Grovelands News category
Inside Job: A Cinematic Extravaganza
Finally the movie night arrived after much hype by David, who declared Inside Job as a “Cinematic extravaganza”.
After arranging the tables and chairs in the meeting room, we eagerly awaited the return of Emilia with pizzas. After a few minutes that felt like a lifetime for our hungry bellies, Emilia arrived, arms full of pizza boxes. Greedily piling our plates we gathered around the projector screen unsure of what to expect of Inside Job, with the knowledge that the movie is an economic crisis documentary with Matt Damon narrating.
While Mark enthusiastically nodded and shook his head in accordance with the narrative we learnt the causes and effects that contributed to the 2008 economic depression.
Midway through the screening Rachel made a fresh bowl of popcorn that was quickly passed around with Ashleigh hoarding most of it on her lap.
Whilst the film was highly informative, the ending was somewhat bleak concluding on the present state of the economy without a resolution. We vacated the meeting room to find a handful of Grovelanders still working hard in the office.
The left over pizza slices were offered to the members of the dedicated finance team who, in a jealous rage, had already ordered and gobbled their own. I learnt the following day that the leftover pizza had made its way home with Kieran in the torrential rain only to be rejected after the boundary between pizza and soggy cardboard box had become rather blurred.
Mark Davies’ video blog: Edition 1
Mark Davies, CEO of Grovelands provides some insight into how the changing regulatory market is affecting recruitment.
Grovelanders Live at The Electric
It was the night when the stars shone just that little bit brighter for us all. Full of cake from the ‘pot luck’ lunch and with a ‘packed dinner’ in hand, the Grovelanders made their way tentatively to Brighton station.
At Clapham Junction we made a quick dash the wrong way to catch our connection and an even quicker dash when we realised the mistake. Then in the blink of an eye we were at the BBC. We pushed our way to the front of the queue, passed through the metal detectors with relative ease and headed into the iconic television centre where we were greeted with a free drink to get us in the mood for fun.
Once seated in the studio, the lavish set impressed us all. ‘It’s like a Georgian squat’ one Grovelander remarked. The warm-up act was a local boy, Stephen Grant, and to make Toni feel at home he made the same jokes about South Africa as he had a few weeks before at the Komedia, which was a nice touch.
All of a sudden Prince came out! Except it wasn’t Prince it was Russell Kane, the reason we were there. He did an excellent job of keeping the energy up in between the sketches and there were some hearty laughs all round. It was a bit surreal when he had to keep repeating his walk-ons to the stage director’s calls of “1-2-3 applause!” but it was great to experience first-hand how TV shows get recorded.
After Russell was finished a man came out with a guitar and shouted at us for a bit at which point we decided to leave; being from Brighton we get enough of that walking around town.
And all that was left was to take a weary train ride home.
‘Oh what a (games) night!’
The last Tuesday of February saw Games Night return to Grovelands for the first time in months! A newly formed Socialites committee (Jessica Harrington, Tom Henderson, Nairi Booloozian, Darren A’Court and myself) decided enough was enough and organised events ranging from a DIY pub quiz to the Wii and Articulate!
The night kicked off for me when the food arrived and the kitchen island was filled with a range of packaged delights; arranged by the lovely Jennifer Sachs, Fiona Nunn and Jessie Harrington. It got particularly messy when the non-vegetarians helped themselves to the carefully selected falafel! Kim McInally nearly had to unleash her Scottish whipash, before the whole matter was thankfully resolved with a non-contaminated falafel transported in a napkin to the lovely Kim, cheering the wee lassie up.
Ashleigh Belgrave kicked off the night, hosting the DIY pub quiz, where we all had to create imaginative team names, some of the best (or worst you could say) being ‘Special K’, ‘Team Beige’ and ‘Quizzy Rascal’.
Once the fun of the quiz was over, the remaining Grovelanders split up with some playing bowling on the Wii and a hilarious game of Articulate. A rather disruptive Tom Henderson kept shouting out random unrelated words during our Articulate game, distracting some of the more competitive team members. I was particularly impressed at the intensity of David James Marker, who when questioned about his intensity responded with: “I’m only in it to win it!” – In true Grovelands style!
A big thank you to everyone who helped made it a successful night! Watch this space for the next monthly event that is planned for the end of March!
Art attack – take 2!
In October last year I was tasked with the project of finding artwork for the Grovelands reception area. This was to be a rolling program in which local artists were found to display their handiwork in the office. The aim of this was to support and promote artists in the surrounding area and create a more cultured reception area.
This week we have had a new installation put in place by David Brownings, who owns his own clothing company Only 20. Only 20 is a limited run clothing brand with a focus on the artistic merit and exclusivity of each design; there will only ever be 20 t-shirts of each print.
