The Games for Fun Workshop is a practical opportunity for teachers, youth workers, summer scheme leaders, outdoor pursuits instructors, community leaders and anyone else interested in the positive development of Young People.

What’s the Games for Fun Workshop all about?

“A teacher put a dot of chalk on a blackboard and asked a classroom of 15 and 16 year olds to say what they saw.  They responded with the obvious – a chalk dot.  She pointed out to them that she asked the same question of a group of 5 and 6 year olds the day before and elicited responses such as a squashed bug, the top of a telephone pole, an owl’s eye and the like.”

• Did you know that 96% of 4 year olds believe that they can become anything they want to?
• Did you know that by the time these 4 year olds are 18 only 4% of them will hold this belief?
• Did you know that 100% of 5 year olds are driven by their imagination?
• Did you know that only 10% of 7 year olds are driven by their imagination?
• And does it scare you to know that only 2% of 20 year olds are driven by their imagination?

Young children love playing games, inventing “things”, building, drawing and creating. They are brilliant at solving problems. They are not afraid to take risks! And most of all, they having an amazing desire to succeed!

Yet as children grow older these natural skills diminish and with that so do their aspirations and dreams!

This workshop is designed to provide you with a whole new arsenal of games and energisers to help you succeed in your effort developing Young People.

You will look at the process of delivering games with purpose, games for “fun-full-stop”, high and low energy games, games for pairs and games for very large groups. You will take part in as many as 30 different games as part of this workshop.

What will I learn on the Games for Fun Workshop?

• Lots of new games and variations of more familiar games
• How to modify games to suit the needs of the group
• Games for 2 – 200 people
• Linking games through a progressive development process
• Games without resources
• Open space games versus closed space games

Participants will also receive:

• A resource pack which includes briefs for the games, activity plans and another 20 games
• Certificate of completion

Who will be leading the Games for Fun Workshop?

With over 15 years experience Stephen Brown has developed and delivered adventure based personal and social development courses with marginalised young people and community groups, team building events for small businesses and large businesses alike, activity days for families, groups of friends, schools and youth organisations.

• For more details on Stephen and his work:
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/TeamBuildingAdventure
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/AdventureTeam
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/theadventureteam
• Flickr: www.flickr.com/theadventureteam

When is the Games for Fun Workshop?

There are two Games for Fun Workshops in February:

• Course 1 – Wednesday 8th and Wednesday 15th February 2012, 6.00pm – 9.00pm
• Course 2 – Saturday 18th February 2012, 10.00am – 4.00pm

Where is the Games for Fun Workshop?

The Adventure Team, CEAL, 8 Meadowbank Road, Carrickfergus, BT38 8YF

How much does the Games for Fun Workshop cost:

£125 per person and bring a friend or colleague for £100

Community Groups, Schools and Voluntary Organisations are entitled to a 50% discount

All prices are subject to VAT and the total amount is payable at the time of booking

How do I book my place on the Games for Fun Workshop?

Just give us a call on 0845 5213145 or email info@theadventureteam.co.uk

You can also book Stephen to deliver this workshop for your organisation – just ask!

Other workshops include:

• Games for Developing Teams
• Chaos – The 30 minute energiser
• Reviewing skills for beginners
• Reviewing skills for business
• Plan it, do it, review it – refining the reviewing process

What people say:

"Five star!! really enjoyed the activities bringing out our competitive nature and also that of team work and strategy planning! Brilliant facilitators and great way with the guys who deliver the training. Very well done i know its not the last you will see of me! You helped me build relationships within the NICE group and I know those relationships are now based on our level of trust and co-operation.. keep up the great work! Thanks to you all.”

"From the initial set up right through to the delivery Stephen and his Adventure Team provided a first class service. Stephen, via his calm, self assured and professional style of delivery created an atmosphere that enabled our groups to feel safe and challenged. All the activities provided were delivered in a professional, fun and creative manner. The group, whether participating in an icebreaker or games session right through to the more challenging outdoor activities were at all times in very safe and knowledgeable hands. Stephen and his team ensure that the young people are supported to feel safe both emotionally and physically.”

GROW is our premier Primary School programme that involves energisers, teambuilding tasks, games and challenges.

