Group Dynamix produces extraordinarily fun events for youth, corporations and organizations at the largest indoor team building center in the U.S., and at client locations everywhere.
Goal:
To have an individual or team work together to a full six count.
When first seen, this gets a lot of ooh’s and aaahh’s, but only if you can pull it off yourself. This is one of those activities you do first and see if they can follow. It is recommended to only show them once. If you can’t do the following, then ask for a volunteer. It makes it more fun anyway.
First, have a volunteer come forward. Instruct the volunteer that you are going to test them on team coordination. The test is simple. First, let them know that his or her right arm will be placed in only two positions – either straight up by the ear or straight down by your waist. The left arm will be in three positions, straight up by their ear, out to the side like an airplane wing or straight down by the side. When instructed he or she will move his or her arms to the corresponding positions on each beat, from one to six.
Left Right
1. Up 1. Up
2. Side 2. Down
3. Down 3. Up
4. Up 4. Down
5. Side 5. Up
6. Down 6. Down
Both the left and the right arms have to move at the same time with each count. As the laughter settles down have everyone try. Once done with practicing, ask for six volunteers to come to the front and demonstrate for everyone.
Variations:
After everyone has had a turn in practicing, have everyone go back a form teams of six and have them come up with their most creative form of six count.
Safety:
Make sure that everyone has room enough to move around with arms fully extended.
What supplies are needed? Roll of duct tape, a marker and poster board for each team.
Purpose Communication and collaboration.
How it’s played?
1. Set up: Take some duct tape and draw a circle about ten feet in diameter. Place a poster board or flip chart in the middle of the circle (one setup per team playing). Give each team a roll of duct tape and a marker.
2. Objective: To get the group to work together and draw a picture or a word on the poster board using only a marker and duct tape.
3. Draw a picture of a smiley face within ten minutes on the poster board using the marker.
4. The face, eyes and mouth are the basics that must be drawn within the ten minutes.
5. Any additional features on the face like hair, nose, ears, hats or jewelry are bonus points. 25 points awarded for each additional feature.
6. No one is allowed inside the duct tape circle. Fingers and hands are not allowed to cross the barrier of the circle.
7. No one can move the poster board from the middle of the circle. You may not remove the circle from the floor. No creative cheating, please.
8. Using the roll of duct tape and the marker, fashion a device that will allow you to suspend the marker into the circle, MacGyver style, and draw your smiley face.
9. Everyone must participate in the drawing and building. Processing questions:
1. What were some of the ideas that were talked about before achieving your goal?
2. What kind of leadership characteristics did it take to have everyone participate to achieve this goal?
3. On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best, how would you rank the success of your team and why?
4. Anything that you would do different?
The place- The brand new Omni Hotel in downtown Dallas. The people – 160 Advancial employees. The Event – A Group Dynamix Amazing Journey.
As guests check into the Omni Hotel on January 15th, their curiosity is peeked by waves of laugher and cheers heard sporadically throughout corridors of this lavish hotel. Their curiosity turns to amusement as they see gaggles of green-shirted Advancial employees hurrying to various destinations throughout the hotel seeking clues or performing tasks before moving onto their next destination.
Advancial, who was voted one of “Best Companies To Work For” by the Dallas Morning News, Dallas Business Journal and Texas Monthly, prides itself on creating a great work environment. According to Brent Sheffield( Advancial President & CEO), they try not to take their work too seriously and have fun, and “having fun starts from the top down. ” As an example of their fun culture, during a circus event, Brent dressed as a circus ring leader and handed out animal crackers to employees around their office according to Heather Stalling, Business Relations Officer at Advancial. “The Leadership Team is always doing something fun to promote company activities and never ceases to wow us!”
So when they wanted to “wow” their employees again, they turned to Group Dynamix. Their stated goal was to bring individuals together whose primary interaction is over the phone. They didn’t know each other or have any shared experiences. They really wanted to build bonds that make their ties stronger so that at the end of the day shared an experience that lasts a lifetime.
At the end of the event, some of the Advancial employees were asked to share their thoughts of their Amazing Race. Here are some of their comments. ”This was an amazing event.” ” We want to do it next year.” “If I was going to build an event I would not change a thing.” So was GDX successful? In the words of Brent “When someone has nothing they can criticize you on than that is pretty special!”
During the post event interview, Brent stated, ” When we did this event, we looked at a number of companies to outsource to. GDX stood out head and shoulders above all the groups we talked to. They really matched our kind of corporate culture.”
How you play?
Start the game with a leader choosing someone to be “It”. The “It” in this game are the “Hot Dog Makers.” If an “IT” tags another player during this game, the tagged player will lie down on his/her back and begin to yell, “I need buns!” This player can be save by two other free players sliding in next to the tagged player and all three need to sing the first verse of the Oscar Meyer Song. “Oh I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Winner – that is what I’d really like to be – FREE!” On the word FREE, all three players can stand-up as free players and continue the game. If an “IT” is close-by, the players are safe as long as they are down and singing. Play for a few minutes and then applaud the “It’s” for keeping the group moving and then select other “Hot Dog Makers” to play again.
How it’s played?
Scream is a GDX twist on the game ”Look Up-Look Down” Make a circle of 6 to 12 players, all standing very close to each other. Each circle will have a player that will be the “caller.” This player will start the game by saying , “Look Down!” Each player lowers his or her head and looks down at the floor. When the caller says ” Look Up,” all the players must raise their heads and look directly at another players in their circle. This is where the GDX variation comes in. If any two players are looking at each other, they engage in a scream-off to see who is out of the game. The player who screams the longest stays in the circle while the other backs away from the circle, the circle closes up and the commands are given again. Players continue to dropout until there are only one player left.
Introduction
Larry, Moe and Curly is a fun icebreaker that helps your group to get to know each other’s names.
How you play
Groups of 20-30 sit or stand in a circle. One person stands in the middle and points to someone in the circle and says “Curly,” “Mo” or “Larry”. The person who is pointed to must respond with a name before the pointer in the middle can count out loud to three. The name the person must shout depends on what he or she was called:
“Curly”: say the name of the person on your left.
“Moe”: say your own name.
“Larry”: say the name of the person on your right.
If the person shouts the correct name, the person in the middle stays and repeats the process with someone else in the circle. If the person fails to shout the correct name, he or she changes places with the person in the middle.
After a while, you may want to add a second person to the middle. After five minutes, rotate half of each group to another group, or combine two groups and put a second person in the middle.
