LUCKILY FOR ALL OF US BAG-ALLERS THE FOUNDER AND OWNER OF BAG-ALL, JENNIFER JANSCH, LIVES ON THE PARADISE ISLAND OF BALI IN INDONESIA. RECENTLY BAG-ALL STAFFERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD GATHERED IN BALI FOR OUR YEARLY CONFERENCE.
DURING THESE FOUR AMAZING BUT BUSY DAYS, WE EXCHANGED IDEAS, BONDED WITH OUR CO-WORKERS, FELT OUT NEW PRODUCT IDEAS, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, PLANNED FOR THE FUTURE. DURING 2020, WE WILL INTRODUCE NEW PRODUCTS, SUSTAINABILITY CONCEPTS, AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROJECTS, AND WE CAN’T WAIT TO SHARE THEM WITH YOU.
Here is the pool in the rented Airbnb Villa a few of us Bag-allers stayed in.
Why does founder and CEO, Jennifer Jansch, live in Bali you may wonder? There are a few different reasons - most of them are environmental. Her children go to Greenschool (check it out on greenschool.org), our production is based in Asia, and she also works on sustainability projects based in Indonesia. At Bag-all, we try to practice what we preach, and we all make the adjustments that we can in order to make this planet a better place, but back to this later on.
We stayed one night at the beautiful Warwick hotel in Ubud. Here is the pool area.
To the left, Jennifer is enjoying a relaxing break in the pool at our magical hotel in Ubud. To the right, Jennifer, Julia and Matilda are practicing their water gymnastics skills. Luckily, we are way better at bags than water gymnastics ;)
In the beginning, this conference consisted of two people, our founder, Jennifer Jansch, and our Vice President, Julia Arhammar. This year, it was nine of us who went, and we couldn’t be more excited about the growth of Bag-all, and of all the collaborations, partnerships, and hard work that go into this.
This conference isn’t just a wonderful opportunity to get together and talk about the future, but also to talk about the past. We evaluated the past year and exchanged knowledge, experiences, failures and successes, so that we can keep getting better. By meeting Bag-all representatives from different regions, we learn so much about our customers across the world and about their unique preferences, expectations, and creative ideas regarding how to use our products.
The whole gang having lunch in the Bag-all back office in Bali. To the right, presentations from the different countries: the US, Sweden/Europe, Australia, Indonesia and GCC at owner Jennifers house.
Late afternoon meeting requires wine and fruits!
Apart from sharing ideas and insights from our respective regions, we spent a lot of time discussing how we can continue to develop our environmental projects and ways we can run the business in a more sustainable way. During 2019, we introduced the "One Tree Planted program" (read more about this here) and for 2020, we have the ambition to not only increase our contribution to the One Tree Planted program, but also introduce an additional program that aims to reduce plastic waste. We’ll talk more about this new project later on when we’re closer to the launch date, and we can’t wait to hear you thoughts on it.
PERERENAN SUNSETS
Jenny, Jennifer, and Matilda enjoying some fresh coconuts, and good conversations, while watching the sunset over Pererenan Beach. On the other side of the camera, we have Julia, the master photographer.
In-between working from our Bali office and having meetings at Jennifer’s beautiful house, we all explored Bali together. We watched the sun go down from the beach in Pererenan, made Batik paintings in Ubud, stayed at the incredibly charming Warwick hotel, a colonial-style hotel in the jungle, and tried sound healing together at Pyramids of Chi after a long walk up a ridge in Ubud. Of course, we couldn’t help but taking lots of mood images wherever we went. It’s no secret that we’re passionate about staying organized during trips, and of course, we were all repping our favorite travel brand - can you guess which one?
Bali bathrooms are stunning, and mostly outside. We couldn’t resist taking millions of pictures of our favorite toiletry cases in every bathroom we came across.
Since a lot of us had never met before, team building was on our agenda. We spent some time trying out local activities together where we got a chance to bond with each other. One of our favorite things to do was to make Batik paintings. We were all given a piece of fabric, and with the help of bees’ wax, one amazing picture after another came to life. When dipping the fabric in natural, blue colored water, the painting took on different shades of blue. The bees’ wax functioned as the paint and determined which areas would stay clear of the blue color. This charming little shop, in the middle of the woods, made all of their paint from natural plants and resources and supplied many local sewing factories.
Batik Painting in ubud: From left to right - Christine, Website Manager. Fajar, Head of Indonesia. Sarah, Head of the Middle East. Jenny, Head of Australia. Julia, Vice President & Director of Sales. Micke, Jennifer’s Husband. Matilda, Head of U.S.A. Mohammed, Head of the Middle East. Jennifer, Founder & CEO.
Sarah is drawing her pattern with Bees’ wax, then they dip the canvas in paint. Jenny’s & Jennifer’s paintings are drying on the rack. Aren’t they stunning?
It’s no secret that we’re all adventurous globetrotters who love to travel and see new places, and it’s also no secret that we love to eat new foods and try new restaurants. After days filled with activities, we had some amazing food at local restaurants. The food in Bali is exceptional and every meal was better than the one before. Bali truly is the home of colorful smoothie bowls, fresh juices, yummy, flavorful dishes and refreshing coconuts.
We don’t know about you guys, but in our opinion, a snack table doesn’t get much better than this…
When it was time to say goodbye to Bali and to each other, we all felt sad but inspired. As sad as we were to leave this beautiful place, we all couldn’t wait to go back home to our stores and implement all of the amazing ideas and concepts we had learned from each other. As we’re heading into another season, we couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities and challenges to come. 2019, you were more than good to us, but, boy oh boy are we ready for 2020. We are rested, prepared, and more confident than ever before that the best is yet to come, and we can’t wait to bring you along with us on this incredible journey we have ahead of us.
Beautiful Sarah and Jenny
One out of many nights, watching the sunset from Jennifer’s roof. From left to right, Matilda, who looks over the U.S., Jenny, who is in charge of Australia, Julia, our Vice President and head of Europe, and Jennifer, our founder and CEO.
XOXO
The Bag-all Team
