icebreakers?
 

anyone know of any fun things to do at informational parties to get to know everyone and introduce people to perspectives? i have 2 planned this week and im still having a difficult time thinking of anything like a fun game or ANYTHING to do as a warm-up. any ideas?

as corny as it sounds do the "how's yours?" game. One person is "it" they go out of the room/outside/somewhere. Everyone left in the room decides a topic to discuss. It has to be something that everyone or MOST people have (ie, a toothbrush). SO then the "it" person comes back in, and asks each person in turn, "how's yours?" and you respond, "mine's blue" if you have a blue toothbrush or something. You keep going till you guess...its' amazingly funny to hear the guessing.

One I've used as both a name game and teamwork game is speed ball...you line everyone up in a circle, then toss a soft ball (I generally used stuffed animals since I'm usually doing it with kids!) slowly...tell people to pay attention to who tosses them the ball and who they toss it on to. For the first round you may want to have each person say a little about themselves, "Hi, I'm Michelle, and I have been a member of this organization for the last five years, and I'm looking forward to this committee because..." Michelle tosses it to Anne, and Anne says "Thanks Michelle". Anne says here spiel and says "Catch Mary" and tosses it to Mary (you can eliminate the catch part if no one knows each other at all...usually people know at least one or two other people in the group). Time the first round, then tell everyone you think they can do it faster. Then do it again. Tell them you think they can still do it even faster, and the third time keep starting new balls going. Don't tell them you are going to throw more balls, just do it! The more balls you have the harder it gets and people start dropping them. It can be a lot of fun. You can stop here, or keep working and ask them how they think they can do it better (such as one person throwing high or low, making sure the person you are throwing too has already thrown the last ball etc).

All good suggestions.

Go to your school's library and look for books on workshop activities. Most of them have entire chapters on icebreakers.

www.residentassistant.com

it is a resource i used both as rush chair and as an RA. They have a ton of different, fun ideas, some are cheesy but some are great good luck!