By Lavinia Sfetcu, Marketing Manager, Custom Events Division

For 3 years since I have been in the UNIVERSUM team, not a single day has passed without learning something, without meeting at least one beautiful person and working with professionals, but something is constant, namely that no day is the same.

With this in mind… let’s start the 4-day adventure that I experienced with part of the Custom Events team.

July 12 – 13, Romania – Serbia – Croatia – Slovenia

“The meeting point was our headquarters. Time 5.30 AM. With good spirits, coffee, music and… of course a selfie, I left for Bled, Slovenia.
The road was superb, with jokes, with tears of laughter, with benches, with stories from adolescence, with stories from projects, with stops to regroup the team – being many, we split into 2 cars. I left Romania by visiting the Danube Boilers, a wonderful place to have a meal as well.”

The roadtrip was full of adventures (which we still talk about today with a big smile on our face), photos, stories about us and the projects we worked on, countless songs hummed and danced, lessons learned, benches told and hours of sleep in the car.

“We arrived in Bled somewhere close to midnight, we checked in and went to eat something at a terrace in the city center. At the table we made a plan to get as much as possible from the experience of the Catalyst Global EuroMeeting Zone Conference. It didn’t take long for us to fall asleep, being tired from the long road of 19 hours.”

The conference came with quality content for every participant in the room. In addition to new products added to the license, existing and improved products, tips & tricks on how to facilitate the activities… besides all this, we also have the people. Extraordinary people with the most diverse functions, from CEOs of the largest teambuilding agencies in Europe, to Project Managers, Business Developers and Marketers. Every discussion we had brought added value.

“After the first day of the conference ended, the people from Catalyst Global prepared for us a boat ride to Bled Island and then a dinner at Bled Castle. The dinner was filled with surprises, including the Gala for the best performing agencies in the European network.

“Guy Baker: And the award for Inspirational Marketing goes to… UNIVERSUM Events! […]”

An amalgam of emotions attacked me. Such great joy embraced me that the only thing I could say was a sincere “Thank you!”. I had placed the award I had received on the table and was looking at it, and in my mind the entire film of the Universum Inspiration Day preparation unfolded – brainstorming meetings with the team, planning meetings with Sabina, the materials created, the meetings and phone calls given by the girls from the Business Development department, the work to every detail of the entire team, the setup day, the preparation of every corner in TNB, the discussions with the photo-video team, a last dry-run with the team, the facilitators for Puppet Masters and Beatsworks excited, the curious participants who were greeted by mimes, speech of Mark and Yves, Cristi’s enthusiasm, the hugs at the end of the event and the joy of every person in the team.”

July 14, Slovenia

The second day of the conference was mostly about SMarketing (Sales + Marketing). I took part in the testing of new products and a brainstorming for how we can do things even better from the point of view of the relationship Sales & Marketing.

“The Conference Day ended in our style. On the terrace of the guesthouse where most of us were staying, we talked late into the night. The discussions were about what we took from the whole conference, how we can use the information received to take each process to the next level.

I think it’s brilliant the way we choose to learn. How we debate each topic. How every little detail ends up being a topic for a good few minutes, in which if it ends up standing up after being challenged by each of us, it’s definitely a good idea.”

July 15 – 16, Slovenia – Hungary – Romania

“Even from the morning I knew it would be a long day spent in the car, that’s why the last few hours I spent in Slovenia were about visits, photos and the experiences offered by Bled. Get in the car… we set off for Romania more motivated, more confident, stronger for our plans in Universum.”

For me, the experience in Slovenia was one that filled several pages of my diary – here I am recounting only fragments. It was an experience that I considered an initiatory journey, like that of the characters in the novels we studied at school.