Tis the season…

December proved to be a hectic month at Aspect, so hectic that I didn’t have time to write the blog until January.

The office was rife with Christmas cheer, with Christmas trees, fairy lights and decorations as far as the eye could see.

December 9^th saw the team at Aspect (and their lovely partners) officially celebrate the festive season with some pre-dinner drinks at The A Bar, followed by some more pre-dinner drinks on the beach at Republica and finally a lovely dinner at Phamish in St Kilda.

A week later and the team were at it again, this time with all our contractors in tow. The Emerald Peacock was host to Aspect’s 2011 “Candidate Christmas Shindig” on Thursday, December 15^th. It was a great opportunity for us to let our hair down and enjoy a relaxing night with our contract staff.

The last week of the year proved to be a massive week in recruitment for Aspect and, after meeting our quarterly activity goal (with only hours to spare) we decided to spend Friday having a bit of fun, rather than working (not that work isn’t fun!).

An early start on Friday, December 23^rd saw the team meet at La Citta Café for a big breakfast (and far too many coffees). Things quickly got a little more dramatic as we reported into the office (or HQ as it had now become).

Aspect was split into two teams and each team was charged with the task of completing a set of “missions” around Melbourne’s CBD in an “Amazing Race” style competition.

Despite a gallant (and arguably more honourable) effort by “The A Team”, “Team Bus Stop Shark Attack” took the bikkies by the slimmest of margins after they broke a Morse code message by phoning into the Morse Code Society.

After the race formalities were over and the winner announced, the two teams put their competitive nature behind them and shared a quiet beer while opening their KK presents and Christmas stockings.

I had left by mid-afternoon (to start my Christmas shopping) but hear that the champagne corks continued to pop and that Tom had put his KK present to use by the end of the day.

A big thank you to everyone at Aspect for their continued hard work in 2011. It was a great way finish the year and celebrate our accomplishments!

Anyway, 2012 is upon us, so I’d better get back to it.

Matt.

To see more photos, check out our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.295005693885104.88819.193445874041087&type=1

White rabbits!

As December has dawned, a big thank you to Leanne, Cass and Sara for all their help making Aspect’s office feel nice and festive! Advent calendars, fairy lights, Christmas trees, tinsel and wreaths are all on display.

Our resident Arts & Crafts specialist, Sara, has even made personalised Christmas stockings for everyone.

The only question remaining is “Have the staff of Aspect been good this year?”

Happy holidays everyone!

Here we are at the start of December and as you can see we made it to the end of Movember with our Aspect Mo’s proudly on show (well most of us!! Creditable mention for Sanj for getting to the final weekend before succumbing).

We have all enjoyed the friendly competition in the office for the most well-crafted Mo and at this point would like to congratulate Tom for becoming so attached to his Mo that he is going to continue to fly the flag.

To date we have raised $1295 in donations and would like to thank all those that have kindly contributed.

On Tuesday some of the team at Aspect visited the Melbourne Aquarium. Highlights included the King and Gentoo penguins, jellyfish, sharks and manta-rays. The layout and design was quite impressive, especially the plane crashed in the rock pool and the walk-through shark aquarium.

All in all a relaxed way to spend our lunch break!

Check out the photos on our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.270682996317374.83556.193445874041087&type=1

Last week Mark and Maxine represented Aspect at the 2011 Seek Annual Recruitment Awards in Sydney.

The function was held at Dolton House in Pyrmont and along with around 200 other guests, we were spoilt with a live jazz band, drinks and a variety of canapés.

Although Aspect didn’t take home the chocolates, we were very proud of our accomplishment in being a finalist for the second year in a row. It’s really great to be recognised as one of the top specialist recruitment companies nationally and we would like to thank all of you who voted for us this year. Next year is our year!

You can check out the finalists and winners here: http://seeksara.registerevent.net/2011/winners11.php

We’ve also put up some pictures of our night here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.265013586884315.82629.193445874041087&type=1

With Moustache season in full flow and hairy caterpillars out in force around Melbourne and, for that matter the world, the team at Aspect are making their presence felt.

