Climbing to new professional heights: ARC fitness offers teambuilding; neighbouring coffee shop's conference space the perfect side.

• Author: Myers, Ella
• Position: Conference & Convention - Conference news

An afternoon of rock climbing and yoga, followed by lively conversation over a coffee or glass of wine, with a healthy snack on the side. It sounds like a weekend date with a few friends, but thanks to the informal partnership between ARC Climbing and Salute Coffee Company in Sudbury's south end, this could be your next business meeting.

Tammy Gardiner organizes meetings for Sunlife Financial's Sudbury offices and chose ARC for the business' annual general meeting in early 2015. Usually, they host a dinner and dance but this year she wanted to do something a little different. An employee with a membership at ARC recommended the facility, and the climbing studio was able to adapt their programming for the 20 employees who went.

"It was very empowering. There were mixed reactions from people who were going, because they were afraid of heights," said Gardiner. But most people adjusted quickly, "because that person on the ground really instilled in us the confidence that we wouldn't get hurt."

The Sunlife meeting, and inquiries from mining and construction companies, made the ARC management realize the demand for alternative team-building experiences in the city. The rock climbing, yoga and fitness studio is developing more formal corporate programming and aims to increase these bookings in 2016.

"It's growth from current group bookings, to make it more experiential," said Laura Schmidt, programming manager and instructor at ARC. "A lot of the tools they use on the walls they use at work --patience, perseverance, communication."

The nature of the activity also acts as an icebreaker, which Schmidt says is useful for conferences that bring together professionals from out of town.

"We had one regional meeting and people from all over came, and nobody knew each other," said Schmidt. "There's such a social element of climbing, the physical activity is key--it's something you don't get in an office."

Schmidt is a certified personal trainer, and part of the team that includes trained rock climbing and yoga instructors, personal trainers, and naturopaths.

"We can tailor the programming to their needs; for example, the team building and...