This activity is good to do at the end of a term or academic year. This activity will help your group stretch their imaginations and making gifts for each other, bring the group together by focussing on shared memories of past achievements, celebrate and recognise what they have achieved together and evaluate things they would like to do better and decide on some aims for the following year.
What to do
In a big group brainstorm things that you have enjoyed at your Elfin group over the past year.
- Were there any particular events that stood out?
- Have you made new friends?
- Is there anything that you have learned to do?
If there are some negative comments about things that happened, this is all to the good. Let these opinions be expressed as they will be useful later on in the exercise.
Now allocate everyone a secret friend. Make sure that the Elfins do not disclose the name of the person who is their secret friend.
Each Elfin is going to make a treasure box for their secret friend. They will choose things from the craft box to symbolise things that they think their friend has particularly enjoyed at Woodcraft. They can also draw small pictures. For example; a knot tying together with two (or more) pieces of coloured wool might mean friendship, a star might represent an evening walk in the woods; a paper chain of people could represent the group and a patch of blue fabric might be blue sky at summer camp.
Once everyone has made their box everyone can exchange. Make sure that everyone gets to explain the contents of their box to their secret friend. This need not be done as a group, if there is not time. However, if the group has not exchanged their treasure boxes altogether, make sure that there is a chance for some ‘edited highlights’ in a group circle.
The leaders could also make treasure boxes for the group as a whole, or for each other. Now, the group could be invited to think about things that didn’t go so well. Is there anything the group would like to have done better?
A leader could make an empty treasure box and list five ‘treasures’ that the group would like to fill the box with over the next year. Make sure that as each achievement is made, it is recognised and celebrated by the group and a new ‘treasure’ is put into the box.