Jodi Klug, administrative assistant for Racine, Wis.-based SC Johnson, whole-heartedly believes groups should head outdoors for activities outside of their meetings. Earlier this spring she brought a group of 25 people from all over the world to Milwaukee for a meeting and enlisted Destination Wisconsin to help with the event’s outdoors excursion.
Destination Wisconsin set up a Milwaukee-wide scavenger hunt during which participants were instructed to search for funny photos of their division’s president by walking from bar to bar with clues in hand, all the while enjoying the scenery of the city.
“The company set up this scavenger hunt where they gave each team directions to each bar, and once there they had clues that led them to two different pictures in the bar,” Klug says. “While in the bar, they could have a drink or something to eat, so they didn’t have to bring any money. At the end, everyone was led to the same place for dinner.”
Klug says the activity was a hit, especially with the group’s international visitors.
“Everybody really, really liked it,” she says. “We are always looking for something interesting and different to do when we bring folks in from outside of the country because most of the time they haven’t been here before.”
The only challenge, she says, was the unpredictability of the weather, something her attendees were concerned about.
“They were worried about the weather. People wanted to make sure we had a plan B so that if the weather was bad, we could still do something they wanted to do,” she says, adding that alternatives included driving from bar to bar instead of walking outside.
“You have to think about what happens if,” she says. “And have another option if it is going to be really bad. That is the biggest challenge—worrying about weather.”
Klug also says that planners who have never organized an outdoor adventure before may want to make the activity as simple as possible, without compromising any of the fun.
“It doesn’t have to be that complicated,” she says. “The scavenger hunt was very simple. [Just take] a simple idea that people don’t have to work at.”
At press time, Klug was again working with Destination Wisconsin to plan another scavenger hunt in Milwaukee, but this time her attendees, which will again include international delegates, were going to travel in teams on pontoon boats along the Milwaukee River.
“We are planning to do a water one, which sounds like a lot of fun. Instead of walking, they are getting a pontoon boat,” she says. “In our situation, people coming from outside the country don’t know what to expect and we like to show off what we have, and what better way than to use the Milwaukee lakefront.”
