[ instigate change ]

My Peeps! I interrupt your regular scheduled posting to remind you that the AEE International conference is coming!! It happens on November 1-4th, 2012 (the pre-conferences happen on October 30 and 31st)!! I went for the first time last year and there's NOTHING that will stop me from going again this year. Unfortunately it's not in sunny Florida but I'm more than sure that Madison, Wisconsin will be the ONLY place to be come October 30-November 4th, 2012. Facilitators like Michelle and Paul Cummings (Training Wheels), Project Adventure, and High5 will all be there along with Jennifer Stanchfield and many, many more. Join their group on Facebook to get up-to-date information on workshops and pre-conference workshops (yours truly will be going to the whole thing). Or head right to the AEE Website to get all of the information firsthand. A lot of organizations are into Professional Development so find the workshops from either this year or previous years and use t...

Hey folks! Sorry that this has taken so long to post. I've had a pretty hectic month of May (as I'm sure that most have). The last two weeks have been extra-special hectic because I broke my 4th finger on my right (dominant) hand and ended up needing surgery...a plate and 6 screws. Awesome! So it's taken me a little bit to get back in the swing of things with writing and typing. This next activity is a staple among my staff. When we have multiple team building blocks happening at once - this is one that is most often fought for. It's very simple but for obvious reasons - needs a physical apparatus to do. But it's value as part of a permanent program is very high Check it out! The Whale Watch Type of Initiative: Initiative Group Size: 5-15 people Equipment: The Whale Watch platform (or a balance deck) Objective: To balance the deck off the ground from the first person on to the last person. Playing the Game: Because of safety co...

I am often asked by teachers, parents, and those that are just interested how I see technology impacting our youth and the up-and-coming generations. I am not going to give you my opinion...yet. Just leave you with a very interesting infogram to ponder on. You may be wondering what this has to do with team and community building but because it has roots in how we interact with each other and for me...how I even go about training my summer teams - I feel it is a very, VERY relevant topic. We'll talk more in a couple days.

I hope that you have had a chance to try "As if". If you haven't...seriously - the next time you have a group of ANY age and of ANY size - try it. Your group will be laughing and interacting within seconds. Always have a couple of really fun interactions before you do the more difficult ones that take a little more thought or place the participants in conflict. That's when it gets interesting. Before I get into that too much I'll give you some easy Q & A debrief material: Debriefing topics:   What did you notice? Who was uncomfortable with some of the early "as if's"?  What about the later introductions?  How were your interactions different with each scenario? What did you notice about non-verbal body language with the different roles?  How did your attitude change during the exercise? Who was uncomfortable with some of the early 'as ifs'?  What about the later introductions? Would you agree that ev...

Hello!! This activity is typically labelled as an Ice-breaker - and it might be - but it's an Ice-breaker that packs a punch. Drama teachers...pay attention because this is also a super great warm activity for improv games. Let's get right into it: Activity: "As If"   Type of Initiative:     Icebreaker Source: Related to us by Chris Cavert who learned it from "Steve the Aussie" at the 2006 National Challenge Course Practitioner Symposium Props Needed:   None Group Size:    2-100 Directions:   Divide your group into pairs.  Begin this activity by letting participants know that you will give them a relationship role to play for the upcoming interaction.  Have the pairs stand about 15 feet apart from one another.  Have them determine which partner will be the 'greeter' and which partner will play out the 'role'.  Each interaction is approximately 20-30 seconds in duration. Then announce the first interaction.  As...

No, I wasn't studdering. It's just funny to title a debrief post on a debrief tool. As I mentioned earlier this week, this is one of my favourite debrief tools. There's so many applications. Probably one of the best characteristics of this tool is its relevance to our lives. As we age and grow - we're in a constant state of change. That change may be noticeable on the outside or maybe only on the inside. The point is - something is always happening to us. Which makes this tool really great to introduce at the beginning of a program so that you can refer back to it as the participants work through tasks and experiences. It helps the participants to begin making 'processing' a habit. They don't have to spend tons of time analyzing their thoughts and feelings...they can just look at how they're reacting through the experience and then - if they choose - they can dig into the why after that. Beyond the straight up "Change" uses of this tool - ...

