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Lights, camera, action!

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It’s been a busy year. Here is what we’ve been up to!

Movements

We exhibited and attended a record number of trade shows in 2017 – WTM Africa, Cape Town Indaba, Durban. Our sales team then toured Zimbabwe, Kenya and Tanzania and attended the Sanganai Tourism Expo, Magical Kenya Travel Expo and the Swahili International Tourism Expo. They were all successful endeavours and we enjoyed meeting clients and making new contacts.

 

Team

We said goodbye to Dylan and Ant this year and welcomed Ntando, Sam, Brandon and Keenan to the team. Ntando joined the Sales team, Keenan and Sam take over from Anthony in testing and Brandon assists Walter in technical support.

A few mini-people also joined the ResRequest family this year with two of the ladies giving birth to sons.

Our Durban office was spruced up with a makeover to accommodate the expanding team and the Empangeni office who will be moving to new and improved location over Christmas. Exciting news!

Our mid-year function this year was a movie challenge which got everyone dressed up and in character as they produced a murder mystery short film with hilarious plot twists and some surprise actors!

Give back

This year our Give back formed part of our corporate wellness programme, ResFit. Each team had a budget to select a charity to support. Learn more about ResFit here! Initiatives that the teams supported this year were a revamp and repairs of a local church in Zululand, a collection for the local SPCA and sponsoring designing and producing promotional banners for The Neema Foundation. Team members also did their own Give back activities such as volunteering to fix computers at a school or taking children from a orphanage out for the day.

We can’t wait to see what 2018 has to offer!

Horsing about in 2016

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ResRequest year

Here’s a short summary of our year and what we got up to.

Movements

ResRequest travels

We attended a record number of shows and conferences this year. Connecting with many of our power users and business partners, as well as new prospects.

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In conjunction with our integration partners, Direct Pay Online and Expedia, we hosted a workshop in Nairobi and connected with Wetu at the Magical Kenya Travel Expo.

Sales opportunities, implementations, training and consulting projects took us to Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, Zanzibar, all around South Africa and the Congo.

Team

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This year we sadly said goodbye to Paula, Nomfundo and Chirlaine. Chirlaine’s farewell coincided with Halloween so the Empangeni office had fun dressing up for her party. They will be missed and we wish them well as they start new chapters.

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We also said a big hello and welcomed Luzelle and Cheri to our functional support team and Kristen who reinforces the marketing team. Luzelle loves her coffee, Cheri enjoys wildlife and exploring game reserves and Kristen is a keen runner. These key players will strengthen our core.

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Left: A sneak peak of our call centre. Centre: And a 1,2,3,4… Right: Durban gets serious about fitness.

This was the year of activity. We revamped some of our office space and for our mid year team get-together we had a blast trying out a line dancing class and discovered that some of us have two left feet! Some hardcore crew even enrolled in bootcamp to get fit, which has inspired us to launch a ResFit campaign in the new year.

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To end off our annual review workshops, we had a unique team building experience involving horses in the Midlands Meander. Horseplay taught us about communication and leadership through interaction with horses. Take a look at what we learnt…

We got a sweet treat from Santa and the offices wasted no time in trying out the new waffle makers with office waffle parties. In keeping with the waffle theme, meet our waffle topping team!

Give back

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Some of the causes we got behind this festive season were the Santa Shoebox initiative for under-privileged children. As part of this initiative, we wrapped shoeboxes and packed them with useful items from the Santa Shoebox list. These gift boxes will be delivered to children across the province for Christmas. We also embarked on a cancer treatment drive for Mike Mthembu, our faithful builder and handyman, with the Youcaring donation platform.

Here’s to an even better 2017!

Superhero stack

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ResRequest staff waffle

Every super team needs ‘superfood’

This year Santa sent us a super sweet Christmas treat of waffle makers to ensure regular waffle parties to keep our energy levels up. These crispy golden-brown delights are a hit with our cake-loving team. In the spirit of ResRequest, meet our extra special toppings that make our waffle out of this world.

Alex

ResRequest staff waffle

 

 

 

 

 

 

ResRequest staff waffle

ResRequest staff waffle

 

 

 

Cheri

 

 

Dylan

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jaco

Jen

 

 

 

 

 

jill Kristen Luzelle MikeNicol Tash TK Walter

ResRequest and Horseplay

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ResRequest team build

As 2016 draws to a close, the ResRequest team embarked on their annual team build. The location was kept a secret and anticipation was noticeable.

Horseplay in the Dargle Valley was the location of the 2016 team build. This innovative programme uses horses to demonstrate the need for effective communication as the horses will not respond unless they understand the task and trust the leader.

