Sheep Dip with Raising the Baa
Discover how to keep your team engaged, happy, connected and productive - with and without the help of sheep.
Building the best team in your field.
Sheep Dip with Raising the Baa
Pick Your Own - with Vanessa of Crafty Team Building
What struck ewe most from this episode - and why?
A business that was borne out of demand rather than the other way round.
Just like Raising the Baa, today's guest Vanessa Hastings didn't set up her business and then approach potential clients.
A company team asked Vanessa if she could run a craft-based team build session for them.
Hear the whole story of Crafty Team Building in this episode of Sheep Dip.
We also touch on service stations and cheese.... yes, really!
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Whilst hundreds of companies have brought their teams to a farm to herd sheep with us at Raising the Baa, we know that the field-based exercises are not for everyone.
So we've raised our own 'baa' and created Pick Your Own. A bespoke collection of sustainable and meaningful activities to bring teams together in the countryside - just perfect for everyone's wellbeing.
Thank ewe for tuning in :-)
Pick Your Own brochure - download here
Click here to book in an Exploratory Call with Caroline
Connect with the speakers via LinkedIn:
Vanessa Hastings - founder of Crafty Team Building
Caroline Palmer - Top Dog and co-founder, Raising the Baa
What are your main team challenges and desires? Maybe we can help?
Book in a 15-minute Exploratory Call now and let's see.
Hi Vanessa.
Vanessa:How are you today? Hello, Caroline. I am very well, thank you. Thanks for having me.
Caroline:That's my pleasure. I'm loving Your background. Behind you is a lovely you're going to explain it better than me, but to me it's a beautiful swirly piece of art. Has that been created by yourself or someone else?
Vanessa:Yes, so this is acrylic pouring. And it's 50 50, whether you've heard of that or not. But it is an abstract art form, completely accessible by anybody.
Caroline:Yeah, it looks great. It's very interesting. Is that one to the side of it as well, the smaller one? Is that a similar
Vanessa:Yes. These are acrylic pours as well. Different size canvases. This is one of my favorites as it's with leftover paint from a corporate workshop I did for Ocado and I took all the paint home and this is what I did with it.
Caroline:Excellent. Okay I'm sure we might hear a little bit more about that later so tell us a little bit about Vanessa. Tell us about your background,
Vanessa:I was born in New Zealand. I was adopted at two weeks old and I grew up in Hong Kong, so I had a wonderful outdoor upbringing. I was in Hong Kong until 16, then I went to boarding school in Dorset. So quite a shift in lifestyle and then I went to Leicester Poly to study music, I moved to London. I was a singer songwriter for a while. But you need to be a certain personality to pursue a music career. And I didn't have the balls. So I gave that up, became a secretary, worked my way up the career ladder. My last employer was Britvic, and at Britvic I did an acrylic pouring workshop for them and that planted the seed for Crafty Team Building. And four years later, here we are.
Caroline:I love it. Normally people just focus on their career. but it is you, I did say tell us about Vanessa I do know you are a musician at heart at the end of the day, you're obviously just an incredibly arty, creative person, all the threads are there, aren't they really? Yeah. So it was born at Britvic with the activity that they did, how did you branch out into other areas? because it's not just about acrylic pouring, there's all sorts of crafty activities, aren't there?
Vanessa:So I did consider being an artist, but to be an artist and to be recognized as an artist, you have to focus on one thing and get really good at it. And that doesn't fit my personality. My personality is I want to do a bit of origami, I want to do a bit of macrame, I want to do a bit of painting, I want to do a bit of... And that really. Is how I created Crafty Team Building. So I didn't become a specialist in any one thing, which meant I could offer a diverse range of crafts to the corporate world. So a great example of where that's worked is I'm going to bring up Ocado again. So every year I ran an art day for them and they would pick three workshops throughout the day and they'd have sheets for their colleagues to sign up.
Caroline:And I know you do them online as well as in person. Obviously what we are focusing on is in person activities. Yeah. What would you say are the most popular of your in-person activities?
