February Social Blog

Emma Goodwin

Pins and Pancakes

We’re back and busier than ever! We had quite a few social events due to holidays in February, one of my favourites being Pancake Tuesday. I remember I had just joined and I was suddenly on our weekly stand up call with the whole company, video on, flipping a mouse mat in the office as I didn’t have any pancakes handy. I can’t remember if I even won that “Pancake” flipping contest but we sure had pancakes available in the office this year!

Free Friday Drinks

A great crowd gathered for our monthly Free Friday drinks in Belfast, accompanied by a myriad of pizzas! Great to see so many faces join us for the end of the week decompression, it’s always fun descending upon The Sunflower and taking over two or three whole tables. Glad to see the majority of the newcomers join us before some of them venture out into the great unknown (anywhere outside Belfast).

Chinese New Year

In Belfast, we all ventured out at lunch one of the days to celebrate Chinese New Year! We took over half the restaurant but no worries, we did warn them in advance. A menu of bao buns, dumplings, and assorted noodles was presented and devoured and we all rolled back to the office for the afternoon shift after. Hong Kong also made it out to celebrate the entry into the year of the Fire Horse with some delicious hot pot! Good food all around to begin our entry into the new year!

Pancake Tuesday

The most important question on Pancake Tuesday… Thick or thin pancakes? This sparked a heated debate in many a friend group and was almost a complete even 50-50 spit but I have to admit, while I appreciate both, I’m a crêpe fan at heart. Don’t come at me, I’ve heard all the arguments and all I say is if you prefer the American style then that means there’s more for you if I choose the correct choice of crêpes! It’s a win-win!

That being said, all the pancakes that were provided in the office were enjoyed on this past Pancake day with an assortment of toppings being available, from your classic sugar and lemon to my favourite of Nutella and raspberries. Wonderful!

Annual Mario Kart Tournament

It was that time of year again for our annual Mario Kart tournament to rear its head. We welcomed new and returning players to take on the courses and fight it out for first place where a chorus of groans appeared whenever rainbow road was revealed. While some people “relaxed” playing Smash bros. when not actively competing, some competitors used the spare TV to practice for the main event. (It was me, I desperately needed the practice) The competition was fierce and we congratulate the winners!

1st place - Tin-Pui Chan

2nd place - Jude Reilly

3rd place - Sarah McLean

Board Games Night

From playing a game called Pizza to then eating pizza, we have all sorts during the Belfast Board Games night!

It finally happened. We had too many people for one board game and had to split into two groups, which only meant twice the fun! We joined forces towards the end before everyone left for a game with everyone playing and it was only a little bit chaotic. Thanks everyone for joining and we’ll see you next month for more games.

Quarterly Challenge: Bowling

Does anyone remember the last time you had to change into those specific bowling shoes? What changed that we don’t need to do this anymore? We are here to ask all the hard hitting questions.

If you didn’t realise, our Quarterly Challenge this quarter is bowling! We encourage everyone to go out and take part in all our locations, check out the posts on the social channel for some suggestions on venues! We had our first groups head out to take down the pins in Belfast and Hong Kong and so now we have some healthy competition between all 5 teams on the leader board.

It’s the last month to take part in this quarter’s challenge so make sure to grab your team and/or anyone else in the DI offices to get your team name on the leader board!