JMP 2020 Kickoff | Corporate Meetings & Event Photography - Kelli Price Photography

Over the past few years, I have come to have an appreciation for companies that set aside a budget and planning for a company meeting. Employees have the opportunity to get out of their office for a few days, interact with their cohorts and be inspired for the upcoming year and goals. And hopefully they have an open bar or two! It’s even more exciting for a GLOBAL company and everybody is flying in from around the world. I saw name badges ranging from USA, Great Britain and Japan.

The JMP’s 2020 Kickoff event kicked off with a welcome reception and the employees got to pick out fun chatskis ranging from light up balls (which multiple people could juggle) to JMP logo wear. The next day they opened up their general session with a slide of $1,000,000 which was a record goal for them in 2019! Though out the day, they had speakers from different departments with updates and 2020 plans. Kudos to the speakers where English wasn’t their first language….that couldn’t have been easy! The company even had translators during general session so they could listen to the general session easier, pretty impressive.

After a full day of their planarian, they broke for the afternoon to get ready for their awards night. The 2020 JMP Awards night was a festive evening of yummy food stations with a Mediterranean flair (hello, butternut squash raviolis), feather boas, and recognition of those going above and beyond. They also announced who would be attending their incentive trip to Greece! But the highlight of this even? THE BAND! I have seen a lot of corporate parties and I have never seen a band get that many people on the dance floor so quickly. None of the awkward 1-2 dances with the boss’s wife tying to drag people to the dance floor (c’mon…..you’ve seen it)!! They played Bruno Mars, Michael Jackson and boom….full dance floor. Then the guitarist got on the dance floor and danced! Then the female singers came out and rocked some Motown songs. THEN right when I thought it was safe to put away my camera, they brought ALL the JMP women to the stage and sang Tina Turner. It was impressive!!

The next day, while a few people may have been a little slow moving, it was time for the department breakouts! Let me take the opportunity to mention that the SAS/JMP Campus is really impressive. I secretly want to work there. They have several cafes & restaurants for employees to eat at during lunch, they never even have to leave the area. And the food is de-lish. In the building with the breakouts, there is whole mineral & gem collection in the lobby with labels where it came from. It was gorgeous! In one of the breakouts, they were in an auditorium where each seat had its own microphone, like they do in NATO. So, you never have to wonder what somebody just mumbled but seemed important to know.

After lunch I joined one of the teams on the CSR project to the food bank to help process food. They explained to the team what communities the food benefits and some safety rules. We were then greeted by Tony, who was the Volunteer Coordinator and had worked there for 11 years, he had such good energy and loved his job. He explained to the team how to what was considered a bad potato or not. Everybody had fun chatting in their groups and getting a lot of potatoes bagged up!

For the final night, they had a low-key evening on campus with trivia and karaoke. Trivia was the usual pop culture/ sports questions mixed with JMP trivia (do you know what the M in JMP stands for??) After trivia I was able to showcase some highlights I had captured over the event…..people loved seeing them! Karaoke started off slow, like it always does until everybody gets their courage up. The trivia guy set the bar high with Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody! The night wrapped up with the cafe staff doing the Cupid Shuffle.

Next and final day of the general session they talked about about new event they were rolling out with a panel ready to answer questions. To wrap up the event they shared a video that had been put together by the videographer . I enjoyed working with him and he was able to use some of my images from the awards night! The video got a lot of great laughs! Which is the perfect way to end a fabulous kickoff event!

Visit here for another company meeting for dealers….in Cabo!