All of the activities are designed to challenge pupils both personally and socially, without feeling that they have been taken too far out of their “comfort zones”. Ultimately, the focus of Grow is to provide a structured, team building day with a strong emphasis on fun; after all, we learn more when we are having fun…

Do you want your pupils to GROW? Give us a call on 028 8164 8390 or email info@theadventureteam.co.uk

Where can my pupils try GROW?

GROW can be delivered at our base in Gortin or we can bring it to you! Most assembly halls and sports halls are large enough.

Are there any age restrictions for GROW?

GROW is an adaptable programme that is suitable for anyone aged 6 and older.

What will my pupils do on the GROW programme?

How will my pupils benefit from taking part in the GROW programme?

GROW creates:

• a sense of self-esteem (both personal and cultural)
• a respect and tolerance for others
• a sense of belonging
• a sense of social, political, cultural and environmental responsibility
• an appreciation of the importance of learning

What do my pupils need to take part in the GROW programme?

We provide all specialist equipment; all the pupils will need is comfortable clothing, e.g. What they wear for PE.

Will my pupils be safe on the GROW programme?

We have over 15 years experience working with children and young people. All of our instructors are trained and assessed in accordance with our Activity Guidelines detailed in our comprehensive Risk Assessment Policy. Our instructors are all qualified First Aiders and meet all of our Child Protection checks including ACCESS NI. We also hold a £5 million insurance policy.

What do other people think of GROW with The Adventure Team?

“Thanks again for last week the children really enjoyed themselves and the teachers loved being able to take a back seat.  Stress free days are always good.” – Linn Primary School

How much does it cost to take part in the GROW programme?

GROW costs £10 per person based on a minimal of 20 participants. Discounts are available for members of The Adventure Club!

How do I book GROW for my pupils?

It’s simple really – give us a call on 028 8164 8390 or email info@theadventureteam.co.uk

To achieve your Gold Award, you need to complete an extra section – the Residential.  This involves spending 5 days and 4 nights away from home on a shared activity with people you’ve never met before.

“I was told by a few people that it would be a life-changing experience.  At the time I didn’t believe them, but now I have returned, my perspectives on everyday life have been changed.  Our experiences at the Goodwill Village especially allowed me to grow as a person, gaining confidence and experiencing new sensations that very few people ever get to experience.”Hannah, DofE participant.

As an Approved Activity Provider we are offering a new and exciting residential opportunity at our Adventure Centre in Gortin, County Tyrone nestled in the beautiful Sperrin Mountains.

During the 5 days you will have the chance to experience a variety of fun and challenging activities that include Archery, Abseiling, Mountain Biking, Canoeing, Raft Building, Curragh Building, Hill Walking and Coasteering on the world famous Co. Antrim Coast (including a visit to the Giants Causeway World Heritage Site).

You will also have the opportunity in the evenings to learn about the rich and diverse cultural history of Northern Ireland including a visit to Derry/Londonderry (UK city of Culture for 2013) and a guided tour of the famous Derry city walls, and of course some traditional Irish music and “craic”.

This is a great chance to forge new friendships whilst enjoying challenging fun activities and learning about different cultures.

£280.00 per person (price includes 4 nights accommodation, all meals, activities, equipment, instruction, transport to and from activities and insurance)      

Airport, train and bus transfers can also be arranged by prior arrangement

Available Dates 2011

• 18 – 22 April
• 23 – 27 May
• 20 – 24 June
• 25 – 29 July
• 15- 19 August

Give us a call on 028 8164 8390 to book your place or ask us any questions that you have

As many of you may have noticed we have been running a 1/2 price sale which we have promoted through our Facebook Page.  And because it has been going so well we have decided to extend it until the end of January for all of you that subscribe to our newsletter.

Some of the ideas that have been booked already are:

Kids Birthday Party – 2 activities over 2 hours.  Choose from Archery, River Scrambling, Treasure Hunt, Team Games and Orienteering.  Standard rate is £150 for 15 participants and now you can get it for only £75!  (We can even come to you!)

Coasteering – this is one of our most popular activities by far!  Now you can book a session for only £23.50!  A definite bargain for those of you that want a good challenge!  Want to know more about coasteering? Click here

Kayaking – How about a 2.5 for you and the family?  In our sale you can book 4 places for the price of 2 – that’s £50 instead of £100!

Archery – Our 1 hour introductions to archery are extremely popular and at only £5 per person instead of £10 we think they will be even more popular.  Minimal number of 8 required for this.

Team Building – Does your team need a boost?  A full day of Team Building for 20 staff for £500 instead of £1000!

