Why this exists
Born out of a desperate necessity to stop winging the most important parts of my facilitation, the story behind why I built this toolkit is likely your story, too.
Hey!
If you work with groups, you know the feeling.
You've got a session coming up. Maybe it's a meeting, workshop, or some kind of experience you need to design and facilitate.
You've spent all your time planning the content. You know what you want to cover.
But the moments that actually shape the experience - how you open a session, manage the energy, and close in a way people remember - you leave those till the last minute.
Because somewhere along the way, you were led to believe that more content means more value - and that anything playful is too risky for a serious room.
So you open Google and start searching for the perfect icebreaker and connection activity.
They need to be engaging, but not cringey. Playful, but not childish. Professional, but not boring.
Suddenly it's 2am.
You've got 37 tabs open.
Every activity promises to "transform your session."
None of them feel quite right.
You walk in the next day half-confident. You run something anyway.
And afterward, you're left with that feeling of "I should've done that differently."
If that sounds familiar - good. You're in the right place.
As a facilitator, I spent years collecting and testing activities with real groups, watching many do the opposite of what they promised.
Until I eventually realized something simple:
I didn't need more options. I needed fewer, better ones I could trust.
So I read every book, filtered the internet, and tested hundreds of activities - so you don't have to.
These 7 came out on top.
I've facilitated sessions where the budgets are big, the expectations are bigger, and the room is full of senior leaders who don't have time to waste - and these are the 7 I always come back to.
Yes, they work with serious groups.
No, they won't make anyone die of cringe-itis.
And when something works, people notice.
These are the activities that'll make you the facilitator people ask back, again and again.
Take them. Make them yours.
I hope you love them as much as I do ❤️
Rebecca Courtney
Facilitation Coach & Trainer
What to expect over the next 7 days
How it works:
- One email per day
- One activity per email
- Use them anywhere: meetings, workshops, team sessions, offsites - anywhere you're bringing people together
What's inside?
These are icebreakers, energizers, and connection activities I've collected, battle-tested, and refined over 10+ years of facilitating.
Think of this as your go-to Facilitator's Toolkit.
Not something to read once, but something you can save and return to whenever you're designing a session.
Each email is:
- A 5-minute read
- Practical and detailed enough to run the activity tomorrow
- Something you can save, print, and have with you in a session
Ready to try them?
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