Sandwich Wrap Race

This is a fun activity that gets people up and moving and makes them more comfortable with another by being so closely confined with them.

Number of People: Any number of people broken up into teams of 6-8 individuals.

Time: Allow 10-20 minutes

Purpose: Wake people up, get the blood flowing, loosen people up, laughter and fun

Instructions

Break your group up into teams of 6-8 and ask them to stand in a very tight circle with their backs together. Once they are as tight together as possible starting wrapping them up by walking around them with a full roll of Saran (or other sandwich) Wrap - but don't trap their arms. Once you have a full 10-12 wraps around them you are ready to start the race!

Design the race course and have the teams either race head to head or against the clock. I like to have at least two teams race head to head, but the numbers of teams racing at once will be determined by the amount of space you have available. Quite often I will have half the teams race a loop course in one direction while the other half of the teams challenge the course in the other direction. If the middle of the course travels through a doorway, all the better!

(don't include any stairs however and be careful for sharp corners as there is a good potential for teams to topple over).

After the teams have challenged the course once, ask them if they think they can improve on their times and give them that opporunity. Odds are they will show some mild to moderate improvement on their second attempt. But then tell them you can show them how to dramatically improve their times.

Simply ask them to grab onto the plastic wrap and pull away from one another. What they will find is their "prison" is quite stretchable and will stretch to the point that every person will have as much room as they require to run the course unhindered.

This is a great activity to use before a brainstorming session because it not only gets the blood flowing but serves as a great metaphor for encouraging them to stretch their boundaries and increase their zone of influence.