Get the Team Together This Autumn and Winter

In a Nutshell…

Autumn is when next year gets planned and winter is when you get to thank the people who carried you through this one, and both tend to go better when everyone is in the same room. Grosvenor House has four spaces on St Paul’s Square for groups of 8 to 25, from £35 plus VAT an hour. Early December is always the first thing to go, so it’s worth getting your date in now.

Get everyone in a room

There’s a moment every October when the trees in St Paul’s Square start to turn, and the lamps come on a little earlier each evening, and we know the diary is about to get busy.

It happens like clockwork. Teams who have spent most of the year as a row of little squares on a screen decide it’s time to see each other in person, and we couldn’t agree more! Video calls are great for lots of things, and nobody misses the commute for a twenty-minute check-in. But the best conversations rarely stick to the agenda. They happen while the kettle boils, or when someone finally asks the question they’d never have typed into Teams.

We see it every time a team books in. The meeting runs ten minutes over because nobody wants to stop, and there’s always someone still chatting in reception long after the room has been cleared. We always take that as a good sign!

Why autumn and winter?

Plans and budgets for 2027 are being shaped over the next few weeks, and that’s a conversation that needs a whiteboard and a proper pot of coffee.

It has also been a long year. Bringing your team together before Christmas, even for an afternoon, is one of the simplest ways to say thank you, and it doesn’t have to involve Secret Santa (though we won’t stop you). If you’re after something more festive, our guide to planning your office Christmas party in Birmingham is full of ideas.

Your clients deserve a bit of that warmth too. Plenty of them will only have seen you on a screen this year, so inviting them in for a year-end review, with a drink waiting and a view across the square, is a lovely way to end the year.

And then there’s January, when everyone comes back a little slower than they left. A kick-off with the whole team in one room is the best way we know to blow the cobwebs off and get going again.

A few things we’ve learned from hosting

We’ve welcomed a lot of teams through our doors over the years, and we’ve picked up a few tips along the way.

• Book half a day for planning sessions. Two hours always feels like plenty when you book it and never feels like enough on the day.
• Build in a proper break. Some of the best ideas come up over a coffee, once everyone has stepped away from the slides.
• Send directions with the invite. We’re a four-minute walk from Snow Hill, and guests who know that tend to arrive on time and in a good mood.
• Give yourself a head start. If you are presenting, book the room for a little before everyone arrives so you have time to get set up and grab a coffee.

Finding the right room

St Paul’s Suite (up to 8)

Our corner room, with six tall windows looking straight out over the square. In autumn, when the leaves are turning, it’s one of the nicest rooms in the Jewellery Quarter to spend a day in, and the glass table and leather chairs mean nobody is shifting about in their seat by mid-afternoon.

Mary Ann Suite (up to 8)

Slightly bigger than the St Paul’s Suite, with a glass boardroom table and a calm, modern feel. It’s the room we’d suggest for interviews and workshops, where you want everyone focused and comfortable.

Executive Boardroom (14 board-style, 22 theatre-style)

When you need the whole team facing the same way, the Boardroom is the one. There’s a wall-mounted screen and a flip chart, and you’ll find notepads and pens waiting on the table when you arrive. It’s perfect for boardroom hire, training and those longer planning days.

Bar 11 (up to 25)

Tucked away downstairs is Bar 11, our private basement bar. It has a kitchenette and fridges that are already stocked, and we can arrange catering and bar packages if you’d rather we took care of it. This is where team drinks and networking events tend to happen, and occasionally where a meeting ends up once the serious bit is done!

We do this too

We host the Grosvenor Business Club here, so we know first-hand what happens when you put good people in a room with good food. Our 11th club met on Thursday 8 October for a talk on start-up tax, followed by pizza and prosecco. If you’d like to come along to the next one, Holly or Ieva will happily tell you more.

And if you are weighing up a few venues, our guide to event spaces in Birmingham is a good place to start on what to look for and our biggest red flags too!

When you arrive

Holly and Ieva look after front of house, and they’re the people our clients mention most. They’ll welcome your guests, bring them through and make sure the room is set exactly as you asked, so all you need to think about is the meeting itself.

Tea and coffee is self-serve and the Wi-Fi is fast. The screen will be working before you sit down, which is more than can be said for most offices on a Monday morning.

We’re proud to hold five stars across nearly 200 Google reviews, and Jo Macpherson, whose company uses us for meetings whenever they’re in the city, wrote:

Getting here

We’re a four-minute walk from Snow Hill, twelve minutes from Jewellery Quarter station and nineteen from Grand Central, so most guests can leave the car at home. If anyone is driving, the NCP on Newhall Street is a couple of minutes away and street parking nearby starts at £1.50 an hour.

Bringing people in from further afield? We partner with Bloc hotel just round the corner, so ask us about rates for your guests.

And when the meeting’s done, the bars and restaurants of St Paul’s Square are right on the doorstep, which is handy if the conversation isn’t quite finished!

Booking a few sessions?

If you’ve got several meetings lined up between now and the new year, a package works out cheaper than booking by the hour:

• 10 hours of meeting room access for £300 plus VAT, a 20% saving
• 20 hours of meeting room access for £500 plus VAT

You can use the hours across any of our meeting rooms in Birmingham, whenever suits you.

A gentle nudge about December

Every year, someone rings in late November hoping for the first Thursday in December, and every year we wish they’d called a little sooner. If you’ve got something in mind, pop it in the diary now and give yourself one less thing to think about before Christmas.

Book your room

Check availability and book on our booking page, or email info@grosvenorstpauls.com and Holly or Ieva will help you find the right room for your group.