No Small Change – Toolkit 4: Some ideas for icebreakers
It’s a good idea to start a workshop with some kind of introduction to everyone in the group. There are several reasons for doing this: -
Common courtesy and making sure everyone feels welcome Ensure that everyone knows who everyone is. Make sure people know who the organisers and facilitators are too! - Sets a precedent for everyone in the room to speak. How you choose to do this will depend on who the group is made up of, how well they know each other, and how much time you have. You will also need to be sensitive to individual personalities and characters in the group – some people may find these type of activities very stressful so choose carefully and make sure people can opt out if they want to. Quick Exercises Name Game A quick way to remember names is to get people to go round in a circle introducing themselves. You can liven this up by making each person also introduce the person next to them. To make it really challenging you can get people to introduce everyone that has gone before them, so the last person has to remember everyone in the group’s name e.g my name is Gary and this is Freda, this is Clare, etc., etc. Speedy Interview Give people two minutes to speak to the person next to them and find out something interesting about them. Then go round the circle and get everyone to introduce the person they were talking to (as opposed to introducing themselves!) If people are sitting next to people they already know, ask them to move around the room and find someone they don’t know. Exercises that involve the CC they are involved in You can try and bring in the CC to the warm up activity. Why, What, How? You could just go round the room and ask people to say their name and the answer to a question about the CC. So, you could ask people why they got involved in the CC, what their most memorable experience has been, how long they have been involved, etc. Line Up A more interactive way of doing the previous exercise is to get people to answer a question by lining up in order. So, you could ask people how long they have been involved with the CC and ask the person who has been involved the longest to stand at 1