For the installation at Grovelands the illustrations and designs of a variety of t-shirts have been created into high quality prints to display on our walls.
For more information on David Brownings his clothing and work, please visit his site at:www.only20.co.uk
If you would like to get involved in our rolling exhibition programme, please contact Nairi Booloozian for more information.
Registration Events at 2 London Wall
Grovelands Resourcing are proud to unveil the launch of our Registration days every Wednesday and Friday at 2 London Wall; in the heart of the finance capital.
We are keen to meet with all financial services contractors across various sectors (including PPI, Investments, General Insurance and Mortgages to name but a few). The days will provide an opportunity for Grovelands to understand your motivations, requirements and expectations regarding future contracts, and to get an insight into the skills and expertise of individual contractors.
Ideally we would prefer to have a structured schedule in place to avoid a rush at lunch and after work but we would encourage anyone who is interested to come along with their CV to meet us at some point during the day, even if they have not been booked in.
As always it will also allow contractors to complete our vetting process, which in turn will enable them to start a project when required.
If you are interested in meeting with us, please do not hesitate to get in contact. We look forward to welcoming new and acquainted faces to our London abode!
Grovelands has a new London office!
Grovelands is proud to present 2 London Wall Buildings – our new London office which opens on 14th January 2012. This prime location in the heart of London’s finance district will allow us to be closer to our clients and be in the hub of the banking industry.
The office is comprised of 3 dedicated meetings rooms and a large meeting room that will be hosting Grovelands Summits, client meetings, Finance Forums and Team Workshops. It will act as a base for our resourcers so they can meet and interview new candidates. It will also act as a training centre for Grovelands Resourcing and zero G media.
Easily reachable by tube, the nearest stations are Moorgate and Liverpool Street.
2 London Wall Buildings
London
EC2M 5UX
Merry Christmas!
We’ve created a hilarious video e-card featuring our Directors – David Leen and Mark Davies – and our Associate Care Team - Laura Newton, Laura Heaps and Laura Real.
We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Enjoy!
The Grovelanders have all lost Faith…
Friday the 9th of December was a sombre occasion in the Grovelands office. This was the very last day that we would be graced with the presence of the lovely Faith Bannier, known to us Grovelanders as ‘Ban-Ban.’ After a year of loyal service in our Finance department, she is off to fulfil a long-standing ambition to teach English as a foreign language.
From her valiant defence of feminism (and war upon any office macho-man nonsense) to the loving and maternal care she gave our resident bonsai tree, she was truly a delight to have around. Her creative genius reached a peak this Halloween as she donned her hand-made skeleton outfit and, lest we forget, she was the muse for the 2nd Grovelands Day anthem – ‘An Ode to the Finance team – in the style of George Michael.’
It is impossible to summarise Faith’s contribution to Grovelands in a ‘best-bits’ style review of the last year. Her charm and brilliance lay not in big outbursts but in her uncanny ability to bring brightness and humour to the mundane. She will be greatly missed for this. Nevertheless, this is also the reason she will make a fantastic teacher and we wish her all the best for the future.
Christmas Yule
It’s that most wonderful time of year again – Christmas presents, parties and Santa. The day that the Grovelanders had been waiting for all year finally came on December 8th – Secret Santa gifts were exchanged and a magnificent Christmas party took place in the evening.
At around 2pm we all gathered round the ‘Paddock’ to receive our presents, everyone apart from Mark Davies, who strangely disappeared just as Father Christmas made his spectacular entrance accompanied by one of his elves. We all waited with baited breath to see what we’d received and to try and find out who our Secret Santa’s were. There were a variety of gifts from giant pens to rubber ducks. Once the excitement died down we got back to work and prepared ourselves for the evening ahead.
We left the office dressed up and ready for a night of frivolity at Komedia in Brighton. We were probably by far the loudest and largest group in the Komedia, so getting all the meals to the correct people was a bit of a fiasco but we got there in the end. Once our dinners had been eaten and more than a few glasses of wine had been drunk, we all quietened down to welcome the comedians for the night. The two comedians (Sean Collins & Eddy Brimson) and compere were very funny with two unlucky Grovelanders (Ingrid and Toni) becoming targets for the comedian’s heckling – but it did provide a lot of amusement for the rest of us!
Once the comedians had finished their stints on stage the tables and chairs were packed away for us to enjoy a night of dancing. Our very own Hannah Moss kicked up a storm on the dance floor, particularly when the classic Footloose came blasting out of the speakers.
It’s safe to say we all had a brilliant night. A big thanks goes to Emilia Powell for organising, Rachel Gooch for ensuring we all had the correct food and of course Mark Davies and David Leen for putting up with us all and providing us with a memorable Christmas party!