5 festive games for your final meetings

Everyone has one eye on the clock at end of year meetings. And who can blame them? So it’s up to you to keep them involved and their attention in the room.

Do this by throwing in a few festive party games to liven things up.

Here are 5 of our favourites…

Spot the Lie
This is great game for breaking the ice at the start of the meeting and for delving deeper into the minds and lives of your staff.

Get everyone to either tell or write down three facts or stories about themselves. Two should be true but one should be a lie. All the rest of your team has to do is spot the lie. You could make it more festive by asking them to recount Christmas horror stories or favourite gifts.

Build a Tree
Don’t make this easy for your team. We’re not expecting them to build a pre-packed tree or simply put up and decorate a real tree.

Instead, split them into teams and give them a few basic supplies – old newspapers, magazines, paint, toilet rolls, scissors, tape etc, and ask them to make their own Christmas tree. Award points for height, stability, looks and decoration.

Secret Santa
We know that Secret Santa in itself isn’t really a game – but it can be.
There are a number of ways to make it more interesting such as putting all the gifts into a bag and having a lucky dip.

Or you could get more creative. Put the presents in a pile and select an order in which people will open a gift. Once they’ve unwrapped it, the person next in line chooses to either take that gift or go for one of their own.

Every time someone has the choice to choose from one of the already opened gifts or risk opening one themselves. If your gift is taken you can choose to take another one or open a gift. Gifts can only be stolen three times.

This version gives an insight into personal preferences in your team and their ability to use tactics.

Desk Item Cluedo
Once everyone is in the meeting room, go round and take an object from everyone’s desk.

Then those in the meeting have to simply guess whose item it is. It’ll show how much your team interacts with others and how much they know about their colleagues.

Client Quotes
This one takes a bit of prep but is a good way to look back over the year in a fun way. Get everyone to go through their email and find a funny or interesting quote from a client relating to a piece of work.

Print them all out along with the client’s name of a separate piece of paper. Then get teams to match them up. Once the game is over, the person who picked the quote can give a bit of background, allowing the team to learn a bit about other people’s work.

Posted by Sara Cano