2019 in review - life outside of the office
2019 has been another big year for the team at Rationale. We’ve been involved in a wide range of innovative, complex and exciting projects up and down the country. The team has built a number of new client relationships and strengthened our partnerships with existing clients; continuing our drive to help make New Zealand a better place for our communities.
There’s no getting around the fact that the work we do is often tricky. There aren’t many guidebooks or manuals for the challenges we help our clients face, and often it involves a lot of thinking, optioneering, and testing at our end. We genuinely enjoy this kind of work and our whole team thrives on a good challenge.
The high tempo nature of our work means it’s important that we take the time to get together as a team regularly, both to celebrate the work we’re doing and remind ourselves that there’s a life outside of the office!
In much the same way that we enjoy a challenge at work, we also love to push ourselves outside of the office, and our work events reflect that ethos.
We thought it would be worth sharing the things we’ve done outside of work as a team this year, as this is a massive part of the ethos at Rationale. So, here goes!
Coronet Peak night at Gobblers Lodge – 3 July
In what is quickly becoming an annual event on our calendar, the Rationale team, along with families and friends, booked out the famous (or infamous) Gobblers Lodge up Coronet Peak for the first evening of night skiing.
Unfortunately, the snow and weather gods weren’t kind, and the night skiing was called off due to a lack of snow and somewhat torrential rain throughout the day. Not to have our spirits dampened, the whole team still went up the mountain and made the most of it.
A huge banquet was served up by Lisa and everyone enjoyed a wine or two around the fire sharing stories from previous adventures in years gone by. Andy and Jimmy couldn’t help themselves and took their touring skis and splitboard for a skin up Coronet. The conditions weren’t ideal, with Andy describing it as ‘skiing on an ice block in the dark in a cold shower’. Still they turned up happy, and everyone had a great night.
Rationale’s 20th Birthday Party – 6 September
This year marked 20 years since Edward Guy began Rationale, way back in 1999. It has been a wild ride since he kicked things off; Rationale has grown from strength to strength, working with clients right around the country whilst remaining a home base in Arrowtown.
Not one to shy away from a celebration, Ed concocted a whole day of fun, all of which was kept secret from the team.
The day started with a team paragliding flight off the top of the Skyline Gondola above Queenstown. This essentially saw everyone shoot off the side of a hill, looping their way back to solid ground back in Queenstown.
Next up was a quick drive out to the Frankton airport and chopper flight out the back of Moonlight Creek behind Ben Lomond. After a spot of lunch, the team took a fairly direct (read: untracked) route back to Arthur’s Point, which involved a few falls, a couple of beers and heaps of laughs. A party back in Arrowtown was the icing on the cake of a massive 20 years – here’s to another 20!
Peak to Peak multisport race – 14 September
A big event on the Rationale sporting calendar, we’ve been entering teams in the Peak to Peak since ages ago (best estimates are at least a decade). Teams race from the top of the Remarkables to the top of Coronet Peak with five stages consisting of skiing, downhill bike, kayak, run and uphill bike. This year we put together a formidable team:
- Ed – ski
- Andy – downhill bike
- Benje Patterson – kayak (Benje is an independent economist, and the race was his induction into hotdesking in the office)
- Jimmy – run
- Emily – uphill bike
Everyone put in a massive effort, with Emily deserving special mention for taking on the uphill bike up the Coronet Peak access road with very little training and crushing it. We came away with third place in the corporate team division – happy to be on the podium, but plenty of room for improvement next year!
Rakiura Challenge trail run – 5 October
The opportunity to take part in the inaugural Rakiura Challenge, a 32km trail run around Stewart Island’s Rakiura Track, was too much for the team to turn down. So in October we made the journey down to the Island to throw ourselves at the challenge.
The team had put in a huge amount of training in the months preceding the race, and the results on the day told the story. In pretty trying muddy conditions, everyone finished in great shape with a couple of people surprising themselves with how well they did.
We’ll be adding a similar event to the calendar in 2020, and Emily and Jimmy are already weighing up a few options.
Rationale Christmas Party – 28 – 30 November
Every year, the Rationale team celebrates Christmas by taking a couple of days off work and going on a surprise Christmas adventure to celebrate the year that was. This year was somewhat relaxed compared to previous years, which was probably a good thing after all the action in the preceding few months, and an awesome time was had by all.
The team loaded up the trucks and trailer and headed over to Hannah’s Clearing on the West Coast. We spent the next two days searching for greenstone, building bonfires on the beach and generally just relaxing. We also went for an awe-inspiring jet boat adventure up the Waiatoto River followed by a BBQ full of locally caught/shot whitebait, flounder, crayfish venison and homegrown veggies (thanks Wayne, Ruth and Aru from https://www.riversafaris.co.nz/).
So, all in all a great year to be part of team Rationale. We’ve made some new friends and brought them along on a few of our adventures, and we look forward to more of the same in 2020.
Needless to say, we’re all looking forward to a great break with family and friends (and probably some more adventures), ready to come back energised and keen for another year of challenges both in and out of the office.
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