How to Be Creative Leading Group Games
Facilitator Tips Episode 50

What it Means to Be Creative

This week’s Facilitator Tips episode explores what it means to be creative and how this manifests itself in the context of facilitating group games & activities.

<< Go to Episode 49   Go to Episode 51 >>

Sometimes being creative is all about being different, but this video tutorial invites you to focus more on creating a difference by creating new experiences for your group.

There is much to discuss on this topic, so we focus primarily on what can be created or changed to produce a different outcome for you and your groups.

Click the play button above to learn more about how to be creative with group games & activities.

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Useful Links & Resources

• Try New Things All The Time – this episode of the Facilitator Tips video series will motivate you to try new things all the time as a facilitator, to help you be creative.
• Free playmeo Group Games app – click the link to learn more about & install playmeo’s free app – you’ll soon have dozens of free group games & activities in the palm of your hand, not to mention, the ability to open a world of 420+ activities.

…EE

Video Transcript

Hi there folks and welcome to the Facilitator Tips video series.

My name is Mark Collard, I’m an experiential trainer and author, and today I look at Episode 50 in the topic of being creative.

Now back in Episode 19 we talked about trying new stuff all the time. I want to expand on that because for many people particularly if you’re experienced in this field, often the thing that really gets us excited is finding new ways of doing old stuff.

And so some of the parameters I’m using to be creative in this setting, even if you only ever knew 10 activities in your life, if you could play with these different parameters you might end up with a whole repertoire of 200 different experiences that you could present to your group.

The first one is time. Often the experiences are bound by time but maybe opening up time, that is an open time limit where you don’t have to actually stop. That could be something that you can play with if you’ve done something different in the past.

Resources. This is the people, it’s the props, it’s the setting. All of those things can change. So maybe if you’ve given everyone one opportunity, give them two opportunities or no opportunities, or rather than one per person give it one to a group. So resources. That includes time, it can be adjusted. That would actually give you a different outcome too.

Handicapping. Look, I have some issues with people who say I like to be able to get people to do things blindfolded or mute or without their left arm or something of that nature. Yes, but you need to be really clear about what you’re trying to do and still have that presented where you’ve handicapped a group or an individual so that it’s still safe. That’s both physical, emotional, and mental safety is still assured. So look, it can work, it needs to absolutely connect with your program goals, but that’s something that certainly can offer opportunities for creativity.

Obstacles. Maybe you’re going from Point A to Point B and it’s a straight line. What would it mean if you had to go over something, underneath something, around something? Other obstacles could include… related to handicaps or time. So think about what could I put in the way that would make this different, or maybe introduce a new problem that now needs to be overcome to be able to solve something before you move on. So that would also provide opportunities for creativity.

And then, of course, is the story. You could just tell it as it is, you could create some sort of fantasy, or indeed involve a metaphor where the setting actually dictates and connects directly to something that’s relevant and appropriate to your group.

So be creative. It certainly inspires me when I’ve got a repertoire of 800, 1000 different ideas and every one of them has at least one different way that can be adapted. These are some of the things that I’m looking at. So my challenge to you as my last-minute tip is hey, what could you do today that would be a little bit different and it would be creative for you and your group?

And again, thank you so much for listening and watching to this video. If you’ve found some value in it, by all means, you are welcome to share it. Indeed, even make a comment. If you’re looking for some further resources you can get our free app.

You can also get access to a massive online database of activities at www.playmeo.com. All of this you can find links at our show notes at www.playmeo.com Episode 50.

My name is Mark Collard. It’s my pleasure to be here.

Thank you so much for listening. I’ll see you at our next episode. Bye-bye.