How to Start Your Program in Fun & Engaging Ways
Facilitator Tips Episode 05

Engaging a Group before your Program has Started

This week’s Facilitator Tips episode shares expert tips about how to start a program successfully in a fun, powerful and rewarding way.

<< Go to Episode 4   Go to Episode 6 >>

If you’re looking for options to start your programs in a fun and engaging way, click the play button to learn more.

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Useful Links & Resources

• Sample Unofficial Start activities – here are some links to a bunch of really fun and engaging ‘unofficial start’ activities – Wordles, Alphabet Equations, T-Puzzle, Rope House and Word Circles.
• Description of Unofficial Starts – click the link to read a wide variety of case studies in which an unofficial start was introduced to benefit a group.
• Episode 4: How To Break The Ice – simple, yet powerful framework to help you ice-breaking experiences work every time.

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Video Transcript

Hello and welcome to Episode 5 of the Facilitator Tips video series.

My name is Mark Collard. I’m an experiential trainer, an author, and the founder of www.playmeo.com, and today I want to talk to you about how to start a program.

It seems so basic but gets done so poorly on most occasions. I know in my experience I found the greatest success when I start a program by starting earlier. I even refer to it as my unofficial start. It’s kind of like the start before people realise what’s going on before we formally actually get going.

So when you look at the normal way when you simply just wait, one of the issues you’ve got is that it’s very, very awkward, people just looking around, wondering what’s going to happen. There’s a lack of energy and it’s often very, very boring. And in my experience, that’s really unproductive time.

Whereas by starting a little earlier, getting people engaged, and often it could be very, very simple things laying on tables or on the floor or even a video or something that they can work with their hands can actually engage them immediately. And so they get started right away and that builds energy that builds momentum and then people are also attracted into that space. It makes it fun and here’s the most important part, it’s that the connections are built in that time, the unofficial start.

And at some point when you’ve got a critical mass or it’s the actual official starting time, you can get going and you’ll find that it’s a really successful way of engaging your group right from the beginning. As I say I call it the unofficial start.

Here’s my last-minute tip. Use a puzzle like Wordles or Alphabet Equations. Check them out on playmeo’s activity database to give you more details.

I also encourage you to check out our show notes. Go to Episode 5 for a whole lot more information and ideas about how you can unofficially start your programs.

Thanks for listening and I wish you all the best in the meantime.

Have fun. Bye-bye.