Sometimes the way to a staff’s heart is through their stomachs.

For the Tom Tom staff, we find family to be central to our culture, much like I defined in my last blog post. In brainstorming for this post, I attempted to think about what was the best way to get across the message of the importance of establishing the familial culture through bonding activities. So to help me write this blog post I reached out to one of my current staff members, my managing editor Madison Paddock, a senior at Antioch, and here’s some of the most important things we came up with:

• Staff Trips: One of the most fun and rewarding things we do as a leadership team or as a whole staff is go on trips together. We’ve spent time at the Dells, gone camping, traveled to convention, climbed a mountain, went to haunted houses, spent time at water parks and pools, navigated corn mazes and more.
• Family Dinners: We like food, like a lot. At least one time each month we make a conscious effort to spend time as a leadership team to sit down and have family dinner. Sometimes we curl up in the media lab with carry out and a movie, while other times we go out to enjoy a meal together. No matter what, we force ourselves to have real conversations and leave our work at the door.
• Beginning of the Year Meals: Okay, we really like food… you probably get it by now. However, we use food to welcome our newbies. We’ve done breakfasts and picnics and lunches. We partner reflection from senior staff members and icebreakers to make it an enjoyable learning experience.
• Bigs and Littles: One of our most important moments is when we partner returners (the varsity Tom Tommers) with newbies (our JV Tom Tommers). We strategically plan partnerships to give everyone an opportunity to find a match to improve journalism and the family environment. We model it off of Greek Life and offer a variety of opportunities for bigs and littles to do things together.
• School Events: We like to be visible, so we go to school events together. These include plays, football and basketball games, concerts, fundraisers, and lock-ins.  #CrazyTomCouncil
• Secret Santa: Each year we spend December secretly giving out presents to each other. In the end, we have a giant staff party to celebrate the semester.

Really, in the end, nothing substitutes spending time together, no matter what it is. Feel free to share your own staff bonding ideas in the comments below.

Patrick Johnson, CJE,  is the news magazine adviser at Antioch Community High School in Illinois.  He is a member of the KEMPA board and director of the KEMPA Summer Journalism Workshop.  His blog focuses on issues affecting new journalism advisers.