Fall is a great time to pull your choir together for fun group bonding activities outside on a beautiful Saturday or Sunday afternoon for a couple of hours.  You could theme your event, place posters in the church, post on your social media choir site and allow the fun to begin. 

Where:           A city park; a choir member’s backyard, even the backyard of the church or how about the area corn maze? (You can tell I’m from the Midwest…!) 

Activities:        One of my favorite activities is a Scavenger Hunt:

  1. You can:
    1. Put together an “old fashioned” list;
    2. A camera scavenger hunt OR
    3. A “pay it forward” scavenger hunt. (My preferred kind of scavenger hunt).

Break the choir into small groups of 3 to 4 singers.  YOU make the groups.  Don’t let the singers choose their teammates.  If you allow the groups to drive, why not assign a parent to drive.  It keeps everyone honest.

If you choose a pay it forward/random acts of kindness scavenger hunt, the singers can document with pictures.  Here are some examples of the kind of things I put on the list:

  1. Pay for food item(s) in a drive through for the car behind you (Starbuck usually isn’t too expensive);
  2. Help an elderly person carry or put groceries in their car;
  3. Bring one of your favorite teachers a small box of chocolates.
  4. Go to the Dollar Store, purchase a child’s toy, find a child and give him or her the item.
  5. At a store, let the person behind you checkout before you.
  6. Buy one Get-Well balloon, take it to the hospital; go to the children’s floor and drop it off at the nurses’ station.  Indicate that the balloon is for any child on the ward.
  7. At the grocery store, volunteer to take a shopping cart back to the outside carrier (or inside the store) for 4 different people who have finished putting their groceries in their car or carts that have been forgotten in the lot.
  8. Put sticky notes with positive slogans on the mirrors in a restroom.

You can come up with as many activities as your time allows.  Allow 45 minutes after returning for debriefing and eating.  Debriefing for a pay it forward scavenger hunt is most important when you gather back together.  You want the kids to learn from this hunt and to share.  Each group should give an example of what touched them the most; funniest situation; the best reaction from a stranger.  You can give awards for most creative and funniest if you feel it necessary.  If you have the technology to post the pictures as each group shares, that’s even better.  No matter what, post the pictures on your choir’s social media site so people can see how the singers participated in a random act of kindness; send home a letter to parents and put it in your church newsletter.

No matter what kind of scavenger hunt you and your singers participated in, food is always a “must” to end gatherings like this.  Parents are a great resource to help with the food.  Call one parent and let him/her do the organizing.

More than anything, just spending time together outside of rehearsal and performance will encourage singers to get to know each other better.  It all leads to better communication between singers and between you and your singers.  Make sure you participate in all activities as well.

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