Team Bramble Berry Archives

Bramble Berry Team Building…Literally.

July 19, 2010 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

We just had our second all-hands successful quarterly theme meeting of the year to go over our goals, win prizes and participate in team building exercises. If you want to see the post on our first meeting, check it out here. Building bridges is a year long theme and the bridges seem to be getting better (forget ‘seem’ – the winning bridge was a veritable masterpiece of Popsicle bridge building). This quarter’s bridge held 92 pounds and it could have held even more. Since it had already won the competition we decided to hang it on the wall for inspiration (and some harmless, friendly taunting). It’s fun to have the entire staff together in one place for good BBQ, prizes and competition.

The winning team starting on their bridge (sadly, not my team).

I’m doing some final inspections of our design.

Many hands make light (sticky) work.

Can you see the writing on the popsicle sticks (it’s small)? We have a popsicle stick jar for employees to write positive comments and ‘thank yous’ to their fellow Brambleberrians. It’s super fun to read all of the comments. We have a pretty tight-knit group and there were many insider jokes written as well as heart-felt appreciations. Thursday was the weighing ceremony and pizza party courtesy of FedEx (thanks Ross – you ROCK)!

The winning bridge. Solid as a rock! Can you see the ‘road’ is paved with glue?! Brilliant!

Bramble Berry’s Building Bridges

April 12, 2010 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Wow! Can you believe we’re already a quarter of the way into 2010? Like they say, “time flies when you’re having fun“! Last week, we had our Bramble Berry quarter one wrap up meeting. We set new goals for quarter two, passed out prizes for goals achieved and built popsicle stick bridges for fun and team building (oh, and a cash grand prize). We were split up into two teams and had 30 minutes to build a 19” long bridge out of 60 popsicle sticks and Elmer’s glue (gotta love team building exercises). We let the bridges dry over night and had the final weigh in the morning. I could hardly sleep that night. Me? Competitive? Nah.

Drawing for prizes.

Here we are making a game plan.

This is my team’s bridge that came in second place holding 25.8 lbs of soap.

This was the winning bridge holding 85 lbs. of soap and citric acid. Their bridge was so sturdy, we had to scramble to find more weight to put in the hanging bucket below. Well played, team!

Pelt the COO with Eggs

October 27, 2009 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

This time of year is really exciting for us at Bramble Berry and Otion. It’s when people start to think about Christmas – if they’re a small business, they’re thinking about Christmas and stocking up for holiday shows and if they’re a hobbyist, they’re thinking about what they can make to show love to their family and friends. Either way, we’re excited to help in any way we can to make the holidays a huge success. One of the ways we try and help is by getting orders out as quickly as we can with no mistakes. We’re not always 100% perfect but we really really do try.

Our COO, Norman, came up with a fun way to help our new and seasonal helpers (and lucky kids visiting their Moms!) understand the concept of customer service and how precious each and every customer is to us. He explained that each one of our orders is like an egg – it’s important, it has lots of steps that go into making it and each order needs to be handled carefully – like an egg.

He staged an egg toss (with prizes for everyone) and an egg run with tablespoons. The monetary prizes may have motivated some but they definitely weren’t the only motivation. For every egg that we didn’t break in the egg toss or egg run, we could throw the eggs at Norm.

After Fed Ex had picked up for the day, Norm suited up in rain gear and protective eye wear and let us all pelt him with eggs. I am proud to state that I hit him the most of anyone. Either everyone was scared to hit him or I had a lot of motivation stored up.

It was a great way to bring the whole Bramble Berry team together to laugh, to learn and to form strong bonds that will help get us through the busy holiday season with grace and speed.

Amy’s First Soap

April 14, 2008 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Meet Amy! Amy originally started as a night stocker for Bramble Berry. She toiled for many months, by herself in the warehouse, doing things like cutting 55 pound blocks of shea butter or pumping an entire drum of Coconut Oil. Now, she works during the day, pulling orders and we’re all the happier for it. She has an infectious laugh and is always ready to lend a hand whenever needed.

Amy just made her first bars of soap. They turned out so well, I wanted her to share her experience.

Amy says:

This was my first time making soap with melt and pour and micas. I used the Milky Way Sun Mold and Apricot Blush, Gemtone Ruby and Shamrock Green Mica. First, I took 1 pound of clear melt and pour and cut it into little chunks to melt it in the microwave. I put the Rose Pearl Mica in the smaller melted soap because I needed so little of it. I poured that into the mouth of the sun. I also put the Shamrock Mica into another cup of soap for the eyes. My goal was to have bright ruby red lips, green eyes and a gold face but because I was impatient and didn’t wait for the lips to cool and I didn’t wait for the soap that just came out of the microwave to cool down, the color of the lips and eyes melted right away when I poured the Apricot Mica into the mold. If I were to do this mold again, I would wait for the lips and eyes to cool completely and would wait so that the apricot soap wasn’t so hot when I poured it in. The other two molds were my first attempt at dropping soap color into detail areas to create interest and texture. I used the Aloha Sandal Mold and the Milky Way Dragonfly Mold because I’m ready for summer! I used clear melt and pour and light gold, apricot blush, sparkle red and shamrock micas for this mold. After mixing my micas with my melted soap, I used a dropper to get the soap to stay inside the flower and not linger anywhere else. The color I used for the flower was Sparkle Red Mica. I also used a dropper for the sandal straps. They are made with light gold sparkle mica. The base of the sandal was Shamrock Green Mica along with a mixer of Apricot Blush Mica. Again, I had no patience so I didn’t wait long enough for the soap to harden up before I accidentally melted it by pouring more soap on it again. Again, I was taught the lesson that if you want your design to work the way you see it in your head, you have to wait for the soap to cool. Overall, soapmaking is awesome and I can’t wait to try and venture out into more areas.

Bragging on the BB Staff

February 5, 2008 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Created by Johanna in Customer Service (yes, the same knitting Johanna from this post), these adorably detailed soaps are made even more precious by the hand drawn labels.

Isn’t she talented? Johanna just started soaping which makes these first few soapy projects of her all the more amazing. It goes to prove that you don’t need an amazing logo or professional labels to make a great impression (though, if you don’t want carpal tunnel syndrome, computer printed labels are helpful!)

The Littlest Member of the Team

August 6, 2007 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Little Jorgen loves doing things at the Bramble Berry warehouse when he visits. Back in May, he enjoyed learning how to drive our forklift. Today, proud pappa Norman taught him how to pack boxes. At the rate he’s going, he’ll be a valuable asset to the company when he’s old enough to work here!

Be Socially Responsible

April 12, 2007 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

We’re excited to be the main sponsor for the RE Sources Environmental Hero’s event! It’s part of our values at Bramble Berry to “Be socially responsible.”