Vanessa:There's three. Origami is number one, then under that there are different things that you can choose. So I do eco origami where we use junk mail. we make boxes and things like that, practical items. we also do origami art. So we create origami and frame it. Acrylic pouring number two, which I've explained this piece behind me. And then Zentangle. So Zentangle is mindful drawing, and that works brilliantly in an in-person setting. For calming our minds. so those are the three.
Caroline:So Zentangle is done with
Vanessa:with a thin black liner and a pencil for shading. So Zentangle Inc. Is an American family owned business and it's mindful drawing, so it's patterns that you build up stroke by stroke to create something that looks really quite dramatic and impressive. But the point of it is the process. It's the flow process of drawing line after line or curve after curve, and building your patterns. Whilst concentrating and being focused. So that is a super one for stress, anxiety relaxation, calming.
Caroline:Yeah. Such a clever name, isn't it? Zentangle
Vanessa:exactly. I
Caroline:described it.
Vanessa:Yeah, it's brilliant and it is not hugely well known outside of the US and Asia.
Caroline:Okay. And I'm just imagining because as people will know when they've looked into the Pick Your Own brochure, that actually the idea is that either it's great for really large teams where we can't accommodate everybody doing sheep herding and equally you probably couldn't accommodate them all doing one of your activities too. So it means that people can have the choice of one or the other, or it might be that in a whole day one team is doing the sheep herding. I imagine they would do that first and get all the energy bit done, and then the afternoon do something a little more mindful or certainly sedentary as opposed to the physical outdoors thing in the morning.
Vanessa:Exactly. the two actually go hand in hand really well.
Caroline:I know you've told me before, it's just such a shame that it's really hard to do an origami sheep.
Vanessa:Yeah. Did, we did look into that, didn't we Caroline?
Caroline:Before we met I think I told you, we did a direct mail campaign where I did find an origami sheep. I learned how to do it and, I remember, Chris filming, me doing it, putting a little YouTube video together, and then putting it in the mailer And having paper made up with little sheep on it and everything. So we've still got a stack of paper with sheep on I think. So maybe we can use that in the workshops. There we go. one of the things I was going to come onto a little later, which you've already alluded to, is the sustainability aspect. because it, it is something really important to us. And aside from the, reusing of junk mail, for example. Is there anything else that you would say is particularly relevant for sustainably minded businesses that you offer within the activities?
Vanessa:Yes, Caroline, there are a couple of other things I do in the sustainability field, eco bowl making. So we take magazines. And we roll the magazine sheets into strips and then we flatten the strips and we roll coil, and we make beautiful bowls. And we put a layer of glue and water in like you would papier mache to make it fun. And when that's dried, it's a bowl and you can put your fruit in it, you can put pot pourri in it. So I have run that for a few corporates now, and that is a lovely half day. because it takes a while to make enough of the coils. That is super good for big teams because there are few instructions. Once you've explained the instructions, all the colleagues just go and do it together and have a laugh and they just flow. So that one is fantastic using old magazines. You can do it with newspaper things like that. And the other one is using drinks cans to make art. So you can cut the top and bottom off the cans, flatten the aluminum sheet, and then you can punch shapes out of the aluminum and you can make art. So actually as we speak, I have just pitched it to a company in Sweden.
Caroline:exciting you're definitely somebody who thinks, nah, bored of that. I want to find something else But actually it's a good, it's a good thing. It's not a boredom thing. It's, the point is you have to keep refreshing, you have to keep innovating, don't you? And you can't stand still. So it's, and also, you've got clients that come back again and they're going to want the next thing, aren't they? Exactly. And to be honest, that is actually also a another reason why we've created Pick Your Own. Because some of our clients, whilst they've absolutely loved doing the sheep herding activity, they've done the sheep herding activity. They want to do something different. They can come back and they can do something slightly different, but at the end of the day, it would still involve sheep. And sometimes they just want something completely fresh. The good news is that people move on. People move companies and people's teams evolve and refresh and what have you. So actually. We have had, several clients who've come back again with different teams, different companies. And we had one just recently, and he came back for his third visit. So he knew exactly what was going on. He knew all the strategies. He had to keep want to quiet because he was with the third company. But yeah, he's one of our raving fans.
Vanessa:And the other thing about combining a physical activity with a sedentary one is you can cater for more personalities in the group.