Whether it be the Rockstar, the Regent, the Trucker, the Undercover Brother or the good old Business Man we have our styling out and proud!For the good of the world (OK, to support raising the awareness regarding Mens Health and to also raise some money) we are enduring stares from strangers and the itchy discomfort from the unfamiliar facial fungus.

We are happy to report that we have, to date, raised just over $1000 with just over a week to go.

If you would like to contribute to our team – Aspectopoly – then please follow this link to our team donation page – https://www.movember.com/au/donate/your-details/team_id/245434

Once again Aspect Personnel is participating in Movember and working hard to raise funds to support research into Prostate Cancer and to support Beyond Blue and the Movember Foundation.

The Mo Bro’s at Aspect have donated their faces for the cause and are being proudly supported by our Mo Sista’s.

Our early progress photo shows some obvious room for improvement but we will stick to our task.

Stay tuned for more Hairy updates!

Being a highly competitive lot here at Aspect Personnel, the stakes were high during our last office incentive – a new (and improved in our opinion) take on the board game Monopoly – Aspectopoly …..clever eh?!

The game was designed to reward activity and effort. With beer in hand on a Friday afternoon, turns were taken rolling the dice and moving our hilarious avatars around the board.

Similar to the original game, taking ownership of sets of properties (but in our version – clients) meant prizes along the way. Despite not winning the major prize, the newly crowned luckiest person in the world – Leanne, made a constant habit of picking up prizes for the 3 months. You must make your luck though and constant rolls meant the rewards kept coming. Chance and Community chest cards along the way kept things lively too as rewards and punishments were dished out – don’t worry, nothing too serious – free coffee versus dishwasher duties.

After an exciting 12 weeks the major prizes winners were Tom (for having more trips around the board than anyone else) and Scott for the lucky draw. Both the winner choosing from a bevy of prizes – but both being tech boffins, they chose the 50” T.V’s – not bad for just doing your job well!!

Big shout to Cass for organising and for Matt for calculating the points/rolls each week (trust me this was difficult….I had to do it one week!)

For this year’s 2011 Melbourne Cup, Aspect ran a sweep for all of its valued contractors.

For those that watched the race on Tuesday, witnessed the closest finish in the 151 year history of the Melbourne Cup. Waiting several anxious minutes after the race for the judge to examine the photo with a magnifying glass, it was then clear that Dunaden was the inaugural winner, with Red Cadeaux finishing closely second and Lucas Cranach third.

Congratulations to those that won!

Prizes will be sent out in the mail shortly.

Here at Aspect we try and get everyone together once a month to do something as a group and luckily on Friday the sun was shining, we took full advantage of it and headed off on a cruise down The Yarra.

We kicked off the afternoon with a bratwurst under the sun and were quickly ushered into the “sardine can,” affectionately named by our captain, after a quick stop off to pick up some more people we were on our way down the river towards South Yarra, our captain again, full of fun facts, quickly informed us that there were life jackets in the front (bow?), still wet from the last voyage.

The Yarra is regularly named in the top ten cleanest rivers worldwide that pass through a major city despite some 27 open sewers that flow into it, it might interest you to learn that in the past The Yarra would actually flood up to 13 metres above its current level before it was dredged, widened and deepened, the only remaining natural part of the lake is 20 metres deep down by the old industrial area, it’s brown colour is actually natural and exists due to clay particles that float around the surface.

We passed a number of iconic Melbourne locations such as Hoddle bridge, commonly named Punt Road bridge, which does not actually line up with Punt Road due to an old ferry service that used to operate from the bridges original proposed location, the owner successfully campaigned for it to be built 10 or so metres down the river.

After an hour of interesting commentary we arrived back at Federation Square, where further sunlight provided an excellent opportunity for a cheeky beverage on the way back to the office.