When you meet in the Sunshine State, it's entirely possible to see attendees glancing out the window and sighing as they head into yet another session.
Fortunately, enjoying Florida's lush outdoor landscape and getting some work done are not mutually exclusive. Plenty of beaches, parks and wilderness areas offer meeting facilities, while legions of tour operators have crafted team-building choices that go so far beyond the norm, attendees might go beyond what they thought they could do.
"It's great to get groups out of the boardroom and into some fresh air where they can experience nature," says Stephanie Hunicke, group sales manager for the Seminole County CVB.
Scores of Florida team-building experts would agree.
Team Florida
You know those puzzles and quizzes often used to break the ice among attendees during meetings? Forget them. Florida has far better icebreakers, many involving the water, the wilderness and great weather.
"Some of our groups might be composed of salespeople who don't work in the same office and have never really interacted," says Doris Colgate, president and CEO of Offshore Sailing School, with three locations on the Gulf: Pink Shell Beach Resort and Spa in Fort Myers Beach, South Seas Island Resort on Captiva Island and the Hampton Inn & Suites in St. Petersburg. "When we take them out on a sailboat, they have to come together to make that boat work. At the end of the program, they're actually racing."
Offshore features half- and full-day programs, with larger groups rotating through different tasks.
"It's a good way for the CEO and secretary to change places," Colgate says. "It's good for both sides."
The company can also customize programs by introducing leadership components, for example.
Working together is an important component of programs offered by Naples Marina and Excursions, featuring group kayaking, diving and fishing treks along with swamp walks in the Everglades and more lighthearted options that include Gilligan's Island-themed beach parties.
"Out here, people can take advantage of our ecosystem and try to apply what they're learning in their meetings about team building," says Captain Mark Garcy, president of the firm. "They bring more back to their daily lives when they do something out in nature. Whatever fear they may have, we help them overcome it, and it's a more effective exercise than typical programs. I think that's why more companies are doing more wilderness-type adventures with their groups."
Another area to consider would be South Walton, where more than 40 percent of the total land area is preserved in parklands and forests, including Point Washington State Forest, where hiking or cycling the 18-mile Timpoochee Trail is likely to bring groups together. Also in South Walton are 15 rare coastal dune lakes that can be explored via kayak or the wildly popular stand-up paddleboarding.PageBreak
Meeting at the Beach
If you'd like the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico as a backdrop to a meeting or breakout session—and who wouldn't—the great majority of Florida beaches offer some type of rentable facility, from oceanfront gazebos, boardwalks and decks to shelters and pavilions of every size and configuration, not to mention fully enclosed meeting rooms.
"There is a meeting room for 40 or 50 at Turtle Beach," says Jonathan Poyner, a parks and recreation specialist for Sarasota County. "If you want, you could do a little kayaking and then go back to your meeting room."
Other Sarasota beaches with event venues include the county's oldest beach, Nokomis, also offering a meeting room that seats about 40, as well as Maxine Barritt Park, featuring a shelter that is within 100 feet of the water.
"It's a great view," Poyner says. "It's also right next to a pier that has a restaurant, so everything is really close and convenient."
On the east coast, Carlin Park in Jupiter is home to the 2,500-seat Seabreeze Amphitheater, which is rigged for sound and lighting and includes a green room and three dressing rooms.
"We see a lot of corporate groups," says Donald Perez, amphitheater manager for Palm Beach County Parks and Recreation, which has other facilities such as the 6,000-seat Sunset Cove amphitheater at Burt Aaronson South County Regional Park and the 500-seat Canyon Amphitheater at Canyon Park. All offer basic audiovisual support.
To the south in Hollywood Beach, the vintage Bandshell and Hollywood Broadwalk, a 2.5-mile brick-paved walkway, welcome group events as well.
"It's a very unique and different space," says Christine Roberts-Tascione, vice president of convention and group sales for the Greater Fort Lauderdale CVB, who also points to nearby John U. Lloyd Beach State Park as a beachy meeting and event locale for groups. In fact, the on-site Oceanographic Campus of Nova Southeastern University offers a variety of rentable spaces, should an indoor setting be required.
Oceanfront hotels and resorts weigh in with their own sandy selections. For example, in Northeast Florida, the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club and The Lodge and Club at Ponte Vedra can organize beach games for groups or send them off with ocean kayaks, boogie boards and surfboards.PageBreak
Parking Places
Parks in general make it easy for groups to combine a little nature time with meetings or breakout sessions, and Florida is filled with them.
A banquet hall and amphitheater are among the meeting venues at another Hollywood-area park, the Anne Kolb Nature Center, which boasts several nature trails, a fishing pier and a 68-foot observation tower overlooking a lake, a mangrove estuary, the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean.
In Central Florida, groups gathering at Wekiwa Springs State Park can take a dip in a cool freshwater spring or hike their choice of trails, one leading to a lush river hammock, before or after gathering in a recreation hall and dining hall with a kitchen, each accommodating up to 150.
"There's also laser tag, ziplining and group canoe trips at the park," says Stephanie Hunicke of the Seminole County CVB.
Heading north to the Amelia Island/Jacksonville area, Fort George Island is where you'll find the elegant Ribault Club, which was built in 1928 but now offers 6,000 square feet of meeting and event space along with tours of the historic site and activities that include kayaking, hiking and horseback riding.
Go back even further in history at Historic Spanish Point in Sarasota, where artifacts date back thousands of years and pioneer buildings recall the days of frontier Florida. Encompassing both cultural and archaeological history, the 30-acre site sits on Little Sarasota Bay in Osprey, and when it's quiet—no kayakers, no cameras clicking—you just might forget you're in the 21st century.
"It's a lovely spot that can really rejuvenate the group," says Gilly Francis, rental site coordinator. "We do have 30 acres here, with a small amount of indoor meeting space."
Outdoors, though, up to 200 can be hosted in a sunken garden with a pergola, while other on-site locations include the lawn of the historic Guptill House.
