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Volunteering at Scouts is changing to help us reach more young people

Volunteering is changing to help us reach more young people

Volunteering is changing at Scouts. Read more

Discover what this means

Don’t rock the boat

Trust your captain's orders and work your way through an obstacle course while blindfolded.
Plan a session with this activity

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You’ll need

  • Blindfolds
  • Objects to use as obstacles

Before you begin

  • Gather some objects to use as obstacles – things such as chairs, tables, and cardboard boxes work well.
  • Set up the objects across your meeting place to create an obstacle course.

Play the game

  1. Everyone should split into small teams. Each team should stand at one side of the obstacle course.
  2. One person from each team should become the captain. The captains should go to the other end of the obstacle course.
  3. Everyone else in each team should get into a line, one in front of the other. They should all put blindfolds on and put their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them. Each team is now a boat.
  4. One at a time, the boats should take it in turns to try and move through the obstacle course. As they can’t see, they’ll have to listen out for their captain’s directions to move safely through.
  5. If any part of a boat touches an obstacle, the boat is shipwrecked. Everyone that makes up the boat should sit down where they are to create an extra obstacle for the next boat to attempt the course.

Reflection

This activity needed everyone to communicate and work as a team. Which of the captain’s instructions were the easiest to follow, and why? Each boat should think together, and then share their ideas with everyone else. Meanwhile, the captains should think about how they spoke to their team and how their team listened. Did the boats follow the instructions well?

In this game, different people had different roles even though they were on the same team. Can anyone think of another example where people have different roles in a team? People may think about sports like football (where players have different positions) or even something such as a film set, where some people are actors, some directors, and some set or costume designers, as well as lots of other roles.

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Contact games and activities

Make sure everyone understands what contact is acceptable, and monitor contact throughout the activity.

Change the size or the difficulty of the obstacle course. To make it tricky you could have lots of obstacles close together for a team to weave through, for example.

Adapt the course to make sure everyone can move through it. People could close their eyes instead of being blindfolded. If anyone doesn’t like being touched (or touching others) everyone in the boat could hold a piece of rope or cardboard instead of each other.

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

Beavers Teamwork Challenge Award

Why not ask the young people to design the obstacle course?