Atlas Mid-Year Meeting 2010 Report

The annual Atlas Business Mid Year Meeting was held at Rochdale’s Cricket, Lacrosse and Squash Club on Friday 16th July. The location was chosen as it was equally inconvenient for all team members from our Cheshire, Yorkshire and Glasgow offices. The Mid Year Meeting is something Atlas has been doing for the past 12 years and is considered a ‘must attend’ event for all employees, including Director Gary Manktelow who hobbled in on his crutches following his desk accident... don’t ask!!!! The all day session provides the Management team the opportunity to sit with the whole company and review and analyse where we are up to versus our goals and aspirations that we set during our Kick Off Meeting in January.

The event was also used as a chance to introduce new colleagues Liam Meadows and Dave Alcock to the rest of the team who as we are multi site hadn’t previously had the pleasure of meeting everybody.

The 2010 Kick Off meeting had a big emphasis on ‘Changing Times’ and as such the Atlas developers have been particularly busy during the first 6 months of this year giving some of our solutions a modern face lift and introducing lots of new features and functions (many of which had been requested by you the users). Some briefing sessions showcased these in all their glory and the sales team were spotted rubbing their hands as they could all think of at least one customer or prospect who could benefit from these enhancements.

The financial analysis provided some positive news with our filed accounts showing 50% revenue growth in the year January to December 2009 over 2008. This is of course despite the economy and doom and gloom reports from Plimsoll reporting that one in ten IT suppliers are predicted to go bump during 2010.

Certain individuals were highlighted as providing an excellent service or having gone the extra mile. These included representatives from our sales, development, implementation consultants, technical and helpdesk departments. We reserve ‘thank you’ bonuses until our January meeting once we have a full 12 month picture but for now a big pat on the back to you all.

Unfortunately the miserable weather put a stop to a few team building exercises John Butler had in store for us all, these apparently included French Petanque (AKA Boules), mini cricket games, lacrosse and Squash. Interesting fact of the day.... Did you know that our very own Jenny Mackenzie (a consultant from our Glasgow office) has played Lacrosse Internationally representing Scotland. Her role was ‘the stopper’ and had a reputation for achieving this via any means. As such it is probably best that we managed to escape these inter company ‘friendly’ games as we might have had some trips to casualty.

All of us here at Atlas would like to wish you and your businesses all the best for the final two quarters of 2010. Doesn’t time fly, if the second months are anything like the first six months it’ll be Christmas before we know it! More pictures from the day can be found below.