SAC Offsite

This past Thursday & Friday, while you all were enjoying Turkey and football, we had our SAC (Senior Associate Consultant) offsite. Due to budget constraints (more SAC transfers coming in than anticiptated) we couldn't go to a sexy location. So, instead, we went to a nearby suburb of Sydney called Penrith.

Penrith is home to the stereotypical Australian Suburban type called Bogans. The best American equivalent description I've heard is "Redneck meets Jersey". To make the weekend more fun, everyone was encouraged to don their best Bogan outfits. Here are some examples.

Matt and David (one of our trainers!) showing off their mullets:



Lara, Kirsty, Ele, and Agathe ready to take on the town:



Nic, Damian, and Matt:



I didn't really have much to wear so I bought an Ozzie Osbourne shirt and did up my hair in a fo-hawk. What do you think?



The training consisted of 3 manager/partner presentations on previous cases they've done, all with a consumer products theme. After training, we met up for drinks, dinner, and extra-curricular activities. The event was held at the Penrith Panthers World of Entertainment.



The Penrith Panthers are a Rugby team in the National Rugby League. Their facility consisted of a number of bars, restaurants, night clubs, and other forms of entertainment such as tennis courts, a driving range, and of course, slot machines. In fact, I've heard that the Panthers World of Entertainment is host to the largets collection of slot machines (aka Pokies) in the southern hemisphere.

So of course, being the gambler that I am, I had to try my shot at the Pokies. With a bit of luck, I managed to hit the jackpot and won $490 on a nickel machine! Here's me with my winning machine:



The following day, we went to the Penrith Whitewater Stadium, which was built for the whitewater events (kayaking, etc.) in the 2000 Olympics. It's a pretty cool place, with a man-made course of whitewater rapids. Here's a picture of the course after the water had been drained:



We went whitewater rafting for about an hour and a half (unfortunately I don't have any pictures). Because it was a man made course, you could do cool things like get stuck "surfing" in eddys, flip the boat on purpose, and go through the same rapids with different lines, facing backwards, etc. Very different from all the real rivers I've gone rafting on before, and a lot of fun.

We then had a great BBQ afterwards to conclude the offsite.



Overall, it was an AWESOME two days and I'm definitely going to be lobbying Bain to do something similar for the SAC's in Boston.