2013 Training Roadshow – Perth

Last week, I headed across to Perth, Western Australia for the next leg of the Storman Training Roadshow after recently returning from the Cairns, Melbourne & Sydney sessions. Having never visited Western Australia before, I was rather looking forward to it!

 

Monday 3rd June

Monday morning, 8am, and at the airport awaiting boarding. Today I’d be crossing the country on one of Virgin Australia’s new A330 coast-to-coast services, recently launched on the Brisbane <-> Perth route. I’d also received a complimentary upgrade to Business Class from Virgin Australia some months ago and have been waiting for this trip (the longest trip in our 2013 Training Roadshow) to try it out… good thing the new A330 service to Perth has a Business Class cabin and that the flight from Brisbane is always longer (5 hours & 30 minutes) than the flight back (4 hours & 5 minutes on a Boeing 737-800), thanks to the direction of the wind.

It’s now Monday afternoon and I’m in Perth CBD checking into the hotel, wondering why it’s a little quiet in town – it turns out that today is a public holiday in Perth! After a bit of exploration around the city & the malls I’m reminded of home (Brisbane) – Perth has almost the same number of people and the city (mall, etc) is very similar. I like it here!

I stopped by one of the very few open stores for a late lunch (well, late in terms of the Brisbane timezone that my body was still, apparently, thinking it was a part of) before heading back to the hotel to prepare for training tomorrow and so forth. As I sat at the desk in my hotel room I think my confused mind was preparing itself for sleep… yet it was only 6pm. It’s weird going backwards across time zones… even traveling into Europe for that holiday last year from Australia didn’t seem this bad? Perhaps I was more excited then! 🙂

 

Tuesday 4th June

Today I’d be heading south to Fremantle to train some of the team at Fremantle Boat Park, who would be joined by crews from A2B Removals & Storage, Gold Star Storage & a young lady from an under-construction Storage King facility. Today we’d be working through the Beginners course.

After a lovely Subway lunch provided by the team at Fremantle Boat Park, we continued with some of the “New in v9” features and concluded the course in the afternoon. I was then treated to a tour of Fremantle Boat Park… I always find it amazing how humans can build machines to do virtually anything – including lifting 7 tonne boats almost 30 meters into the air to put them “on the shelf”, so to speak. Check out some of the photos at the end of this post.

Later in the afternoon I headed back to the hotel. Still feeling tired (and stuck on “Brisbane time”), I decided a session at the nearby gym would wake me up and give me some much-needed energy… it worked! I finally felt “awake” afterwards and, looking back on it, it definitely helped kick my body into gear again & I was set for the rest of the trip. So there’s a Storman Top Tip for you… if you’re feeling jet-lagged due to a jump backwards through time zones, a trip to the gym really works!

Dinner consisted of a delicious burger & chips from Grill’d, the chips part somewhat “undoing” the gym session I’d partaken in earlier. Hrm…

 

Wednesday 5th June

Today began much the same as yesterday – but the starting location was a little different, with a trip out to Shenton Storage to see Alison, who was joined by Phil from Bunbury Storage for some more shared Storman Training… this time, the Advanced course.

Normally with these training courses, everyone brings their own lunch (some companies will chose to provide catering) – so I tend to check out the surrounding area on Google Maps the night before to see if there are any cafe’s nearby (so that I can purchase something for my own lunch)… however, today I was pleasantly surprised – with Alison providing some delicious roast beef rolls for both Phil & I… so a huge thank you to Alison – your homemade lunch was absolutely delicious!!

I then traveled from Shenton over to Osborne Park to visit Claire at A2B Removals & Storage to go through a few Storman things before heading back into the CBD. After another trip to the local Cove Health First gym (thankfully it’s ‘free’ for those staying at Rydges) to get the energy flowing, I finished off the evening by going through a swag of work emails before venturing off for another burger (a different ‘flavour’ this time!) & chips from Grill’d. Somehow I don’t think my PT is going to like my food diary this week…

 

Thursday 6th June

After breakfast at the hotel, the day began with a software demonstration for some potential new customers, followed by another trip over to Fremantle – this time, the Advanced course with Gail at Aquarama Marina… what a beautiful office near the water! At the end of the course, we went through a number of features specific to the business – one of which included making a Custom Designed Report in Storman that will save Gail an entire weeks’ worth of work, time & effort towards the end of each year. Needless to say, Gail was very happy with her new report that we’d made on the spot for her as part of the training course!

Gail then very kindly dropped me back in town. I checked some more work emails then grabbed a bite to eat (yes… another burger – but not from Grill’d this time!) at Burger Bistro. Really fantastic burgers… be sure to check them out if you’re ever in Perth. Oh and in case you’re wondering what my fascination with burgers is, I think it stems back to a food poisoning episode I had a few months ago as part of the Training Roadshow… since then I’ve been a bit more cautious about what I eat (and the “look” of the place it comes from) when I’m traveling for work functions, particularly training… there’s nothing worse for me – or the people I’m training – to have to excuse yourself to visit the bathroom all morning because of something you ate for dinner the night before. Lesson learned, so I guess I tend to stick to “you can’t go wrong”-type dinners – hence the burgers. At least for now.

After dinner, I set numerous alarms & packed my bags in preparation for the early wake-up the next morning.

 

Friday 7th June

A 5am (Perth time) wake-up this morning, followed by a taxi ride out to the airport, breakfast in The Lounge, then a 4 hour flight home. Thanks to the timezone differences & some delays landing into Brisbane (what’s new…), it was 2:30pm by the time I landed.

That concludes another fantastic leg of the 2013 Storman Training Roadshow. Thanks to everyone I met & trained – I hope you enjoyed the course material & will get to make use of some of the great new features we have on offer.

Coming up next is the Brisbane leg of the Storman Training Roadshow (no travel for that one – other than the five or so meters between my office and our boardroom) and then we conclude the tour for 2013 with the Auckland leg of the 2013 Storman Training Roadshow in July.