This was the first year Almon hosted an enterprise-wide event, and the turnout was great!
Thank you to all who were able to attend this year’s company picnic. We had 48 employees attend; 29 were from our Dubuque location, 11 traveled from East Moline, 6 from Waterloo, and 2 made the long haul from Waukesha. Including the employee families, we had around 110 people in attendance.
First, let me introduce myself. I’m Amber Olson, and I’m a Technical Illustrator and Social Media Representative at our Almon Dubuque facility. I am also part of the Almon event committee for our Dubuque location. Back in May, Aaron sent out an email to the entire event committee, bringing up the idea of an “all Almon” picnic. Everyone showed an interest and seemed eager about the idea, so we went forward with it.
Luckily for Dubuque, it seemed to be centrally located for most of the employees, so our team got the pleasure of leading the planning. The Dubuque facility typically holds an annual picnic in the fall, but now the bar was raised since we were opening the invite to all other Almon locations.
The picnic planning committee included Wendy Angulo, Dan Juarez, Renee McCartney, and myself. We brought in some backup from Dan Roling and Pam Jordan since they both had the experience of planning our previous picnics. I knew it would be a lot of work, but at times it was more work than I had anticipated. There were lots of meetings and outside work to make this event happen.
Throughout the process, I tried to keep our other event teams updated on the planning and relayed any feedback they had, back to the Dubuque team. I think the team effort and hard work really paid off, and we had an overall successful first enterprise-wide event. I want to give much thanks to Dan J, Dan R, and Renee for getting the pavilion set up the morning of the picnic.
The day started with an early morning golf outing at Lacoma Golf Club in East Dubuque, Illinois. It was a nine-hole two-person best shot with flag games at each hole. The flag games included closest to the pin, longest drives, second-closest shot to the pin, and longest putt. Prizes for each hole were given out later at the picnic.
That morning was warm and sunny. Everyone was excited to be there and enjoyed getting to know each other since we had a good mix of employees from different locations. The pairings included Cliff Anderson and Roger Duffey with Cliff’s wife, Jenn, and daughter, Kira. Jared Buhman and Nick Lansing teamed up to golf with Logan Nordmeyer and Chris Montoure. Mike Mitchell and Chris McQuillen golfed with Justin Rath and his wife, Kelley. Julie Schmitz and her husband, Chris, golfed with Lisa Schmidt and her daughter, Krista. Trailing the pack was my husband, Sean, and I.
That sunny weather at tee-off soon faded to clouds and eventually rain. The last two groups got a little shower on the last two holes before making it back to the club house to turn in scorecards. But even with the rain, the golf outing was a lot of fun. We had a great group of people playing.
Following the golf outing, the picnic was held at Dunleith Park in East Dubuque, Illinois.
The rain had quickly passed and didn’t seem to affect our turnout. Employees were greeted by Dan Roling and Dan Juarez, who checked them in and entered their name into the drawing for prizes. Everyone had the option to buy 50/50 raffle tickets and, at check-in, the kids had a chance to guess how many pieces of candy were in the jar. The winner received the mug of candy but all the kids received “goody” bags filled with small toys, coloring books, candy, and more.
Once we had most of the guests checked in, Dan Roling made a little announcement, welcoming everyone. During this time, he recognized each location by having the employees stand up and raise hands when he said their Almon facility. That really put into perspective just how many people traveled to be part of the picnic that day. That was the payoff for all the hard work put in by the team to make the picnic a success.
Dan then had everyone gather for a group photo, and lunch was served shortly after. The menu included pulled pork sliders, which was freshly roasted earlier that week by local John Wubban. Nothing beats slow-roasted pork. It was delicious.
We also had cheesy hash browns, baked beans, macaroni salad, and fresh fruit provided by Kalmes Catering. There was an ice cream machine set up for dessert with a variety of toppings including sprinkles, gummy bears, and crushed Oreos. It was a huge hit for both the kids and adults!
After lunch was the part of the day everyone was waiting for— prizes! Dan Roling read off the prizes, starting with the golf results. In addition to the flag games for golf, highest and lowest scored were also awarded. The winners of the golf outing, with a score of 35, were Jared Buhman and Nick Lansing from our Waterloo location.
There was a tie on the children’s guessing game between Nina Gonzalez (Kami’s daughter, Dubuque) and Gunner Gibbons (Robby’s son, Dubuque). The younger child got the chance to adjust his guess 1 up or 1 down. Gunner bumped his guess up one to take the mug of candy!
Then 14 employee names were drawn to receive $25 gift cards. Kami Gonzalez was the lucky winner of the large cash prize for $50. The prizes ended with the 50/50 raffle drawing. There was $180 in ticket sales to be split! Gloria Gripp from our East Moline location and Jared Buhman from Waterloo were the big winners!
For our first major event, everything went pretty smoothly. The planning committee was very pleased with the turnout we had for the picnic. I really enjoyed getting to know some of my colleagues from other locations. It’s nice to now be able to put a name with the face on the other side of an email.
I got the sense from many people who attended that there was a great appreciation for bringing together our different Almon facilities as one. We had such a positive response. I heard “Thanks for putting this together” and “This was long overdue” numerous times throughout the day and even coming into work on Monday. Hopefully this was just the first of many Almon enterprise-wide events to come.