Caroline:Yeah, it's it's definitely more inclusive. Absolutely. Yeah. Now, you mentioned a minute ago about how the eco bowl one was actually a really perfect half day Generally speaking, what sort of duration would you say the range is?.
Vanessa:If I had to give you a time, it's one hour. It can be at the beginning of a team meeting to loosen everyone up, make everyone feel welcome. It can close a conference at the end of the day, a bit of lighthearted crafting works. I do a few lunch and learns, which are half an hour or 45 minutes, and I do a few half days, and I do the occasional full day. But generally speaking, one hour. But everything is tailorable, so it can be whatever length is required. And a lot of my workshops are bespoke, so the client might say, What could you do for an hour and a half this budget? And then I will come up with three ideas and it to them.
Caroline:Perfect. And that's, that's what we'll do. At the end of the day sheep herding is the nub of it. But we, will ask what is it you want from it? Because there will be different things. So we'll just slightly skew it towards their needs. You mentioned earlier that you're based in Hertfordshire. What is your sort of radius of travel that you're prepared to go to within the country?
Vanessa:I will go anywhere as long as travel is paid for Obviously I've just pitched for Sweden, So I go anywhere. And I quote for travel on a bespoke basis and if I need a hotel, then that's quoted for.
Caroline:Perfect. And I'm imagining that these activities can take place with, you just need a few tables and chairs and as long as it's a covered space, that and fairly light, that's your requirements, right?
Vanessa:Yes. We need tables and chairs. Absolutely. And then if it's an acrylic pouring we cover everything in protective plastic because we need to protect the carpet and the tables, so we bring everything for that. And then origami is generally just the tables. If it's a big group, I use a screen Sometimes I do the icebreakers I dunno whether you've heard, is it a cheese or is it a service station? Caroline?
Caroline:No.
Vanessa:We do for example, Passendale is it a cheese or is it a service station? And then the colleagues move from whichever side of the room they think it is, and then we end up with a winner. And that's a really good way of just introducing myself, to the workshop. Hi, it's me. I'm a little bit crazy. Let's have some fun.
Caroline:Oh, I love that. We'll have to introduce you to a sheep one, won't we?
Vanessa:Is it a sheep or is it a cheese? Maybe that would work to look into that. Actually. That would be confusing. because a lot of the sheep are also cheeses. Oh, are they? Wensleydale? That's a sheep?
Caroline:Yeah.
Vanessa:Okay, we'll do service station then!
Caroline:That's probably not many service stations named after sheep, although, exactly, yes. The the Watford Gap cheese doesn't really, work. Oh, brilliant. I like that icebreaker. Okay. That's brilliant. I think that the combo of Crafty Team Building and sheep herding is perfect. We've got some great activities within Pick Your Own and at the end of the day, it's totally down to the client and what they need. So I think what we've got between us with Crafty Team Building and Raising the Baa with the sheep herding, I just think that's a great combination as it is with lots of our other Pick Your Own activities I'm really excited to have you on board and I really look forward to seeing what these clients are going to create actually, if nothing else.
Vanessa:And what's really interesting Caroline, is that workshops are all non-hierarchical, right? Raising the Baa your sheep herding, everybody's on a level playing field, so to speak. So people can really get to know each other and it's completely not about work and where you are in the hierarchy of the business. So I love that. I love seeing personalities come through. Little bit of competitiveness. I'm sure you see that too where there are people that want to succeed and want to do well.
Caroline:You're, right about the competitiveness. In fact, I was only speaking to somebody today about an event that's happening literally this week. And I was just checking in with them for any updates and and they said. Now they're very competitive. They're very competitive. we've got two fields, so we've got two lots of teams, both herding sheep different fields. So it is going to be competitive, he said. Yeah. Is it the fastest? is it the quickest? Is it? Yeah. Yeah. I said there's many ways in which they can be competitive,
Vanessa:Yeah, it's interesting. It's a good dynamic to watch
Caroline:Exactly. Anyway, it's been lovely to speak with you Vanessa. Lovely to see you again and we look forward to working with you very soon. Yeah. here's to success Absolutely, for both of us.
Vanessa:Take care. See you soon. Bye.