| Attendance | 31 (24 PDT members + 7 affiliates) |
| Location | The Blue Mountains, Grey County, Ontario, Canada |
| Stardates | 2023-07-10 – 2023-07-14 |
| Attendance | 31 (24 PDT members + 7 affiliates) |
| Location | The Blue Mountains, Grey County, Ontario, Canada |
| Stardates | 2023-07-10 – 2023-07-14 |
Our 8th annual Summer Getaway was nothing short of extraordinary. We logged off, packed up, and made our way to the scenic Blue Mountain Resort for some much-anticipated team time.
PD invests a noteworthy amount in coordinating this team-wide spectacular. You might be wondering how do these team getaways contribute to the PDT’s mission? Are we living up to our purpose?
We invite you to peek into some of this year’s happenings, through the perspective of our core values and guiding principles.
The fresh air and scenic views were a firm foundation for our week together. We capitalized on our break from the city and spent as much time as possible outdoors. Healthy meals, yoga sessions, beach outings and long walks to town. There is nothing like the great outdoors to rejuvenate our minds, bodies, and souls.
We learned from the experience of our team leaders, particularly during the Case Studies portion of the Pixel Dreamers Summit.
We held our regular WednesdAI goals check-in meeting in person, where teammates reported the status of weekly targets. During this session we watched an informative video about the LongNet, scaling transformers to one billion tokens, a step towards the singularity.
Many team members brought their current books and took to reading during downtime.
Our itinerary was deliberately mild. Aside from the PDS, Wednesday goals meeting, and a few team dinners, our schedule was up to us. We could choose our adventure and do it together. Some games and activities included:
We travelled, prepared meals, and lived together for a few days.
From the meals to meetings, activities, free-time, and outings, amazing weather and natural landscapes, this all-hands-on-deck getaway left everyone with much to be thankful for.
Gratitude was expressed in speeches, hugs, and well wishes. Whether verbal thank-you’s or emotional goodbyes, acts of kindness were warmly celebrated.
On this trip, everyone stepped up and did what needed to be done.
PDTers put on their event planner, cook, yoga instructor, DJ, joint roller, bartender, driver, meeting coordinator, photographer, and videographer hats to make the getaway possible.
Everyone gets their hands dirty. We cleaned up after ourselves. We cleaned up after each other.
Our chalets were located across from the resort’s secure dumping bins. Sorted between trash, recycling, and organics. Bagged and delivered.
Leaders made final touches the night before PDS, as teammates finalized some of their pre-getaway homework.
Notetaking tools were everywhere in our three cabins, as studying is part of our culture of continuous learning, wherever we go.
We became stronger, individually and collectively, across our physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional states.
We left the getaway with stronger team bonds to carry over into our regular routines.
We hunkered down for a day of the getaway for our first-ever Pixel Dreamers Summit. A combination of both our mid-year State of the Nation and our Raising Standards sessions. Learning together and striving for excellence. Read more about it here.
Our team has grown stronger and wiser. Now our standards are higher and we have set a new benchmark for future summits and getaways.
With jokes and laughter abound, drinks and jibbers plentiful, it should go without saying that we had fun. But we’ll say it anyway — we had fun!
Our nights were filled with epic tunes and dance parties. The height of our vibe levels was indicated by one instance of an outdoor shindig brought to a close by a noise complaint. But the party must go on! — indoors, and at a lower volume.
We even ran out of disco lemonade.
We’ll let the PDT speak for themselves on this one.
This was an awesome experience for me, I truly love the team bonding activities, group work and the wonderful interaction with the leadership team and the other members.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Grateful to be surrounded by such talented, inspiring, and generous humans.
Thanks to everyone’s effort that made this possible. The planning and execution was outstanding.
Till the next getaway!