Hello! Long time, no write. This last month has been a little hectic for me - as I'm sure most of yours have been. Spring tends to be that way. Upon returning from Jamaica I was hoping to be able to just pick up where I left off but I don't think, now that I look back at the last month, that was entirely possible. Along with massive changes at the camp that I work at and it being the month where everything ramps up (summer is, after all, coming), a completely unexpected incidents, and a significant death in my family - I decided I just needed to step away from [ Instigate Change ]. But I'm back with great hopes and plans to be consistent. That's how it all has to start, right? Set realistic goals. Don't win the war - just win the first battle that you have. Worry about the rest after that battle is won . That's what my university rugby coach drilled into our heads. Win the moment - don't try and win the whole game. This last month - I've been remindi...

"This Girl" asked a couple posts ago that I explain the other activity that I did with the uber-diverse in life walk and age missions team. I had been mulling over what to do for several days before the activity. My parents had expressed their concern over having too intense of an activity with some of the group members being so old. I felt frustrated by the comment and almost in spite wanted to jump to an activity that would point out their error in thinking. I resisted because it isn't about me and certainly isn't all about them either. I'm going to touch on some theory behind programming team building sessions. A lot of the staff that I work with find that concrete expectations and plans are the easiest to work with. So when I start teaching people activities and their "arsenal" begins to grow beyond 5 or 6 activities - the question of which activity to do comes into play. As a young facilitator - it's easy to base your program on activities tha...

What does mentoring look like?  Is it shelter from the storm? Being a living example of how one should live? What do you think?

Hello! I hope that everyone is doing well. It's been a while since the last blog update and there's good reason for that. I've been in Jamaica for the last two and a half weeks on a medical mission. If you want more information you can just follow the link on the right labelled [ the clean slate ] as I will be posting about the trip over the next couple of weeks. While I was there – I had the opportunity to lead the missions team in several team building activities. The dynamics of the group were large. The youngest in the group being just 18 – ranging to the oldest being in their 70s. Wowzers. Initially when I volunteered for the task I was imagining a group a little closer in age and a little more tolerant of “games”. I don't know why it threw me so much. It's not like I haven't worked with a group with a large age gap before – I do it all the time at Teacher Conventions but this group seemed different. Especially when my parents were part of the...

Hi! Sorry about the break in posting. This last week has been surprisingly busy. I don't know if you ever experience times where you're so busy that it's like you're standing still and the world is rushing by without being able to stop it. And no matter how hard you work you just can't seem to get an edge on it. That's how this last week has felt for me. Some of the busyness is good. Like I'm going to Jamaica - that's a good thing. But there were so many things to get done BEFORE I could depart for Jamaica and then I was facilitating sessions and working my exhibit booth on the day and day before I left. So I had to be packed on Tuesday to depart for the sunshine on Friday. No second chances on forgetting stuff. And the whole time I have just been telling myself - stay focused, stay on task. I needed to make sure the first thing on my mind was the workshops and having quality conversations with the teachers at the convention. I wasn't allowed to ...

Happy Thursday everyone!! I trust that this week has started well for everyone. I have fallen a little behind in the posts department. I still owe everyone the debrief from last week and I have a partially written post on Effective Teaching Practices in light of the workshops that I've been facilitating at teacher conventions. I was just at the Central Alberta Teacher Convention last week and I'm heading out to do the Palliser District next week in Calgary. Admittedly I always feel nervous leading up to the workshops because my brain starts playing tricks with itself. I find myself saying..."Who do you think you are? Teaching teachers? This is their business not yours...they know more than you! You won't teach them anything . They will hate your workshops." Yikes! It looks worse and yet, more ridiculous when you see it written down. But ultimately those are just the discouraging things that our world feeds us and that maybe I've been told ...

Today I'm writing about an experience from my big road trip in January when I was recruiting staff for my summer teams. Every year I spend about two or so weeks on the road travelling to Bible colleges in Alberta and Saskatchewan to recruit staff. Each college is different and how they create spaces for the dozens of camps to interact with students varies from one place to the next. I can't say that there's much of a formula that spells out success for recruiting staff but each College certainly brings their own flavour. I've mentioned this before but I find it very, very difficult to be facilitated. I don't think I was always as bad as I am now. Years ago, my task-driven nature allowed me to fully invest in whatever challenge or activity was presented. Now I find that I intentionally step back to allow someone else to “have the experience” when that really goes against everything that we teach in team building. In a way, it's like I'm denying my team the ...

