Our last Monday session: Another Monday, another day of team building activities.

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Today it’s been the boys responsibility to run the session. Generally the day was divided into two parts. Every part started with a short warm-up game followed by several team buidling activities. The boys split up into pairs each leading one game.

Even though the first warm-up game was a bit of flog, because apparently the group was way too big, we split up into 4 groups and were supposed to play the play the games the boys prepared. Apparently they decided to give every game a certain amout of time to master it, so in the end, I guess their planning worked out quite good (even though we had a bit of a longer lunch break). In my opinion that was pretty clever, so there chance of getting a delay could be avoided. In case a group (at least mine) finished a game or a task quickly and earlier than the time schedule we started to play the Ninja game, so that eventuelly we didn’t had much time without doing anything, which I appreciated and the game is fun anyway.

Short overview of the first 4 games:

• Shrinking island & horse race (name of the game doesn’t make sense)

The group is being placed on a tarp which is supposed to be an „island“. The group then hast o fold the tarp as often as possible (end to end). If anyone steps off the tarp, so into the water, the game is lost.

The horse race consited of a race while the whole group was chained up into one rope. Not much of a good team-building, but definitely fun game.

• Electric fence

A rope or strings a laced up into each other between two poles/tress so they form some kind of a vertical spiderweb with several holes of different sizes. The groups starts on one side of the fence. The goal is to get every member oft he group through the fence tot he other side without touching the strings, because they are supposed to be  eletric.

• Rope-game without a name and (in my opinion) without a reasonable goal

A rope is being attachted to two poles/tress about the heights of approximately 1.60 m. Similar tot he eletric fence game, every groupmember has to reach the other side but it is not allowed to go under or help from under the rope.  

• River-crossing (that is just the literal german translation of how this game is called in Germany)

The group is supposed to cross a certain distance (metaphorically a river). As people obviously can’t walk over water the group usually gets something they can step on to. In this case we were given plastic bags.

We had just a short amount of time to discuss our plan and then we started. The second round we were supposed to beat our first time. Round three we only had 4 plastic bags and in the last round one of us was blindfolded.

After the lunch break we started with a short warming up game again. It was called Snake, and we split the big group into two, lining up in a row and facing one direction, touching the shoulders of the person in front of us. The goal was then to catch the tail oft he other snake. If the ‚nose‘, so the person in front, touches the last person oft he other snake, the team wins.

Short overview of the next 4 games:

• 3 monkeys: this is reffering to the famous three monkeys of whom one can’t see, the other one can’t speak and the third one can’t hear. The aim of this game is, that in a competition of two teams consisting of three ‚monkeys‘ those who can’t see have to collect as many things (in our case plastic bag placed on the ground; which gets funny when the wind comes) as possbile. The team with the most items wins.

But how does it work: The blindfolded monkeys will start by facing a certain area where the plastic bags are placed. The monkey who can’t hear is turning his or her back to the, looking into the other direction, where he or she is facing the third monkey who can’t speak, he or she is facing the are where the plastic bags are placed as well. Now, when the game starts, the one who can’t speak is making motions as to tell the one who can’t see what the blindfolded one is supposed to do, where to go, etc. (straigt, left, pick up, ..). The task was being changed between the team members every round.

 

• Bomb: a backpack is placed in the middle of a circle made out of a rope down on the ground. The backpack is being packed so it is not too heavy but at the same time not too weak. No one is allowed to step into the circle otherwise its gonna ‚explode‘. The aim is to get the backpack out of the circle without it touching the ground either.

 

• Lining up: out oft wo ropes, Ed made a line on the ground that was almost as big as our shoes, so we didn’t have much space to change places. But that was on purpose. We now had to fulfill different tasks as for example line up from the oldest to the youngest, from the one who lives the most far aways from Kristiansand tot he one who lives to nearest, etc.

 

Adjusting the games a bit after few rounds we had to line up alphabetically reffering to the last letter of our last name. But; additionally only two of us were able to talk, two others had been blindfolded and the last two couldn’t speak. After a couple of minutes the rules changed within the respective two teams.

 

• Unknotting: the team is standing in a circle facing each other. Everyone puts in his or her right arm/hand grabbing another one. Then the same with the left hand. Now, the aim is to unknot the group and get back into a circle everyone holding hand.

 

• Scharade: Scharade is game consiting of different tasks based on the same pot of words. In the beginning everyone notes 3 different word on 3 different little papers. Folding them together and putting them into a bowl, a cap or whatever is available, creates the basis of this game. The big group is split up into two group that, from then on, will form a team. In the first round the words a being explained and the corresponding team to the explanator h as to guess the words. The others team is allowed to listen, as those words are gonna be interesting for the next rounds. After a certain amount of time (app. 40 sec) it’s the others teams turn. When all the words are explained, the second round starts. All the words are being put back into the bowl and this time the teams have to pantomime the same words instead of explaining them. The last round then starts with all the words again, but now only one word is allowed to „explain“ the word to the team. The winner is the team who guessed the most words.

 

Reflections about the games:

The 3 monkey game was the first game, I didn’t know before. In the future I will definitely try to play this game with other groups as well. After our group completed the game, I was sure, we needed some kind of modification for this game though to play it with other groups, because as we were competing both of our groups were shouting and screaming far too loud so it became impossible for the blindfolded to listen to their respective team member. Seeing the others groups competing it became obvious, this is not a general difficulty as not everyone was shouting as loud as we were, so it just need a modification for those who think its even more effective if one screams as loud as he or she can. I guess the only solution ist o put both groups a bit further apart from each others..

I did enjoy this game very much and we had a lot of fun. We played a couple of times and always changed the teams which was nice as well.

I personally enjoyed playing Scharade, because – even though it is not a typical team-building game, it is usually a lot of fun and can be icebreaking for some people as they don’t have to physically take part in something

Same goes for the horse race, for example, or the running in paris with a stick between our legs trying to catch someones hat, but seeing it in the light of the whole day it had been some quite nice and fun games, which I think are sometimes helpful and necessary as well as mainly cognitively and/or physically challenging tasks.

Summing it up, it has definetely been the funniest Monday so far. Not only within the small groups, but as far as I can say it seemed like everyone was enjoying the day. The organised some – in my understanding – genuine games, that complies with team building.

Making use of the of the blindfolded-modification turned out to be a purposeful change in the games that leaded to improve our communication skills, our actions and our movements, which had been a great enhancement to the group performance.