Bringing 100 People Together with Boomwhackers – Compass Changing Lives Away Day
In September 2026, Unbeatable Energy joined around 100 members of the Compass Changing Lives team for their Away Day at Ringwood Hall in Chesterfield.
Compass does incredibly important work supporting the mental health and well-being of children and young people. The Away Day gave the whole team an opportunity to come together, reflect on their shared values and enjoy some time together away from their day-to-day work.
100 people making music together
The musical part of the day began with all 100 delegates taking part in an hour-long Boomwhacker team-building session.
Our Boomwhacker experiences have been developing musically, increasingly bringing together the instrument with influences from West African music – something we’re now exploring across our corporate, education and community work.
For the Compass session, one of our established Boomwhacker arrangements was combined with singing – using a song from Mali associated with the Sunu rhythm, taught to me by Hans Sutton.
It created a rather magical moment. The different Boomwhacker parts gradually came together across the room underneath the singing, with 100 people creating the music together – and clearly having a lot of fun in the process.
From Boomwhackers to African drums
After lunch, the focus moved from Boomwhackers to djembes, with two smaller African drumming workshops during the afternoon.
It made for a great combination: the entire organisation participating together through Boomwhackers in the morning, followed by the energy and immediacy of African drumming in smaller groups later in the day.
The Compass team were an incredibly warm and enthusiastic group to work with, and it was a real pleasure to contribute to a day centred around the people behind such important work.
Could this work at your next Away Day or conference?
Unbeatable Energy provides interactive Boomwhacker, African drumming, Samba drumming and percussion experiences for corporate Away Days, conferences, team-building events and staff celebrations throughout the UK.
Sessions can range from a short, high-energy conference icebreaker to a longer team-building experience. Boomwhackers are particularly effective when you want to bring a large conference audience together, with hundreds of people able to participate simultaneously.
We’d be delighted to discuss your event and explore how African drumming could work for your team.
