A Social Start to the Year

It’s a new year at AquaQ (and everywhere else in the world) and we’re all getting stuck in to 2023! This month’s social events have had a “wellness” theme as January can be a time of new beginnings, new ideas, and new skills.

Weekly wellness winners!

Throughout the month we have held a weekly “wellness” raffle for the whole company on our Friday standup. The prizes were themed by common resolutions, for those among us who are trying to get fit, eat healthier, and all those other difficult endeavors. Prizes included a year’s subscription to Calm, a gift voucher for Hello Fresh, and even a massage(from a professional, of course)!

Blue Monday meditation session

The third Monday of January every year is referred to as “blue Monday”. It is, as airline marketing would have us believe, the coldest, most depressing day of the year, after the holiday indulgences have worn off. To alleviate some blueness, we organised an online meditation session for anyone who wanted to reset, retune and refocus.

Meditation can be a great way to break up the work-day and we can all apply a cleared mind to help reflect and plan ahead, so we plan to organize a meditation session on the first Monday of each month going forward!

Out on the town in Belfast, New York and Hong Kong

January isn’t just for the our vegan overlords though, and our regularly scheduled Friday drinks are continuing this year! In Belfast, old hands and new starts alike got together in our regular haunt The National for an evening of merriment. And on the other side of the world, the New York AquaQ-ites met up for a lovely dinner.

The team in Hong Kong also headed out to celebrate Lunar New Year, with two Michelin-recommended establishments in their sights. They started with Dim Sum at Tim Ho Wan for the main meal – Dim Sum is a lot of small traditional Cantonese dishes, the ‘Cha Siu Bau’ being Tim Ho Wan’s best. This was followed by a walk to Joyful Desserts in Mong Kok. Angus has only been in Hong Kong for a week, so he got a crash course in the HK traditions of Lunar New Year over dessert.

Trivia night

We finished out January with a trivia quiz in the Belfast HQ office. Pizza and refreshments were provided to fuel our trivia teammates as they tested their knowledge of all things vaguely useless.

Every team put in a valiant effort but a surprise music round let Callum, Sarah, Matthew and Liam’s team steal the victory at the last second. Well done to all and thanks to our dutiful quiz host Jamie.

We’re looking forward to a great year at AquaQ, both in business and in life. Stay tuned for further updates on social, as next month we will be embracing our creative side…