Don’t know what you want and don’t want to miss this offer?

That’s ok!  We have had families, individuals and youth organisations booking vouchers for this summer as well.  They don’t know what dates they want or what activities but they will now get them for 1/2 price.

If you would like to book some 1/2 price activities give us a call on 028 8164 8390 and if you have subscribed to our newsletter they are yours

The Adventure Team has grown from strength to strength since we opened our doors on the 1^st January 2008 – and that’s all down to you.

So we have been considering different ways that we can thank our customers and thought it would be best to get your input.  This short survey will help us get a better picture of what you would like and help you get a better idea of what we think.  And as a wee treat everyone who enters it will be entered in to a draw to win a £100 Adventure Voucher!

Click here to complete the survey

Thank you for your time – now cross your fingers and hope you win

Every journey starts with one step and all the young people that have done their Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Expeditions with us know all about it!

A DofE programme is a real adventure from beginning to end. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from. You just need to be aged between 14 and 24 and realise there’s more to life than sitting on a sofa watching life pass you by.

You can do programmes at three levels, Bronze, Silver and Gold, which lead to a Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.

By completing an award, young people get the opportunity for personal development by learning new skills, helping people or the community, getting fitter, going on an expedition and, if going for Gold, taking part in a residential activity.

Not only does the programme create opportunities to learn key skills, it also provides experiences that enable the formation of friendships and talents that stay with them for the rest of their lives.

For all of these reasons, we have been advocates of the DofE for years, indeed most of our Team have either completed or worked closely with the Award since they were at school themselves.

Over the last year The Adventure Team have had the privilege of looking after several Bronze and Silver Expeditions and 2011 is going to be even busier!   At the moment we have 120 young people booked in for their Expeditions in 2011 – that’s a lot of walking, personal development and, of course,fun!

For us the DofE epitomises everything that we love about adventure, learning and personal development.

We are so committed to the DofE Award experience that we have recently been accepted as an Approved Activity Provider which means that not only do we organise and facilitate expeditions, we also provide assessors and sign off the expedition section of the award.

Let us know if you, your school or youth organisation would like help in any aspect of the DofE – we would be delighted to help!

A brilliant alternative to Musical Chairs!

Get the group in to pairs – if the group has males and females it is ideal to get them in to pairs of the opposite sex.

When the music’s on, the pairs must prance and dance around at will.  When the music stops the games facilitator shouts either ‘Knight’, ‘Horse’ or ‘Cavalier’

• Knight means the male has to give his partner a piggy back
• Horse means the male has to give their partner a horse ride by getting on all fours
• Cavalier means the male has to get down on one knee and the female sits on it

The last couple to execute the maneuver is out and so the game plays on until the remaining couple is announced the winner.

A simple game which is why it is so good!

Have fun

There are absolutely loads of games that can be played with balloons (over 30 that we know of) and we will put these together very soon!  In the meantime check out Balloon Stomp – this games guarantees high energy, lot’s of running about and loads of laughs!

Aim of the Game: Stomp and Pop the balloons of the people in the other teams so that you are the only team left with your balloons intact!

Preparation:

• Play in an area where everyone can easily run around without banging in to anything
• Loads and loads of balloons (spares are useful as some usually “accidentally” pop before the game even begins)
• Ribbon or string, cut 1 1/2 feet long

How to Play Balloon Stomp:

Split everyone into three equal teams and hand out the balloons, one colour per team; and give each person two balloons.  Each person should tie the ribbon or string to their ankle and then attach one of the inflated balloons to it.  Now for the rules:

• When you say “go”, the players must stomp and pop other teams’ balloons.
• The players can only run within the set boundaries.
• The players cannot use their hands.
• If a players’ balloon is burst they must inflate and attach their second balloon (step outside the boundary to do this)
• If both balloons have been popped, the player must sit out of the boundaries and is out of the game.
• The remaining team with at least one balloon intact wins the game.

This game can also be played on an individual basis – each person is against everyone else!

Have fun

A brilliant game which helps coordination and communication!

This game can be played with groups of 8 right up to 30! 

Warp Speed is the final part of this game and the stages before it are “Group Juggle!”

When we play this game we use rubber chickens, quoits, balls of all sizes and materials and anything else that makes the game challenging, fun and interesting!  Rubber chickens are awesome because kids (and adults) love the range of colours and the fact that they may have never seen them before; and more often it’s because they have never considered using them in a game…  It is also worth noting that rubber chickens (slightly different from the sort we use) can be bought in a good pet shop!

