Christmas party 2020: digital, personal and entertaining

Let's look on the bright side: 2020 has allowed us to get creative and digital.

On December 18, 2020, the annual Christmas party for afb employees took place, this time digitally via Zoom. Even though we couldn't celebrate "live" together this year due to coronavirus, we definitely didn't want to miss the event.

After a brief review of 2020, which was characterized by a large number of major introduction and further development projects, Philipp Oberleitner gave an encouraging outlook on behalf of the Management Board for 2021, which will certainly continue to be a challenging year. New forms of collaboration (working from home and in teams while observing social distancing, hygiene and masks) require the use of additional collaboration tools and a high level of discipline from everyone involved. Commitment and flexibility are required - in professional life as well as in private life, possibly with home schooling and double "office operation", web sessions, conceptual work or agile working methods.

The rest of the evening was dedicated to relaxation - in contrast to other years with a program for all family members (big and small).

The evening began with magician Marc Gassert, who lives in Munich and has been firmly established in the art scene for 20 years. Even now on screen, everyone was enchanted by his magical show. Thanks to his long stays abroad, especially in Asia, he not only offered impressive tricks that never ceased to amaze everyone, but also created a bridge between Far Eastern and Western culture with his transfer of knowledge. Even the interaction was not neglected: together we were able to learn with small cards distributed to everyone in advance how impressive it is when, after a few rounds of shuffling and folding piles, the card marked with a star was suddenly the top card for all of us.

This was followed by great musical entertainment by the candidates from the last season of "The Voice of Germany", Marvin Scondo & Ole Peng. Both live near Frankfurt and discovered their love of music as children. Very soulful, acoustic, dynamic, with great successes as well as their own songs, we were taken on a musical journey through time - inspired by artists and styles from the last hundred years to the present day. Many afb employees sang and danced to this colorful bouquet at home.

The employees watched the show from their living room on their computer, television or tablet. Despite the distance, we were able to celebrate together and spend a very enjoyable evening. For the first time, we had the opportunity to take the whole family, not just our partner, to the annual company Christmas party. It was a complete success - and even after the end of the official program, many people still got together to play games online.

What a party - and even the food was taken care of: there was a snack package with savory and sweet treats as well as a delicious wine.