Team Building

Question:
I am running a camporee in May in which I am going to do something a little different, (at least it is different here). I am going to line up all 200+ Scouts, go down the line 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc. All the 1's are in a patrol, 2's are in a different patrol etc.

My theory on this is that so many of these boys live 5 or 6 blocks from each other (this is the district with Minneapolis and 2 of the suburbs) but because they belong to different troops and go to different schools they never get to know each other. As soon as they get in the OA and meet each other they become great friends. My plan is just to advance that a couple years. Plus this will take care of the patrol of older boys competing with the patrol of newly crossed over boys.

When I presented this at the roundtable last week the Scoutmasters were OK with the idea, the only suggestion was that my first activity for _all_ new patrols would be some kind of team building activity that would bring the new patrol together.

Since then I have been wracking(sp?) my brain trying to come up with some team building exercise that all 200+ boys could do at once, but that does not involve any props(I have no money left in the budget), and does not involve the patrols competing against the other new patrols. We are going to save that for later.

I have been searching the internet for "team building games", "team building excercise" etc. with no luck. I was hoping someone here would have some good ideas.

Answer:
A couple of games we did in a C.O.P.E. course is cover there eyes with a handkerchief or something, and say they are blind, and can not talk, Now they must line up in a straight line and by alphabetical order by first initial of first name. This may sound hard but the boys may do it faster than you think. Another good getting to know game is the name game. Once they are in the new patrols the boys will say there name and something they like, (i.e., my name is Ron and I like dogs) now the boy on his left will say his name and something he likes plus give the boy that just gave his name and what he likes, then number three boy gives his name and what he likes, plus what number 2 and one boy name and what they like. If a goof happens you start all over, this will break the ice and it is a lot of fun, you can also put the adults in this and let them play. I would recommend this before the blindfold game.

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