Anyway, back to the game…

Keep your items for throwing concealed for the time being and arrange the group in a circle; and to begin with you should be part of the circle too.  The challenge is to throw the first object (a normal object is best at this stage), without dropping it, from one person to the next until it returns to you.  Advise the group that they should not throw the object to the person on their immediate left or right and that each person is only allowed to receive the object once.

The next stage of the challenge is to pass the object in the exact same order.  Remembering who they received from and threw to can be a real test of memory, especially in larger groups.  Again, the aim is to do with this without any drops – do it a few times if needs be and discuss how to get better at it if there are drops.

If the group did it perfectly without any drops then you should ask them if they can do it faster and see how they get on.

Now that the object has been passed a few times and the last go being faster ask the group if they can go faster again to which they usually reply yes.  And this is where you surprise them!  After the 1st object has been round the first few people you should introduce your second object – this will momentarily create some  excitement within the group but as they are so well practiced they will just get one with things. 

As soon as both objects have reached you challenge the group to pass both objects around the circle without there being any drops.  And when they have mastered this you can introduce your 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th object and see how many of them get back to you.

Chaos?  Madness?  Flying objects falling all over the place?  Yes!  These are what you will most likely experience as well as loads of laughter and big smiling faces – especially when you introduce your more peculiar objects

Warp Speed! – When the group have mastered 6 objects ask them if they could manage to keep all 6 objects “juggling” for a period of time that they set themselves as a challenge.

It takes a little practice to know when to move from one stage of the challenge to the next and there are absolutely loads of variations on how to use this game:

• It’s a fun way to learn people’s names by calling out the name of the person you are about to throw to
• If the group are really quick at nailing the first object then you could introduce more objects much faster
• How many any objects can they get to complete the cycle in a set time?
• Why stop with 6 objects?
• There are loads of natural opportunities in this game to review processes, systems and communication

Enjoy

“A teacher put a dot of chalk on a blackboard and asked a classroom of 15 and 16 year olds to say what they saw.  They responded with the obvious – a chalk dot.  She pointed out to them that she asked the same question of a group of 5 and 6 year olds the day before and elicited responses such as a squashed bug, the top of a telephone pole, an owl’s eye and the like.”

• Did you know that 96% of 4 year olds believe that they can become anything they want to?
• Did you know that by the time these 4 year olds are 18 only 4% of them will hold this belief?
• Did you know that 100% of 5 year olds are driven by their imagination?
• Did you know that only 10% of 7 year olds are driven by their imagination?
• And does it scare you to know that only 2% of 20 year olds are driven by their imagination?

Are you wondering why we are sharing these statistics? Are you wondering what relevance does this have with The Adventure Team?

Is so please read on

Young children love playing games, inventing “things”, building, drawing and creating. They are brilliant at solving problems. They are not afraid to take risks! And most of all, they having an amazing desire to succeed!

Yet as children grow older these natural skills diminish and with that so do their aspirations and dreams!

Part of this can be attributed to the academia based education system that has been endorsed by society for so many years.  Endorsed because we live in a world where the first question young adults are asked upon entering the “work chapter” of their life is “what qualifications do you have?”

Please know, we are not slating the education system – it is there to do what it does: teach our children how to pass their exams.  This focus however, has left some gaps in the overall education and development of our children.  In fact, it is only recently that this gap has been recognised and our education system has now introduced new subject areas such as:

• Thinking skills and personal capabilities
• Personal development and mutual understanding

Filling these gaps is a big job that needs to be addressed throughout our society and not just our schools!  And there are some things that we do that we know make a difference and as a wise man once said “Big differences change the world and the little differences fuel the big ones”.

Here are our little differences:

• We encourage children to be more confident in their ability to solve problems
• We focus on the process not the end goal.  For example, "it looks like you had a lot of fun making that bridge."
• We actively listen to children and use their opinions and suggestions to plan their activities
• We give them positive feedback, e.g., "That’s a great looking Raft!"  Balance it with self-affirming statements as well, e.g., "You certainly worked hard on that.  You must be proud of yourselves and the fine job that you did."  This helps children learn how to validate themselves.
• We encourage inquisitiveness by answering their questions with another question

What little difference are you going to make?