SUGGESTIONS Please

This site looks great, Marcel. Here's another web resource that I always recommend-- www.thesource4ym.com. It was helpful to me when I was a youth director. My favorite feature is the game search (http://www.thesource4ym.com/games/). It suggests games for your group based on criteria you select (size of group, indoor/outdoor, messy/clean, etc.). The slang dictionary is also fun (http://www.thesource4ym.com/teenlingo/).

How about asking us oldies (I am almost 65) what games we played when we were young, at the same time we, old and young can connect with each other, I am pretty sure that many a church has this "condition" of being disconnected. The medical industry is pretty good at developing designer drugs for any phantom disease imaginable, maybe we can develop or reintroduce old games for new people, keep in mind that there might be the possibility that it is going to be physical since we didn't have electronic stuff around. How about running a string across the canal, tie a button to it, pin it to the window frame of a living room window, go lay behind the dike and nock, lot's of fun. (You would think that I grew up in Holland). Oh my, a SAINT like me wouldn't have done something like that would I, let's go!

While I was a youth leader a few years ago, We planed a lunch that matched each youth with an older member of the church whom had something in common with that youth. Provided them with a few get to know questions (just to get them started talking)and served them lunch. This allowed them to discover that they could have something in common with someone from another generation and allowed them to get to know someone new that they could connect with after sunday morning services. This event seamed to somewhat help close the generation gap we were seeing and even started some unsuspecting friendships.

Hi Marcel, sorry for the delay, I am getting lost on the website and it takes some time to find what I am looking for. So, this string across the canal?, I was afraid you were going to ask, mischief in our younger days, pestering the town folks a bit, the good thing was that we never damaged property or injured anyone. The button on the end would tick on the window when we pulled the string and the person in the house would come and see, nothing and again, he came after us but he had to walk to the bridge up the road to get at us, we were long gone, so, not a good game for the church I guess. A physical game we played in school we called "scissors" would work for 8 - 10 year old kids, we did it in the town square, no cars around in those days, all the kids are in the square, one is "it" and tries to touch another kid, now there are two, holding hands. They try to catch some one else who is than added to the scissor which is getting longer each time someone is caught, every one is running around trying to avoid the scissor which eventually starts to encircle groups of kids (depending on how many are playing of course), we had lots of fun doing that                                                                                                                                                

Another favourite was I'll put it in Dutch, you have to find a way to put it in English "Bok, Bok, hoeveel horens op je kop?", the bok being a male goat or deer, the question being asked from the goat is how many horns there are on it's head (kop).  The game starts with one boy or girl being the goat, they are standing bend over by a railing or table and someone jumps on it's back sticks up a number of fingers and asks the goat how many horns it has on it's head, if guessed wrong the next person jumps on and asks the same, untill the goat guesses the right number, the one sitting on its back now stands behind the goat, bend over, holding on to the goat. The next person now has to jump on the second goat and must try to climb to the first one, again asking the question, if guessed right, on to the line he or she goes. The longer the line the more difficult it is to get to the front to ask the question, the boys even had the opportunity to wiggle and shake in order to try to throw off the one climbing over them, pretty interesting to see what everyone tries to do to reach or prevent someone from reaching the front goat.

Then one we did in the gym, I have done it with the kids at the Christian school here is called "Raisins in the pan, any number can play, the big circle in the middle, which most gymnasiums have I think would be the pan, one part of the middle line would be the handle of the pan, this line can not be crossed going either way. One kid is chosen to be the baker, he/she is allowed to run everywhere in the gymnasium, all the others are the raisins, they can run everywhere except over the pan's handle and in the pan. The baker touches  a raisin, and it goes in the pan for the remainder of the game which ends when all raisins are caught.

There you have three Dutch games I played during the mid 1950s, ready for one more mischief story?

My parents ad a grocery/fabric store, through our village runs a canal and there are three bridges, two pedestrian on for traffic which was a draw bridge. When we sold enough fabric we would have an empty cardboard tube about 3 feet long, 2" in diameter, now the bridge keeper, hired by the town would sit at home about 250 feet or so away from the bridge and if a boat would come by they would blow their horn and he would come out, go to the bridge, lower the boom to stop traffic and manually wind up the road bed of the bridge, the boat would go trough, put money in the little bag on a pole. like the collection bags we used to have, the bridge comes down, pole goes up and life goes on, he returns to his house and waits for the next boat, this happened frequently. We would go to the next bridge, use the tube as a horn, since this man was so accustomed to doing it, he wouldn't even look, go through the motions up to and including putting the collection bag out, no boat! How come they let me still play the organ in church? I don't know, all the best with the games.

Marcel, two more indoor ones, one is about trust I would think.

Have a strong board about 3 feet long, put it on two hymnbooks or bibles (for a strong foundation!) so that two strong boys one on each side can lift it. Another kid stands in front of it, facing the board then bring in someone who has not seen what is going on and tell them that they have to stand on the board, put their hands on the shoulder of the boy standing in front of him/her and tell her that she will be lifted up until she touches the ceiling with her head, then she has to jump of, oh, and she/he has to do that blindfolded. Than the two boys on the sides will lift the board a couple of inches, shaking the board a bit like it is a heavy lift, the one standing in front with the girl's/boy's hands on his shoulder starts to go through his knees at the same time the board is lifted, giving the impression that the board is getting lifted high. Some one tall enough holding a heavy book will touch the top of the head of the one standing of the board, who is then told to jump of, it's scary! even though they are only a few inches from the floor.

Another favourite birthday game was, to have some people out of the room, put up some bottles in a row, far enough apart so that you can step over and in between them, then bring one of the kids from the other room and tell them that they have to step over the bottles without knocking them down, they can have a practice run, after which of course they will be blind folded, put in front of the bottles, who are now taken away, then watch them carefully step over nothing.

Valentines Day is coming up and I thought that I would share something that has worked well for our group. We hosted a "Show Your Love Dinner". We recruted someone from the church who could help us plan and cook a wonderful tasty menu. We advertized by putting colorful flyers in the church mail slots along with info on how to make reservations. We decorated our fellowship hall and set the tables nicely. Our youth wore black pants and white tops to take orders and serve the food. Church members showed their love to each other by taking someone to dinner, to the youth by buying tickets and coming out to support us. The youth showed thier love to other youth by donating the money raised to youth in Malowi so that they could afford to go to school.  ( I could give more details if anyone is interested in trying this with there group)  It was so succesful we did it again the next year.