Archive for the ‘Ice breakers for Parties’ Category

Over 2 billion people around the world watched William and Kate get married! Who thought the monarchy was dead? Almost as many people in the US got up early to watch it on TV as in the UK and that was nearly 24 million! It was a fantastic spectacle and it is what Britain does best: pomp and pageantry and they didn’t let us down!

Away from the streets of London, the country too was awash with street parties and celebrations. The special bank holiday saw houses, pubs and clubs around the country decked out with Union Jack flags and bunting. For just for a few days the country was alive and buzzing; the mood had lifted, spirits were high and economic woes were forgotton.

Papers report the millions of pounds of additional income such an event brings to the country. Now I’m not suggesting that we have a royal wedding everyday but we should celebrate and come together a bit more often; impromptu parties and BBQs; picnics with family and friends; neighbourly fetes and events to get people together; fund-raising fairs and events for good causes. These are all things that bring people together and can have fun organising as well as taking part.

Should you be tempted in the next few months to take advantage of the weather and lay on a party or two don’t forget to check-out our ice breaker ideas web-site for fantastic party ice breakers , games and garden party ideas.

In less than 48 hours the wedding of the year will be upon us – Prince William will marry Kate Middleton in what is bound to be a brilliant spectacle of British pomp and pageantry.

How will you celebrate the royal wedding?

Here in Britain, we have traditionally celebrated a royal wedding with a street party. Roads are closed; tables and chairs form long lines in the middle of the road; bunting is flying high from one house to the next and tea is served with sandwiches and cakes. Today though it is as likely to be an informal BBQ with the friends and neighbours though more than 4000 applications for road closures have been applied for 4 weeks ago and many more are expected.

Here in Britain, street parties date back to the first world war when peace was proclaimmed and people came out into the streets to celebrate. Later street parties became the norm for royal weddings and jubilees; the silver jubilee of George V  and the coronation of George VI in 1937. Friday 29th April 2011 has been declared a national holiday for the UK.

After watching the 11am ceremony we will hot foot it over to the local pub for food and drinks in the garden and some sort of entertainment. This is likely to be games and music. Everyone will bring food and it will be a real community affair.

Why not celebrate with the happy couple  and plan your own street party, BBQ or picnic. There’s still time to get friends and family together.  And organise a fantastically entertaining game of “Mr and Mrs” for some good old-fashioned fun! Here’s how to play:

Mr and Mrs

Group size: 7+ (3 couples and the quiz master) Time: 30+ minutes

Equipment needed: Prepare a list of questions in advance such as: 

• Your best ever holiday
• Your favourite type of food
• The food you most hate
• Favourite pastime or sport
• Favourite film, book, artist 

You could have questions with a choice of answers such as: 

• Would you say your husband is an extrovert or introvert?
• Prefers take-off to landing?
• Would rather go on a beach holiday or active holiday?
• Wine or beer? 

Once you have your questions sorted out ask for a volunteer couple to come forward. Ask the wife to take the hot seat and send the husband out of earshot. Ask the wife the questions and record the answers. Now get the husband back and put him in the hot seat. Tell the husband the questions and ask for the answer he thinks his wife will have given. For every correct answer they will score 1 point. Keep a record of the scores and ask for the next couple. Ask a different set of questions. Have about 3 or 4 questions per couple. Keep going for as long as you have volunteers or for a few rounds. Remember people get bored when games go on too long. About 5 or 6 couples is probably about the maximum number. The couple with the most right answers is the winner and you may need to prepare tiebreaker questions and don’t forget the prizes too.

Sharon Naylor is passionate about games and ice breakers  for work, play, parties, meetings, groups and clubs. In fact anywhere people are connecting to others whether it be for the first time or even when familiar with each other. If you would like to find some great ideas for your street party visit the ice breaker ideas web-site for hundreds of amazing games and fun icebreakers and make your party sizzle….!

Don’t you just love it when the kids go back to school and we are all returning to work after the long summer holidays and the Christmas offers start pouring in – Christmas cards and Xmas gifts; Christmas parties; Christmas travel; party venues; Christmas food (the supermarkets have already stocked up) etc. etc. In fact we have just bought chocolate coins for our treasure hunts from the local supermarket.

Uggh.. I find it really annoying.. corporate Christmas stuff has been coming through the post for months even before summer. Me, I want to linger with the fine summer days for as long as possible. I don’t want to think about Christmas now when there’s 3 months to go!