 ...Google Friends Connect, that is. I feel as though this is a giant scandal of sorts...but it really isn't. If you're an avid blog follower (admittedly I definitely am) then you probably are "following" a number of blogs through Google Friends. I've had my head under the sand apparently because it was all news to me this last week when several of the blogs that I follow started talking about Google changing everything including the “Followers” widget that appears in the sidebar. This isn't a life-ending thing for me because most of you who read/follow my blog haven't used it (shame on you)...even though I can see where you're coming from (check the clustrmap!). All this to say that some time around the beginning of March – Google will shut down Google Followers. So...I'm jumping on the “Linky Followers” band wagon. It's super easy and like most things – it's FREE! The nice thing that I actually found when I signed...

I hope that everybody has had a chance to maybe go over this with a couple friends and that the explanation made sense. Once you start working through it - everything becomes quite clear. I first experienced this activity with a management team from work. We went to a day long cooperate team building session. I struggled to get much out of it beyond this activity. I think what I learned that day was that cooperate team building is a very different beast than team building with youth. Youth have a greater ability to change and adjust to their situations - which sounds a little backwards because you'd think that as adults who have developed faculties and a greater vision for their environments would be able to make the changes necessary to be more efficient and more successful. When I look at my own experiences working in and with adult teams - this is not the typical case. We're more set in our ways of doing things and we really, really don't like to be told we're wro...

Hey Peeps! Sorry for the lapse in time. I've been on the road for the last two weeks and really should have pre-posted more than I did. I've tried to resist the assumption that everywhere in this world has internet access...such was not the case this last week. Here's a new activity! It's a really fun one to play around with and works well with a number of different ages for a whole bunch of contexts. I started using it after I went to a management team building session. I always have to laugh at myself when I'm put into situations where I'm part of the team rather than the facilitator - especially now after facilitating for so many years. I don't really like being facilitated. And though I still love learning - I'm becoming less and less tolerant of being facilitated THROUGH the learning experience. I think that's something that occurs with age. We become know-it-alls or something. What about you? Do you react to facilitators the same way that...

Hey! So did everybody get it? Once you have the patterns - it's difficult to lose it. The most important thing I think when facilitating this activity is to allow your group to fail - to experience the "trial and error". I've seen teachers, parents, and facilitators step in too early because it's hard to watch people struggle. But struggling and working through different ways to do things is a part of life. We as facilitators have the ability to show students and adults of all ages to have the courage to fail, get up and try again. It takes more character to continue trying than it does to quit. I have seen groups try and fail over 30 times in this activity. When I explain it - I also let them know that I have a couple of hints that I can give them but the whole group must agree together that they want the hints. Most of the time - the group will want to find the answer on their own but they need to know that it is okay to ask for help. Asking for help is ofte...

How did we do with it? Well - before I get completely carried away with a debrief...let's give you the answer key and let you master the .linear version. [L5]        [L4]        [L3]       [L2]        [L1]           O        [R1]        [R2]        [R3]        [R4]        [R5] Before I give you the all out answer key...here are two hints first. Hint #1 : (it's more like a riddle) Once you come to a place where you're looking at someone going the opposite direction as you with the free space in between you - it is the person who HASN'T gone that goes first. Hint #2: (And this one will help nearly everyone solve the puzzle) - Once...

Peeps!! How is it going! I am currently on a staff recruiting tour in Northern Alberta, Canada. Right now - outside of my broken furnaced room - it's a whopping -39degrees celius. Barf. I'm trying to be super positive about my surroundings but as I type this and my nose won't warm up...I'm wishing Jamaica would arrive just a little sooner. Activity for today - well, when I started working at camp that was like...let's see...it's 2012 now...I started in 1999....okay - so for like 12 years...this activity was called pegs because the markers you stood on were wooden 4x4" stuck into the ground with a round peg in the middle. I mostly travel all around doing workshops and clinics so I've resorted to using either coloured (sorry my dear Americans, that's how we spell it...apparently our Powers That Be really like the letter "U") markers or  crushable pylons. I love this activity. Again - it's super versatile. Inside, outside, masking ta...