On The Hunt For Successful Meetings
Fall 2007
By Melissa Gaskill
Texas Meetings & Events
THESE CORPORATE EVENTS HIT THE TARGET
The activities are blended into our everyday language and business vocabulary. We kill two birds with one stone (perhaps also the earliest reference to multi-tasking). Take a shotgun approach to marketing. Hook a new client. So it’s no wonder that hunting and fishing are popular settings for business meetings and retreats. Take your best client or employee to one of these Texas lodges and bag some real results.
San Miguel Ranch & Lodge
Guests on this ranch in the brush country just south of Uvalde have access to more than 30,000 acres of land populated by white-tailed deer, wild boar, javelina, dove, quail, turkey, migrating ducks and geese. There are also exotics like axis deer, red stag and blackbuck, and fishing for trout and bass.
“The size of the land is one of the unique things about our operation,” says owner Mike Gardner. “Another is the quality of the staff.” Guests are carefully matched with a professional guide for their entire stay. Upon arrival, there’s an orientation to review the itinerary, introduce guides and cover safety. Then the group goes to the shooting range before heading out to hunt.
Scott Keys of Dental Outdoor Adventures books continuing education sessions for dental professionals at San Miguel. “Many education programs are in a big lecture hall with several hundred people,” Keys says. “At the ranch, the lecturer stays there and hunts with us. We have dinner and drinks together, play cards, fish. It’s a relaxed atmosphere and breaks down barriers. One of the things I enjoy about hunting, too, is that it levels the playing field. It’s an activity very conducive to building camaraderie.” His typical format is a morning hunt followed by an afternoon lecture, then an evening hunt. Over four days, guests complete 12 hours of continuing education, but at a relaxed pace.
San Miguel designs custom event packages for specific budgets, time and goals. Groups that don’t want to hunt, or want variety, can enjoy fly fishing or tubing on the Nueces and Frio rivers, golf in Uvalde, or visit a movie set in nearby Brackettville. The ranch arranges poker tournaments, skeet shooting, professional speakers and other activities.
“Mike does a lot of great things hosting groups, and the whole experience is top-notch,” says Keith Wieser, regional manager and client director for Cisco, an information technology company. “There are only a certain number of people there, which makes for a quality experience.”
The spacious Mexican-hacienda style main lodge has a large porch to take advantage of its hilltop position. A classically trained resident chef offers wine selections and serves gourmet meals featuring wild game, often from the ranch.