This year we’ve been innundated with corporate Christmas stuff well before the summer holidays: “Get your corporate parties booked before it’s too late.” “Limited space available – book your venues now!”

If you want to avoid the ostentatious corporate Christmas party scene you might consider running one yourself in your offices or local pub. Rope a few friends in to help you and have an evening of traditional party games and ice breakers. Nothing beats traditional games for good wholesome fun!

Develop team spirit by asking each person to bring an icebreaker game or party game so you don’t have to do it all yourself. Think:

• Pin the tail on the donkey
• Musical chairs
• Charades
• Pass the Parcel
• Secret Santa
• Christmas bingo
• The Chocolate Game
• Forfeits

Most people will know how to play these games – if not be sure to leave a comment and I’ll explain or you can go to our web-site ice breaker ideas  where we have hundreds of great ideas for party ice breakers and games. So don’t forget the party bags and run a party to remember!

This morning there was definitely more than a sniff of autumn in the air. The kids are back to school and our attention will turn to closing down the shutters and stocking up on firewood. The onslaught of winter slowly approaches…

This reminds me of one of the best parties I ever attended. I say attended, but actually we jointly threw the party, shared with another company in our dilapidated mansion house set of offices.

Some of you may know of Newton House, Dinefwr Park in Carmarthenshire, West Wales? It is currently in the hands of the National Trust, but not that many moons ago it was privately owned and rented out as offices to local firms. When we started our business 20 years ago it was the only place in the locality where we could find office space to rent. The room was shabby and damp, and the only saving grace was that it was huge and we had the run of the whole place. And as a bonus we had a turret as a storage room!

Reportedly the house had several ghosts. A maid apparently threw herself to her death from our office window ( high second floor) after the mistress of the house discovered her having an affair with her husband. Now the house is subject to many TV programmes and ghost hunts - but I can tell you in the 2 years we worked there when i was often on my own in the whole house – I never heard or saw a single thing. And this is an isolated building, surrounded by parkland and woods. At that time there were no outside lights and even the corridor lights were on a timer, so you would often find yourself feeling your way along the corridor, if you mistimed your trip to the loo!

Anyway back to the party… It was Christmas 1990 and we were chatting to the guy in the office next door one day and somehow agreed to share a Christmas party. With two disparate sets of people we had to come up with some ice breaker ideas to get this party to work.

Being in the events and team building business it didn’t take long to realise that our spooky, collapsing mansion would be the perfect setting for a murder mystery type ice breaker game. We had the run of the whole building, including dark, rotting cellars and star-gazing rooftop. We started to get excited about the possibilities.

Quickly we had drawn up a plan of the whole house and committed it to a big board, a bit like a Cluedo board. When guests arrived they were split into teams and we played the board game, shaking the dice and moving from room to room. Each time teams landed on a room they set off with flashlights to visit the room in the house. The house was in darkness and at its nighmarish best. Teams gingerly entered rooms to find hidden clues and chilling audio greetings added by our media friends next door.

What fun a hoot! Everyone absolutely loved this ice breaker game and didn’t want it to end. It was meant to be a party icebreaker to get people interacting and having fun, but it became the whole focus of the evening and has been talked about ever since. It was quite simply one of the best parties ever! And it’s a game we have since used for many of our corporate events and private parties ever since.

If this story has inspired you, you may want to visit our web-site to find more creative ice breaker ideas and games for your parties, events, reunions, team meetings and social and work functions. If you are also interested in running this game for yourself for Christmas or Halloween, or any other time please get in touch or leave me a comment.

I was invited to a birthday party of a long time friend not that long ago and call me a party pooper but I really did not want to go. Why not you ask? Well I knew we would not know a soul but the party hostess, who would be busy with all her social duties, and the last time I went to such a party I was looking forward to leaving as soon as I got there. It’s not that I’m unsociable or boring (at least I hope not) – it’s just that people don’t seem to introduce people these days and sometimes it’s such an effort to be always making conversation with new people.

Now if they’d employed a few interesting and fun-filled party ice breakers to introduce people and make people feel more relaxed I would definitely have wanted to stay.

This is one of my prime reasons for using ice breakers at any event you host. Whether it be a party or social function, or a corporate meeting, training or company bash, you want people to be buzzing and telling people how great it was and really looking forward to the next event, meeting or whatever! That’s why i’m such a great advocate of  ice breaker games for any event.

