Last month, a big group of us packed our bags, and our laptops, and headed to Colorado Springs for something we haven't done in a while: a full-on Brist retreat. We called it Camp Brist, and yes, there were bunk beds.
For a company that runs mostly remote, this was a big moment. A lot of us had never met face-to-face before. We’ve worked on projects together for years, swapped hundreds of Slack messages, but had never stood in the same place. That changed fast.
Over three days at a summer camp tucked outside of Colorado Springs, we played kickball in the sun, shouted our way through late-night games, and gathered around the campfire for stories and s’mores. There were breakout sessions too. We dug into some of our biggest upcoming initiatives, asked hard questions, and walked away aligned and energized.
The ropes courses (both high and low) gave us a whole new way to practice trust and teamwork. There were a few falls, but luckily we had each others' backs.
But the real win was connection. The kind that’s harder to build on Zoom. We saw how each person contributes to what we’re building at Brist, and we left with a stronger sense of who we are, where we’re headed, and what it feels like to share space, not just work.
Camp Brist was a little chaotic, kind of hilarious, and exactly what we needed. It reminded us that behind every email, Slack thread, and every product is a group of real people who care about the work, the mission, and each other.
We’re already thinking about next year!
