Purposes of these exercises:
To encourage a good team spirit amongst the cadets and get them to know a bit more about each others personalities.
These are especially good for helping new people fit into the group and find out a bit about the current make-up of the people on the Sqn
These are also good for staff to find out a bit more about thier Cadets. Both good or bad!
Exercise 1 - The Pig test
Exercise 2 - Truth & Lies
Exercise 3 - Blindfold Trust
Exercise 4 - Group Think
Exercise 5 - Towering Trouble
Exercise 1 - The Pig test
Purpose of exercise - To have a bit of fun and tell the cadets a bit about their personality
Preparation - Get all cadets sat down, with a BLANK piece of paper and something to draw with
Exercise - Draw a Pig...... {thats all you tell them, apart from they have 5 mins and to take
as long or as short as they want.}
For Staff - Make sure they can't see what other cadets are drawing.
When finished -
Group together (results are funny and this way they bond a bit at the same time}
Now Staff member read out the below analysis and see how much is true
How the pig is drawn Answer Key:
Toward the top of the paper: You are positive, optimistic with a sunny outlook.
Toward the bottom: You may be a skeptic or somewhat cynical, with a tendency to see the glass as half-empty.
Toward the middle: You are a realist, very pragmatic.
Facing left: You believe in tradition, are friendly and remember dates (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.)
Facing right: You are innovative, creative and active, but may not have a strong sense of family, preferring autonomy. You have a tendency to forget dates.
Facing front: You are direct, enjoy playing devil's advocate, not afraid of confronting a bad situation, neither fear nor avoid hard questions or discussions.
With many details: You are analytical, cautious and somewhat distrustful or wary of others.
With few details: You are emotional and naive, you tend to see the big picture, but be impatient with details. You are a risk-taker.
With fewer than 4 legs showing: You may be living through a period of change, self-reflection.
With 4 legs showing: You have a healthy self-image, may be stubborn, but stick to your principles and ideals.
How big are the ears? The size indicates how good a listener you are. The bigger, the better.
If you didn't draw a pig at all, then you are just no fun and will live a long and miserable life and die a horrible, smelly death! (I would soften this part, too mean!)
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Exercise 2 - Truth & Lies
Purpose of exercise - To get your Cadets to find a bit about each other(in a nice way :-)
Prepertaion - Get all cadets sat down, with a BLANK piece of paper and something to write with, make sure
they can't see each others paper
Exercise -
Write on the paper: their name at the top
Write 3 true facts about themselves
Write 1 False fact about themselves - and put an "X" next to it
Fold paper in half and in half again
Give paper to Staff member running exercise
When Finished -
Up until this point you should have the cadets under the impression that whatever they
write will only be seen by yourself, this gives them the chance to be open and a bit sensible.
Once you have all the bits of paper you get the Cadets to move around so that they are
all facing you. Now you announce that you are going to read them out one at a time
and the other cadets have to guess which fact is the lie
This should have now given half your class heart attacks (one of my NCO's just turned red - i'm not saying what he wrote. hummmmmm)
As you go through these it should give the Cadets a fairly good idea of what the others
think of them (both good and bad) and give the rest of the cadets a bit more knowledge
about each other.
Note to staff intending on running this - Use your Discretion wisley running this exercise.
If you see that some could cause more than normal embarasement to cadets then announce that you will
only be taking a selection of the papers. This gives you a chance to tailor the activity to the
audience.
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Exercise 3 - Blindfold Trust
Purpose of exercise -
Learn to trust in each other.
Preparation -
Divide into groups of 4
One person gets blindfolded, 2 will be with that person at all times gently holding thier arms (so that they don't fall), and the last person is the leader.
Exercise -
The only person allowed to speak in the team is the leader.
They are told a destination and must navigate their blindfolder person to it. The other 2 "guides" are only there for safety.
Example would be, take the header out of ear shot and tell them to go: "out the front door, down the steps to the parking lot and touch the red
Jaguar that is 10 cars down on your left."
Then give the signal to go.
The object is not to win but to make it to the destination SAFLEY!
If the blindfolded person REALLY trusts thier leader i have seen situations where all the team is running at full pelt towards the destination (if you don't think that's anything special, try it yourself blindfolded sometime)
For Staff -
This has the possibility of causing cuts and grazes if the 2 people acting as guides don't do thier job properlly and the blindfolded person falls.
So we normally have a member of staff or Senior NCO with each team as a safety supervisor. The have the power to stop the exercise if they see it becoming dangerous.
When finished -
Ask the blindfolded person to re-trace the route that "they thought" that they walked. it can be an eyeopener!.
Another test to try is when the team get to the target ask the blindfolded person to say where they are (without taking the blindfold off!)
Make sure that you run the exercise enough times for every team member to have a go at each of the roles. You normally see the times going down as you do this, as the confidence within the team builds and they refine their communications after each attempt.
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Exercise 4 - Group Think
Purpose of exercise -
To gain an insight into how you operate under a high stress situation where the actions of others directly affect you.
This also allows natural leaders to shine and the naturally "gobby" ones to come down to earth with a bump (literally!).
Preparation -
Sit all the team down in a circle (A team of about 10 was used, any less than 6 or seven is too easy)
Give each team member a length of rope or string that is about 1 metre long.
Exercise -
Each person must tie their left leg to the right leg of the person to their left!
The directing staff now give them a number of locations to get to. (i.e. Get to the front gate, then back here)
They must remain tied together at all times, and if a binding comes loose, stop and reapply it.
To make things interesting, make them have to complete the first half of the task without talking!
For Staff -
You need a high level of staff monitoring for this, due to the inherent risk of slips,trips & falls
Ideally you only make them cross soft ground as they WILL fall over and most probablly many, many times.
A good idea is for them all to wear coveralls before starting as this reduces the possibility of injuries in a number of areas.
When finished -
A debrief is Essential for this along the standard lines of:
- Did you achieve your goal
- was it easy/hard
- who was good
- who was bad and why
NOTE: The peer to peer comments from this exercise tend to be at the extremes - i.e either really high praise or really high critism.
So be prepared to mediate!!
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Exercise 5 - Towering Trouble
Purpose of exercise -
This one is a sneaky one, as it shows how well you can get on with people when under stress.
But, it also lets you learn how much trust you can put on people.
If run leaderless, this is one exercise that will greatly highlight any interpersonal and organisational problems in a team.
Preparation -
Split into teams of between 4 to 6.
Provide each team with:
a tub of marshmallows (sweets variety)
a pack of cheap spaghetti.
1 RAW egg.
Exercise -
They have 1 Hr to build an unsupported structure on the floor using ONLY the materials provided.
This must support an egg as high off of the floor as possible!
For Staff -
Don't marshall this one too strictly!
Seriouslly, the lessons learnt during this exercise are much more varied if the team is just left to "get on with it".
This exercise can also be a great leveller of characters, especially for the 'joker' of any group, as their acceptance into the group can swing between extremes.
ie. if they start eating the marshmallows then they normally get quickly put in their place by the rest of the group!
When finished -
Measure the distance from the floor to the bottom edge of the egg.
Highest distance wins!
Something to aim at - Recently 1 team in Chepstow Sqn managed 123cm. It looked impressive! Check Here to see a photo
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Exercise
Purpose of exercise -
Preparation -
Exercise -
For Staff -
When finished -
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e of exercise -