Activity: Gold Rush

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 gifts and skills I have. I am in the process of learning to like being facilitated. It's not something that comes naturally to me-most people who know me would say that I'm a “born leader”. But there is a certain amount of freedom that is in not leading. Less responsibility, freedom to be yourself and act without the nagging thoughts that you're setting a precident.

Where was I? Right – not good at being facilitated...So I was up at a college WAY farther north than I really care to be in Alberta (-48 for THREE days in a row!) and the college had a block of time where we played some ice-breaker games with the students and us camp directors. None of the games were new to me, they had a different flavour to them but none of it was really surprising. But part way through one of the games – I suddenly looked at my behaviour and had an 'Ah-HA!” moment about myself. Got to love those moments, right? You're never too old or know too much for you to have them.

So here's a great play-based game that can be used as an Ice-breaker.

Gold Rush

Props: Pennies or some kind of token. Enough for each person to start with 7 or 8.

Setting up the Field of Play: Split boys and girls and hand out the pennies or tokens to each person.

Front-Loading: You're in the old, old west in a dusty old town where tumbleweeds bounce across the street and the sounds of old shutters banging against the window frames can be heard. The men of the town have all gotten together and have decided that they need a Saloon...one that serves the best...moonshine juice you've ever drank. Well, the women will have none of that going on...they want their own Beauty Parlour. So a challenge has been made between the men and the women. Whoever makes the most money will get what they want.

Game: You can make money in three different ways. Whoever asks for the challenge can decide which method takes place.

Method One: Rock, Paper, Scissors

Method Two: Thumb Wrestling (no tag teams)

Method Three: Flip a Coin (the Challenger is always heads)

You can set the time limit – and then collect the coins! Typically, you won't need to count...one team will be obvious winners.

My Experience...

It was a fun, harmless game that garaunteed a ton of interaction. If you have a cliquey group or school where the grades or certain groups don't socialize, this is perfect. The light-hearted competition that is gender vs. Gender breaks down a lot of walls. Other than the thumb wrestling, most of the methods to make money don't rely on anything except luck. Even the thumb wrestling, I found that I made more money at that because guys were really easy to beat if you were a little faster than they were strong. However...I was informed that girls are really easy to beat in PRS (Paper, Rock, Scissors) because we almost always choose Rock...interesting.

During the game, I fluctuated a lot. I started with 7 coins and was down as low as 3 and ended up with 13 or 14 coins. Once I hit about 11 coins I started mingling towards the outside of the group. I would pause on the outside and look at my hand. I had gained 4 coins...I was currently helping my team out... should just stop while I'm ahead? I've always considered myself to be an overly competitive person but I was suddenly hit with the thought that I could lose my next three encounters and end up losing money.

What did I do? Stay tuned for the result and the debrief...