Family Camp Icebreaker #2

You can read about Family Camp in my first Icrebreaker hub. The icebreaker described here can be used for a small or large number of people in any setting, not restricted to Family Camp. Basically it is like a speed-dating setup but what it really does is provide some one-on-one time with the various people in the group.

Setup

You'll need to know roughly the number of people you will have at your ice breaker and the space to create a circle of chairs that is equal to half the number of people - obviously you need that many chairs also. On the walls you can put a few posters, one on each wall that gives these simple instructions:

1. Introduce yourself
2. Where are you from?
3. Answer the question

Prepare a bunch of questions that you print such that the same question is printed twice, facing one way and the other, like the photo here. Below is a list of some of the questions that I prepared for my ice breaker. You can use these and/or come up with your own.

• If you could have an endless supply of any food, what would you get?
• If you were an animal, what would you be and why?
• What’s your favorite thing to do in the summer?
• What’s your favorite thing to do in the winter?
• If you were an ice cream flavor, which one would you be and why?
• What’s your favorite cartoon character, and why?
• Are you a morning or night person?
• What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?
• If you had to describe yourself using three words, it would be…

Once prepared, take these printed pages and put them one each on the seat of each chair that is in the circle such that a person on the inside can read the question that is facing them and a person on the outside can read the same question that is facing them. You may want or need to tape the printed page to the chair.

As people arrive into the room where the event is taking place, instruct the people to stand on either the inside of the circle at a chair, or on the outside of the circle at a chair. One or two chairs may need to be added or removed from the circle to handle the right number of people. If there is an odd number of people, have two people who already know each other well double up and act as one for the movement, but each answers all three points.

1. From this starting position instruct the people to follow the instructions on the wall (introduce, where from, question) with the person across from them, each taking their turn.
2. Time a random time between two and five minutes and for silliness throw in a few 10 second times.
3. Once time is up, ask the inside circle to move X spaces to the right or left, then ask the outside circle to move X (same X as above, or different X) spaces to the right or left. You may want to keep track of one specific starting couple that you can easily identify. If your moves of people will ever end up having these two facing each other again, it means everyone is facing each other again. This may be okay if it ends up that they are at a different question, but you may want to avoid it anyhow.
4. Once the circles have settled into place, tell them to go through the three points again.
5. Go back to step 2 until the time for the Icebreaker has completed.

The most feedback I got back after having run this event was how pleased some of the people were to get one-on-one time with other individuals that during the rest of the week at camp they do not normally get a chance to have one-on-one time. It also offers the opportunity for people who don't usually speak up in larger groups to have a voice and be heard.