Fan Friday: Niscayah/Stanley Black & Decker. Niscayah has been a reliable participant of the Hercules Trophy for years. They first participated in 2010 and came back every year since, up until 2012. That’s not the last year they played however, for Stanley Black & Decker took over Niscayah and they’re still big fans, sending multiple teams to the Trophy every year. The employees of the security systems company are seriously committed to the challenge, as Dimitri Spletinckx, team captain of Sixpack explains.
“All of a sudden, we found ourselves in the wondrous world of the Hercules Trophy, surrounded by thousands of people. Me and my colleague make our way to the captain’s briefing and just by jumping on the stage when asked for volunteers, I already won a bottle of champagne –the day hadn’t even properly started yet and I already won my first prize!” he says. The rest of the day, or more specifically the battles, went well too. His team found a winning formula pretty quick –which of course, he isn’t going to disclose- that did rather well. Looking at the marvelous score of Sixpack, confirms that. 191 points, resulting in the 27th place out of 160 teams. No Niscayah team ever did better than that, so it’s an achievement one can be truly proud of.
Dimitri praises his team, for it’s mostly their hard work that got them their glorious result. It’s not that Dimitri didn’t go for it, in fact it’s quite the contrary: when he was on his way of setting a Trophy wide record, he became so enthusiastic he jumped off a moving skatey, only to be hit again by that same skatey. He suffered an injury that, although nothing life threatening I assure you, prohibited him from further competing. Being a true team player, he came back as soon as possible to root for his team, which continued to do very well even with a man down.
He recalls his colleague Pieter, who took care of him, helped him change clothes and got him a lift to the barbeque. He’s very grateful for Pieter’s help and was amazed by the superb organization of the dinner party: “It only took 10 minutes for everyone to get their food and there were roughly a thousand people waiting for it!” Though he was on crutches, he particularly enjoyed the grandiose party (as he calls it), but it’s very likely that there have been some drinks involved here.
As a closing statement, Dimitri has some superb tips for this year’s participants. First and foremost, try to have a woman participating in every labor. That gets you 36 bonus points!
Another tip is to convince your management to participate in the CxO Pétanque tournament, which gives you another 10 bonus points. “If we had women participating in every challenge and had our management played in the CxO Pétanque, we would’ve been in the top 10”, he remarks. Not that he’s spiteful, far from it: he stresses that he’d like to thank his team members once more for their contribution and dedication, which resulted in their 27th place.
In short, he describes our Hercules Trophy as an excellent bonding experience, that’s fun both for players as for supporters. We’re glad that one of our biggest fans had an amazing day and we’re looking forward to seeing you again team Sixpack!