Good evening all,
Welcome to our first team building event and I believe we all had a lot of fun and saw some very interesting things.
A lot of people have asked me how we as a spa managed to survive the pandemic and what comes to mind is : a lot of hard work, a lot of thinking and planning, a lot of sleepless night too
I want to tell you a fairy tale which I feel it is very fitting for us, to our circumstances and our core values which are made out of BRICK as you all know.
Do you all know the story of the Three Little Pigs which is about 3 pigs each building a house on their own. For those who don’t know the story, here is a quick summary… The story focuses on how every pig builds his house with the first pig creating his house from straw and takes the remaining time playing and relaxing. The 2nd pig chooses to develop his home from sticks taking a little more time than the first pig building his house of straw and then will take the rest of the time playing and sleeping. The third pig takes a lot of time and focus building his house as he uses bricks. He builds a solid house.
In the meantime a big bad wolf is out there to eat each one of the pigs however when he tries to eat them, they run and hide within their homes. The big bad wolf then threatens to blow down the homes as they hide in their houses. The wolf very easily blows down the very first house crafted from straw basically in a huff and a puff and it was equally easy to blow down the second house that was built out of sticks. The two pigs run to their friend and find shelter from the wolf and survive. The wolf tries to blow down the house that was created from bricks but couldn’t because it was way too solid and the wolf gave up and disappeared. Phew … what a relief the three pigs survive.
What is the morale of the story?
The Big Bad Wolf represent life’s true challenges. The wolf symbolizes danger, difficult times like a pandemic maybe, death, enemies, pain, unrest, worries, stress, anxiety, violence and so much more. It stalks, hides and then strikes whenever you least expect things. It wants to ruin your life, your happiness, almost everything that you hold so close to your heart… we don’t know when he strikes and attacks and the only thing we can do about this is to get prepared.
You need to build a strong foundation around you to be prepared if anything tries to eat you ie attacks you. To build your foundation you have to work hard, you have be focused and cannot be distracted, you cannot make too many mistakes, you have to make a plan on how to make sure your foundation is built correctly and that it will last and that it protects you. Hard work, Focus, Effort, Planning and Commitment pay off and they might be a life saviour in some instances. Shortcuts like the first two pigs took, don’t work and always put us in trouble. They were unprepared and slightly took things for granted. In this case, they were just lucky that they found shelter with their friend and did not die or get hurt.
Serenity is the third pig. We have built a strong foundation and each of you are a brick to our house, a part of our strong foundation. I know we all had our wobbly moments and I know each of us had to deal with hardship but thankfully because you are not a single brick and you are surrounded by other bricks, we have the support of each other AND you definitely have my support. We have worked together responsibly and I believe our sense of community has become stronger over the last year as we had do sit out the storm together which affected the whole world.
A house is built of 4 walls and each wall supports our house Therefore thank you Front Office for being the face of the company opening the door to our clients, housekeeping and baristas for looking after our house and keeping it clean, for serving teas and coffees to our clients and for keeping our grounds neat and tidy, therapists and hairdressers for treating our clients in such a professional manner and making them feel so much better and I know it was not always easy dealing with clients in these stressful times – social distancing is a phrase which does not work in a spa and yet you handled it so well, and Admin team paying salaries and bills on time, dealing with our stock, for making sure we have the products which is not always easy, and for generally being the support to ensure we can deliver our services. I am very grateful to have such a wonderful team. My goal is to take you further and higher which I am sure we can achieve if we keep up our BRICK mentality.
As you know, we are working on expanding Jani Beauty and we are working hard to provide retail and many more products soon.
We have added another steam in Gigiri this year, we converted a cloak room into a shower room, we are looking at utilising the lala terrace to create one more treatment room with a bathroom, we have added another bathroom to Bustani and upgraded the overall Bustani space. We refurbished and added new wallpaper, we added more treatments and packages to our menu, we have successfully launched spa safaris and the next one is already fully booked for the 4th of November and finally we have built more trust with our clients which is probably one of our biggest achievements in this pandemic. We did this by building our stone house and not compromising on our quality and our standards and our safety measures throughout the pandemic.
I think our never give up mentality has taken us this far and we will go further.
Of course, you all know me that stopping at only a strong and solid foundation is not going to satisfy me. I want to build a house which is nice and big, it is beautiful and clean and tidy and that we enjoy living in this house by being honest, kind, respectful, trustworthy and of course hard working but we should also have fun and enjoy our time on the house. I think we can all agree that there is no room for bad behaviour and attitude. So again let us keep building, improving the look and feel of our house and be super proud to have achieved so much.
I am certainly very proud of you all and all of our achievements.
I would like to give a special thanks and mention to the following people who support me directly and who always listen and are keen to help me achieve more. I could describe them as our core pillars of our house.
Winnie K, I have really enjoyed watching you grow more and more confident in your finance roll. You have come into your own and I don’t think we see a quiet mouse anymore but a lion who is the king of the jungle and taking charge. It is fun working with you and I hope one day you will be able to teach me how to use excel properly.
Another special thank you goes to Winie M who decided to take on the challenge as our branch manager in Kitisuru and boy, you have grown in leaps and bounds. You are a multi tasker managing the operations in Kitisuru and still spend a lot of time on our HR issues. This is not always easy and I know we have had lots going on especially on the HR side of things and yet you do it with a smile. You are caring and you have a strong sense of right and wrong which I hugely appreciate. You have worked endless hours to write up our processes and policies. Well done Winie and I must say I really enjoy watching you grow as you have so much more to give.
Last but not least, Mary! You are the first and oldest pillar in our house and you are made of many bricks and some seriously strong cement. Your endless support, hard work and focus is exemplary and I am extremely proud of your achievements especially this year being promoted to our general manager. You have earned your respect not only from me but from the whole team because you are intelligent, you come up with good ideas and solutions and simply have demonstrated amazing leadership skills. The only worry for me now is that you somehow always know what I think so I need to step up the game for you to keep you on your toes and challenged.
Thank you again all for being you and lets pray and hope that the big bad wolf disappears soon.
To a brighter, peaceful and healthy future for you and your families. I will do my best to keep looking after you all.
Good evening and safe travels home.