Monterey Sandcastle Team Building
Summitry Builds Big at Del Monte Beach
More than 75 members of the Summitry community, including more than a dozen children of all ages, recently traded financial plans for buckets, shovels and a whole lot of sand during a TeamWorx Sandcastle Building Competition on beautiful Del Monte Beach in Monterey.
Summitry is a Bay Area wealth management firm providing personalized financial planning and investment strategies. The company emphasizes long-term relationships and the core values of Care, Grow and Drive, making a family-inclusive retreat like this one a natural fit.
Participants divided into nine teams, each tasked with transforming a massive mound of sand into the beach’s most impressive creation. And they delivered. Every team started big, creating substantial foundations before adding towers, stairways, arches, landscaping and imaginative sculptural details.
In the end, however, the kids showed the adults how it was done.
The children’s team took first place with the castle pictured at the top right of our event collage. Their creation combined multiple towers, decorative details, natural beach materials and a wonderfully creative overall design.
Second place went to an enormous sand whale, an impressive piece of sculpture that demonstrated just how far teams could take the challenge beyond the traditional castle.
A beautifully sculpted mermaid earned third place, complete with flowing details and an artistic finish that made it one of the day’s standout creations.
One team even achieved a TeamWorx first: engineering its castle so that the incoming tide traveled into the structure and actually filled the castle’s moat with seawater; an impressive bit of beach architecture.
The judging was led by Summitry senior leaders, including Conor Wilkes, who was recently named Co-CEO of the company. The presentations may have been nearly as creative as the sculptures themselves, featuring memorable explanations about whales adapting to the tides and mermaids creating harmony.
It was exactly what a great company retreat should be: competitive without being too serious, creative, collaborative and genuinely fun for employees and their families.
And on this afternoon at Del Monte Beach, the kids officially earned the bragging rights!
