Last Friday afternoon in the GDJ office, there was a certain something in the air. It wasn’t the welcome warmth of Spring on it’s way, nor was it the aroma of Marty’s late lunch. No. It was the rising anticipation of the imminent annual GDJ ski trip!

By 4pm the office was almost empty. A convoy of cars filled with eager GDJ skiers, snowboarders and supporters was wending its way towards Mt Buller in the Victorian Alps. With a few toilet stops and car snacks under our belts we eventually made it up the mountain, narrowly avoiding wombats and travel spews on the way.

After a fairly wholesome Friday evening, the team woke up bright-eyed to a beautiful Saturday morning. It was time to test our skills on the slopes and those more experienced headed off to leave those less experienced in the capable hands of professional instructors. A few newbies accidentally found their way onto some black runs – which was hilarious for some and terrifying for others – but, thankfully, all walked away with bones still intact. The weather held out as muscles gradually gave out and by 6 o’clock most of us were gathered back in our lodge – or at the pub.

It wouldn’t be a proper GDJ trip without some key factors, the first being a serious cook-up by our Sydney contingent, Mr Paul ‘Gilo’ Giles. Feeding the family-friendly GDJ crew, including staff, kids, partners and even ex-staff, proved to be a breeze for our very own Gordon Ramsay. Then, of course, it was time for the GDJ Games. Table tennis, Fußball and SingStar were competition favourites, with highlights including Ben Day’s accidental bat butt-slap assault on Melissa and Chris and Michi’s ‘Material Girl’ sing-off. Andy Baker’s promise to do a nudie run if he was beaten at the table tennis table (which he was) is yet to be seen. Watch this space…

Sunday morning saw a few sore legs, arms (and heads) but the serious skiers and boarders were undeterred. Rain, hail and fog didn’t stop them from dominating the slopes as others hugged their hot chocolates. The weekend wound down with a big combined clean-up and the setting of challenges for next year. As we wearily made our way home, we were silently grateful that our office masseuse, Lindy, would be coming in on Monday to massage our aching muscles. And, of course, grateful to Cath, Ben and Pete for giving us all another memorable GDJ Snow Weekend. Until next year…

Okay, enough with the Ms. This year, Mazda’s one day, once a year sale was held around the nation on Saturday September 6th. Dealerships got right into the spirit with colourful Point of Sale adorning offices and showrooms across Australia. The buzz was humming and so were sales. By the end of the day, it was clear: M Day had performed again.

A creation of Grant Day James, M Day is now in it’s sixth successful year. In the lead-up to the event, GDJ and Mazda worked together to deliver a major advertising campaign, covering TV, radio, direct mail and rural, metro and suburban press.

A highlight is always the launch, which gives dealers the chance to get together and get excited about M Day. This year, GDJ produced a video for the launch featuring Mazda Managing Director Doug Dickson. With Doug’s inspiring performance, we think he may be headed for Hollywood next!

Despite the current economic climate and Saturday’s wet weather, M Day 2008 proved to be another victory. It’s a big pat on the back for Mazda’s dedicated dealer network and the hardworking GDJ team. Soon it’ll be time to start preparing for M Day 2009…

But the GDJ team and Zoos Victoria recently joined forces to educate zoo-goers on how to help save the frogs through an interactive adventure campaign for the September school holidays. We’re asking everyone to come down to Melbourne Zoo these holidays and join the search party to find ‘Laurie the Frog’. Armed with a pair of 3D goggles, there’ll be clues for you to decipher and activities along the way with plenty of opportunities to talk to the experts and learn all about water conservation and the environment.

We’re also pleased to have Andy on board as project manager. His eye for the financial detail and a background in corporate accounting has seen him beavering away on our biggest client project to date (hush hush at the moment, but it’s exciting stuff and we’ll do a blog to announce it to the world at some point).

Baxter Baker is Andy’s five-month old Golden Retriever who is soft and cuddly and goofy and gorgeous and continues the long tradition of working with children and animals which makes GDJ such a different place to be.

In other news, the rest of the team have returned with almost all hands back on deck. Amongst them are varying degree of tans, holiday stories bordering on the bizarre, and fading memories of warm evenings. With the buzzing of flies replaced with the hum of computers, we’re all looking forward to 2008 and ready to catch anything you throw at us, so start stretching those arms!

The UN hasn’t stopped there, also dubbing 2008 as the United Nation’s International Year of Planet Earth and the Year of Languages. These are just the three we’ve found so far for the UN, while there are plenty of others, such as the environmental group AArk declaring 2008 Year of the Frog (suitable for a leap year).

So our preliminary plans for 2008? Eat potatoes (raw to prevent unnecessary global warming) while quoting Sanskrit poetry to our new pet frog.

Happy New Year everyone.

In the meantime we want to take this brief opportunity to wish everyone associated with GDJ a happy Christmas with friends and family.

GDJ Christmas & New Year Office Hours

The office closes at 3pm on the 21st December, reopening at 9am on Thursday 27th December. As you may well expect, we’ll be closed on the following Tuesday, New Year’s Day.

Office closed and it’s an emergency?

Easy. Just give Cathy Grant a call on her mobile, 0412 434 781.

This great little flash clip comes courtesy of our recent work experience participant, Dylan Rattenbury - Year 9 at Eltham High School. Spending the last week with us, Dylan has impressed everyone with some great skills and creative thinking, so a big thanks goes out for his contribution here.

Have a great Christmas everyone!

Hazy memories of bookies, top hats and a new definition of a ‘carpark’ aside, we’re in the middle of a number of different projects that we can’t wait to tell you more about. In the meantime we’ll take a moment to catch up with what’s happening on a few others. Among our current campaigns in-market, Mazda’s Power Play has hit the presses and the airwaves – kicking goals everywhere. The team’s been busy with some exciting web content that’s soon to go live as well.

Oh, and not forgetting to mention the update of our own folio section here at gdj.com.au - if you haven’t surfed through it for a while, check it out.