To demonstrate the importance of clear communication, Carlene Bronner of Horseplay, had the team direct Nicol (ResRequest developer) through an obstacle course using only the words, “Yes” and “No”, and in fact, Carlene said that ResRequest was one of the fastest teams to complete the challenges, proving we are not so bad when it comes to communication!

The team was then divided into pairs and given a horse. Over the course of the day, we learnt increasingly challenging activities with our horses, and how to communicate these activities to our horses so that everyone understood and the activity could be completed.

Great fun was had, and even those who were nervous of horses, overcame their fear.

Carlene summed up the key points from the day as follows:

Have a plan: If you don’t have a plan, then your horse/colleague will sense a void in your leadership and will fill in that void. The results will seldom be productive.

 

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Be consistent: If you are consistent in your emotions, your execution of ideas/work/dealing with situations as they arise, you will be found to be dependable. If you are dependable, you will be seen as trustworthy. If you are trustworthy, then it becomes easy for someone to hand over responsibilities to you.

Be patient: If you are impatient, you will lose the connection between you and your horse/colleague. Sometimes it takes time, but next time it will take less time, although some situations/people/horses may require going over the basics more than once.

 

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Be persistent: Some situations/people/horses need more reassurance more often because of their doubts about their own abilities, and some require affirmation that you are in control because they are in doubt about your abilities! Don’t see that as a criticism but as a motivation to be better.

 

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Be non-confrontational: If you lose your cool and lash out under pressure, the damage could set you back in the eyes of your colleague. Take a deep breath and think about how you are going to respond, rather than just reacting. Remember the 8 + 2 = 10 = point of balance. Don’t buy into the emotion of your colleague, rather control yourself and get that point of balance back into the equation.

 

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If you mess up (and you will), fix up and move on: We are human and we do sometimes find our ability to stay calm being challenged, when you do mess up; fix up and move on. Don’t be tempted to put your colleague in the proverbial box and limit any future growth in the relationship. Horses never forget but they always forgive, unless they see a pattern developing into a bad habit because then they will develop undesirable behaviour to deal with your bad habits!

 

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And the biggest lesson of the day: Be in the moment, be present!

Star Wars characters renamed

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Every year we pick a creative way to highlight and celebrate the team. Since many of our geeks are Star Wars fans and with the release of the latest film, Jill cast our team.

Check out our motley crew’s profiles.

If you want to know what we really look like – visit our team page.

Superheroes

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This year has seen a number of our team members fashioned into superheroes, inspiring Jill to write a superhero poem.

SUPERHERO

As a kid I always wished that superman I’d meet,
he’d catch me when I was falling and gallantly return me to my feet.
His bulging muscles beneath his shirt would help make me real calm,
he’d render my enemies unconscious and protect me from all harm.

Yes, as a child I worshipped all these heroes bold and tall,
and I truly believed they’d be close to catch me when I fall.
Day after day I dreamed that my life like Marvel would read,
I wished for Batman, Superman, The Hulk and even a white steed.
But as I grew older life slapped me hard, it seemed to make its point quite clear,
“Jill,” it said “You’re in your bed – caus in real life there’s no superhero near.”

And then one foggy New Year’s eve the server crashed and I was stuck,
I tore my hair, I wrung my hands and shouted “O what – bad luck”.
It wasn’t long and help rushed out, Dylan had picked up on queue,
Belinda, our guardian angel, joined to help get us out the – stew.
I had barely wiped my sweating brow and more drama hit,
this time TK rescued me, he got me out the – pit.
Then pretty soon Sprout attacked, we found much code to be a farce,
but Nick was quick to put fires out so nothing burnt us on the – task.

It didn’t take long for me to note that help was often near,
like when Bridget stood up for our rights so vendors us would fear.
And Nomfundo was always close at hand to calmly sway the storm,
she’d nip a problem in the bud before any harm could form.
This crew was always at my back to watch both day and night,
their energy and their loyalty gave me strength like kryptonite.

And it was with that thought – it dawned on me that supers do come true,
for I realised there’s heroes close – just sitting between me and you.
From superman to wonderwoman we have each hero cast,
for every threat there is a super here that answers to the blast.

And each day I feel stronger still as the chapters have begun to grow,
like it hasn’t taken Chirlaine long for her talents to truly show.
And new team players Chris and Paula have also brought us cheer,
showing us their powers true, so that little we need fear.

So today we celebrate these heroes – with this extra special do,
which incidentally was put together by Tash, who’s become another super in our crew.

Now each morning as I pluck the grey hairs from my head,
I’m reminded of my naivety when I thought superheroes were dead.
And soon the grey hairs fade and I begin to stand up tall,
for I know that no matter what happens, my supers won’t let me fall.

So here’s to all you supers, a toast – well just for you,
to recognise and to applaud all the hero stuff you do.

Some of our fashioned superheroes: Nick Soper, Dylan Bridgman and Natasha Lynn