The OPF team and board gathered together in London in the first week of February, for the first group, in-person meeting since before the global pandemic. Sadly we missed one of our Directors, Max due to family obligations.
Starting on Monday, February 5th, the team met together (without Georgia and Lana) to discuss how the past year has gone, the projects we’ve worked on, and what we’re working towards in 2024. The successful OAG in January 2024 was discussed and the hard work of the team was recognised, specifically Georgia’s dedication to ensuring the OAG was a smash hit!
Monday evening, the team went to a fabulous pub, Ye Olde Cock, for a few drinks and a lovely dinner after a long day of travel and meetings.
Tuesday morning continued with team discussions (including Georgia!) and goals were set for the first quarter and beyond, including re-vamping sections of the website and kicking off a member campaign.
Tuesday afternoon brought the entire team and board together for lunch before the official board meeting, allowing team members to work together on other projects. Sonia was introduced to the board in-person for the first time, and Amanda, our administrative officer, finally met nearly the entire board! The board discussed the upcoming membership campaign, website changes, our corporate strategy, and much more. It was also decided at this meeting that our AGM, which was originally planned to be in May in Copenhagen, would take place as a virtual meeting this year.
The board and team came together for a great dinner at Clifford’s on Fetter Lane, London for some great pizza and cocktails, taking over a large part of the restaurant for several hours with great conversations and laughs.
On our final morning, Remco led the team and board together in an exercise in Daniel Ofman’s Core Quality Model, challenging us all to consider our core qualities and our core pitfalls, and then sharing and discussing them in small groups. The discussions as we all came back together were very insightful and will allow us to work better together and to encourage each other in our areas of strength and support each other with our pitfalls.
After a quick break, Julie Allen, our Executive Director, led us all in an exercise of “Blue Sky Thinking,” allowing us to share our biggest dreams and ideas for the OPF in specific categories, including JHOVE, paid products, and more.
Altogether, the three days were jam packed with laughs, great conversations, a lot of rain, and fantastic food. It was wonderful to be able to discuss everything in person once again and to make some big plans and goals for the coming year(s). It’s rare that we get to meet as we did, but it’s always great fun.
