.

When it came to the brief for the event I was given a blank canvas and together with my centenary team colleagues we talked about the possibility of a gala day on our Thornton Park site, and had a whole host of different activities we wanted to run on the day.

The one thing we needed to get across to all our visitors was how much fun it was to work in such an amazing company, with such a fantastic product. We decided to open the doors to our chocolate factory and provide factory tours for as many visitors as we could.

The day started officially at 11.00 am. However, for all the amazing volunteers and some of the artists we booked this seemed pretty much like half way through the day, as some of us had been there as early as 6.00 am!

At the published finish time of 4.00 pm we still had a small group of people (young and old) who were reluctant to leave the fun behind.

We are very lucky here at Thorntons that we have such an amazing site. Not just for the space available but also for the green spaces, plants, trees and often glimpses of rabbits and squirrels (and even the odd woodpecker!) It was because of this we wanted to hold the event on our site and let people see the place where their loved ones spend so much of their time.

It also meant that we were in control of where we had all the events and were responsible for set up and take down of the event. We even have our own hygiene team who could clean up for us after the event!

As a team we had loads of ideas for things we wanted to include on the day. Our main objectives were to make people smile and laugh, and make sure that there were acts and entertainment that spanned across all age groups.

We knew we wanted live music as a backdrop to the event but also live music that made people come to the stage and stop for a moment to appreciate them.

As the event was celebrating 100 years the set list of any chosen band was important to us, as well as the ability to play music that all ages could enjoy.

We booked 8 piece funk, pop and soul band Funkytown, and they didn’t disappoint. We had many people comment on how brilliant they were and even ask for Alive Network’s web site details so they could book them for their own events.

Another great success on the day and perhaps the most popular activity was the circus workshop. The kids loved this and there were queues at various points throughout the day.

A continuation of the circus workshop was the face painting, stilt walkers, jesters and jugglers, balloon modellers and fire and glow performers.

I can’t speak highly enough of all of the people involved in this part of the day – the way they interacted with the children was fantastic and queues were testament to this.

A favourite moment was seeing the policemen who had come as part of the emergency services demonstration armed with their balloon model machine guns!

One thing I haven’t mentioned about the gala day was the rain – the absolute torrential downpour that didn’t stop until an hour and half after our gala day had opened its gates (reassuringly the glorious sunshine followed!).

The reason I haven’t mentioned it is because it didn’t stop any one of the performers from Alive Network going out and doing what they had agreed to come to our gala day and do.

Faces were still painted, balloon animals still created, and at times the band were playing to empty (and damp) deckchairs.

I am still to this day amazed and grateful for all of their professionalism and commitment to making our special celebration a success.

Any pearls of wisdom you would like to extend to other event planners?

So, given the great success of the day would I do anything differently? Probably not unless it becomes possible to order weather!

The key to the success of the day that I would extend to others is that it is all in the planning – you cannot over plan for a day like this. The more people you share your plans with the more likely you are to cover all bases.

Next, never underestimate the power of people to help you deliver – working alone is not the answer, and for me the 54 volunteers who gave up their time was priceless.

If you are the lead on a project or event like this then the combination of successful planning and people power means that you too get to enjoy the day.

And, that is my final pearl of wisdom – enjoy the day yourself. After all the hard work and sleepless nights, you deserve it!