Don’t let your people be party poopers, going home and telling people how boring it was. Get them interacting and having fun. No event should be without an ice breaker game at any cost. Make sure your event is an event to remember – get ice breaker games and ideas from the ice breaker ideas web-site

Are your children celebrating a birthday this summer? Our youngest is going to be a teenager tomorrow – the youngest of her friends and the youngest in her school class.

How will she celebrate?

A day on the beach is beckoning – full of teenage fun and lots of games. It’s a good job we’ve got stacks of ice breaker games and team building ideas to choose from, to keep the girls happy.

Although it’s our trade - running team building events and ice breaker games for corporate groups, schools and public companies – we find we are always using them for various fundraising events, parties and social gatherings too. Having a stock of ice breaker games to call upon is such a useful resource. You will never be without some form of entertainment and you will always be in demand at parties.

Learn how to keep your kids entertained this summer , whether you’re on the beach or at a friend’s BBQ. Our instantly downloadable ice breaker games collections are full of fun ideas and a definite must-have this summer.  All 3 collections for corporate groups, parties and youth groups are all interchangeable and work across all groups really well. Check-out our website for great ice breaker ideas.

Last night we spent a great evening at the local pony club camp where our daughter is in attendance!

The final night BBQ was looking a bit flat without any kind of entertainment or breaking the ice  activities for kids and parents so we offered to bring some of our old fashioned pub type games and a few not so old games – like Spacehoppers!

What fun! The kids went mad for Splat the Rat, Ring the Bull and Giant Jenga – but being an ingenious games master, Phil had the kids playing all sorts of games with the Giant Jenga – at one point there was a giant track of jenga peices around the field with 20 kids carefully balanced on the bricks trying not to fall off. Every time they fell off they went to the back of the queue! Phil kept adding more and more bricks to make the track longer, even up and over jumps!

But the biggest laugh of all was reserved for the Spacehopper Gymkhana – a bending race with 4 spacehoppers and plenty of screaming kids. Well not just kids but parents too!

Just goes to show with a bit of imagination how you can use your ice breaker games in lots of different ways and make sure your parties are always as much fun as they can be!

For more ice breaker ideas and games to make your parties the ultimate place to be check-out our web-site ice-breaker-ideas.com

At that same business meeting I’ve been talking about just recently, one of the participants was so enamoured with the ice breaker game that I organized that she decided to play it at her wedding a few weeks later.

So learn how to run a great icebreaker and it will be indispensible at any event – even a wedding!

Check out our latest icebreaker games and ideas at ice-breaker-ideas.com

A journalist attended the launch party of the Business Club, where I had run a very successful ice breaker just recently. The organizers had said she had been amazed at the impact of this simple ice breaker to get the party started.

Expecting the usual stuffy business meeting with drinks, canapés and a speech and over in about an hour, with a short peice to follow in the local paper; this time she had been amazed.

She was drawn in by the ice breaker game which ended with people sitting in tables with 5 new friends and they eventually had to throw her out with the rest of the group 3 hours later. What followed was a peice eulogizing the benefits of the Club.

So your simple ice breaker game can be a powerful and influential tool. Learn how to run a great ice breaker and you will influence more people than you can imagine…

Find out more at ice-breaker-ideas.com

Not that long ago I was asked to run an ice breaker game at the launch of the Swansea Foundation – a new business club.

The organizers were keen that The Foundation should have a different kind of ethos – that it should be more of business family – supportive, creative, dynamic and forward thinking and not just another networking group.

They asked me to provide an ice breaker to kick-start the party – a gathering of 40 or so local business people, most of whom did not know each other.

I used one of my favourite ice breakers to get people interacting and getting to know each other. Within 20 minutes everyone was chatting and having fun. The organiser was so pleased with the ice breaker and said it was the perfect introduction. It set the tone of the whole evening – fun,friendly and dynamic.

In fact he said it established an ethos for the rest of the Club’s meetings and events as we continued to use ice breakers and interactive games and ideas at every meeting.

The business club is now a thriving and fun filled place with a booming membership and full participation and enthusiasm from members at every event.

Ensure your clubs and meetings are a fun, friendly and a learning place to be by learning how to use ice breaker games. Visit our web-site ice-breaker-ideas.com and we’ll show you how.