Because on the face of it, water management, clay shooting and building a bar don’t have an obvious amount in common. But that’s probably what makes this such a good GRAF LIFE story.

We’ve partnered with Honesberie Shooting School for some time now, initially sponsoring one of the clay stands at the ground.

But for us, the interesting part of the partnership was never really the sign with our name on it.

It was what happened around it.

Sometimes you need to get out of the meeting room

We spend a lot of time talking about relationships in business.

But some of the best ones aren’t built through Teams meetings, emails or half an hour squeezed into somebody’s diary.

They’re built when people actually have time together.

A day at Honesberie gives us that.

We’ve been able to invite customers, suppliers and contacts from across our industry and spend an afternoon together without everything having to revolve around an agenda.

People talk. They get to know each other. One conversation leads to another.

And we’ve seen first-hand how valuable that can be.

Which got us thinking about what else we could do with the partnership.

Working alongside Technique Web and Monkeywood, we created The Watering Hole, a permanent bar at Honesberie that can be used for customer evenings, business meetings, networking events and community gatherings.

It gives us more opportunities to spend time with the people we work with.

It introduces people who might otherwise never have met.

It strengthens existing relationships and creates new ones.

And, perhaps most importantly, it makes GRAF part of a much wider community than simply the products we manufacture and sell.

It’s the things happening alongside the day job, our partnerships, our people, our community and the opportunities that come from getting involved.