Facilitation Experience
HDF 413 SOLC
April 27, 2015
Hannah Wilkinson
For my very first retreat with SOLC I co facilitated an activity with the
Student Entertainment Committee. This retreat was lead by Raven Sannon and she
did an excellent job handling the group even when they got rowdy and I was very
admirable of her. The Student Entertainment Committee is an organization on
campus that brings concerts, guest speakers, comedy acts, etc to campus for
entertainment for the public and fellow students. We had a great turn out, almost
everyone came minus a couple of people. The goal of this group was to not only
welcome new members to their executive board but bridge the gap between old
members and new members. This group was the most creative group of people I
have ever worked with while being a part of SOLC.
To start of this retreat with this group we had them sign waivers if they
haven’t already, gave them time to use the bathroom if they had to since they had
breakfast prior and then started off with a name game. The name game we chose to
play was bust a move because it was a large group and we knew they were creative
people and we would get a kick out of seeing what they would come up with for
dances. It was a beneficial way to remember everyone’s names since there were
quite a few of them in total. After our name game concluded after almost 25
minutes or so, we did our first activity, which I helped out facilitating. The activity
was called stepping stones and the group struggled with this one. To play stepping
stones, the object of the activity is to move a team from one side of the room to the
other only using what we call stepping stones. To use the stones, they have to stay
in contact with a person and the floor at all times, if not, you lose the stone. The only
way to get a stone back is to do something the facilitator asks of the participants.
For instance, we had asked them to sing us some songs, which was entertaining for
us. If say a participant falls off the stone, they lose the stone and they go back to the
starting line. A variation you could use is make up some story of the stones are used
to cross lava and if you don’t stay in contact with the stone, it burns in the lava, if
you fall off, you burn in the lava and have to start over. They struggled because of
the lack of communication in the beginning, everyone was talking over one another
and I just didn’t see much effective communication till around the ending of the
activity. They realized after almost every group member fell off, that they had to
stay in contact with the stone at all times.
Even though at times it was frustrating to get them to listen to directions of
the first activity I think that was the only thing that I would change. Overall they
were a great group to work with and it was really amazing to see them all come
together through the debriefing activity we had for them and the closing one as well.
I’ve never seen a group so kind to one another other than SOLC and I was grateful to
be a part of this retreat.