I chose to develop this topic because I have already lived too many times a lot of group’s experiences in which this two sides were neglected.

I believe, after many different types of experiences, and especially for a group of people composed by strangers, the team building activity will never be enough. In parallel to this, connected to the type of work we want to develop as group, it’s possible that neither the “free time”, meaning the minimum time useful to reworked inside ourselves the daily experiences, neither it will never be enough. I lived many experiences where I would have wanted more free time for myself and more time devoted to create the group’s identity with the others participants, all them, no one excluded.

I often ended many experiences without talking seriously with someone of the group, cause two or more of them always remained far from me, and surely this is not only connected with my shy behavior or introversion, or differences of ages and interests.

So, with this article I would like to develop both the topic, due to define, as much as possible, many little rules to follow if we need to create a very good balanced group’s time schedule in a new future experience. In order of this we can start to underline a lot of general considerations and tips, useful to think about it and to understand better the importance of the topics.

The primary aim of this kind of activity is create connections between the group’s members. How many times we need to meet and know new people? Which are the means, the ways, of these connections? Thanks to what we perceive we are living a connection with one or more other people?

We use these ways every day, with people we live with, with people we work with, so at the end, everywhere there’s a team. To go deeper we are not talking about isolated individual actions, but actions thought and coordinated collectively to reach common targets. Only after this process, even if we didn’t reach our goals, we acquire the consciousness of having moved ourselves as a team anyway, as a single living identity. It’s just born the awareness to take part inside a big entity all together. So, right before we were just a group of people in the same place, physically speaking, while after the right time we have now a more specific idea, we are companions, travel friends, experience mates.

Thanks to the team building activities we can discover we are able to resolve problems, avoid and overpass difficulties, finding new solutions.

This is the big aim, the perfect foundation to create, day by day, the best work conditions for a group. It means to unlock the majority of the communication and problem solving skills of the members, so using an activity which ask to everybody to be reactive, focused and involved in the “game” as much as possible, with our minds and bodies. This only happen if everybody knows that everybody is useful for the group’s life and decision processes.

I don’t want to write a list of nice games to do in group, cause we can find thousands of these inside books or internet blogs. But It has to be for sure a kind of activity inside where we have to act and be involved all together, better if we enjoy doing it. So I think to play is the best way to reach this target, as a famous sentence says “All by game but not for game”.

How can we build the daily schedule to put inside this activities? Many associations, partner organizers of the project, they often cut a very little spaces to work in this way. They usually call these minutes “ Energizer”, but without reach surely what the group needs, without reach that target we have talked about up on here. About my direct experiences, it happened to me several times during my scout experiences, once during one youth exchange in Portugal, and others times during experiences in France and in Greece. Too few time dedicated to the “group’s social awakening”.

In order to leave the elements to create a kind of tool, I would like to establish a minimum value of hours per day of team building, to guarantee growth and cohesion in the group. It’s sure, the most can say that everybody can create connections anyway, for instance socializing during the meals, or close to the shower time, or in the meanwhile they are cooking, but I disagree cause these are not group’s activities cause there’s not a common goal to reach, so, they remain in a secondary level of group’s dynamics, also useful but just if not isolated. How can a group of strangers sustain the activities or develop group’s instruments of common decision, or of election without candidate for example, or others, without the existence of the main idea of group as own identity of everybody?

It’s not impossible, but if there is not a strong group’s identity every process will need more time for sure, I think more of the double (according to my past experiences), with most of the members stressed, tired and sad, as happened to me and many travel friends of mine. Said this, I believe that 1,5 h/day of specific team building activities (at least at the beginning of the program) should be the minimum value, basing and measuring it to be safe. I mean safe against people’s escapes, by the less involved in the group’s life. So we can choose a value of time as if we choose to use a force but the right one which doesn’t broke the weakest ring of the chain.

At the contrary, if we use too few time, it will be possible someone will have been stressed, totally not involved and far from the work we propose. We know we can also divide this time in two or three parts during the day, for instance, in the first part of the morning as Energizer, or in the first part of the afternoon, but providing it doesn’t become a reason to be in late, or to close the afternoon before the dinner as well, outstretching the tensions stored during the day and recreate an alignment of the moods.

To apply this it could be useful to avoid little circle’s game of few minutes, preferring more active games, where everybody can live on his own skin the physic side of the team coordination, so, not only in a mental level, just talking or sitting down on the ground, but in a practical and direct way, better running, laughing, singing, etc.

To close this first part I can advise every organizer, even myself if one day I’ll take this role, to try to create a balanced team building space, inside the daily schedule, according to the sensations of the group, the evaluations of the days before, its mood and tiredness, in order to create a comfortable work environment where everybody can express himself.

To continue, what about the “Free Time”? What we mean with these two words? In my opinion, it is the second main Balancer. Going directly to the point, the truth is that each one of us need time to be totally “alone”, but I’m not talking about the shower time or the time we require to pee and shit. I’m referring to a deep personal and bless time to be alone with our consciousnesses, fears, expectations, memories, etc.

So, organizing a schedule, we have to allow to everybody, for instance 1h/day at least, to balance the community’s experiences with a free personal work. In addiction, If we think to this, we can understand soon how much this is important to build concepts or thoughts useful for evaluations, or to understand better what we want to improve at the next circle work, for example roles, places, spaces, stuffs, etc.

To close this wrote I say, obviously leave more free time or do more team building doesn’t mean less work for the organizers, but totally the contrary! This two aspects of the time, team building and free time, are the secret of a good balanced time schedule’s organization, especially inside a community living experience, so, work in this direction should be the priority.

You can be sure your participants will enjoy these spaces, personal and collective, useful and productive, during the whole experience, automatically working better in the other areas of the day’s schedule.

“It is not from the work that civilization arises: it is born from leisure, time and play”(Alexandre Koyré)

Luca Girgenti