Out of the box!

Thursday, 04 November 2010
For years I tended to just grab materials and equipment at the last minute as I went out the door to each facilitation or training gig. Then a colleague showed me his system for keeping a lid on the chaos and the churn under control.
A box for everything and everything in its box.
When I saw it, my first thought was “how easy is that?” A simple system of boxes fitting inside each other ready to go. It’s easy to carry, easy to maintain and minimises the risk of forgetting something at the last minute.

So now I have different kits for different occasions. There’s the full kit which fits into the large size of box as shown in the picture (not my actual kit…). This can be supplemented with extra decor materials.

Then there’s the briefcase kit containing a smaller amount of each sub-set of the full kit.

Finally there’s the pocket kit, which is really just a pack of post-it notes and participants have to bring their own pens.



Here’s what I have in my full facilitation kit:
  • Working stuff. Markers, pens, lots of dots, masking and sticky (scotch) tape, plain paper tape (streamers), blutac.
  • Toys & art/craft stuff (same list as last month): Balls, eg: koosh, squeeze/stress, juggling. Craft items, eg: pipe cleaners (chenille sticks/stems or fuzzy wires), paper & cardboard, felt, glue/s, paints/markers/crayons/pastels, modelling materials (clay, Play-Doh™, Plasticine™, wax). Construction, eg: Lego™, Magnetix™, drinking straws & tape.
  • Decor stuff. Mostly things to put on tables – cloths, little art pieces like glass fish or fruit made from coloured wool felted into shape. Also useful quotes and such like to put on walls.
I also like to use a sticky wall. (A piece of cloth or plastic sprayed with repositionable glue‡ and attached to a wall or other smooth vertical surface. Paper sticks to it nicely and can be moved many times – just the thing for building and re-building clusters of ideas.) It’s light, stows away easily and has a pretty good wow factor.

So, what’s your experience of keeping the chaos under control? What kind of kits do you carry? What don’t you carry any more? Please, share your thoughts below.

Go well!

David Jago

‡ Please note: the glue is now classified as ‘dangerous goods’, which means airlines won’t carry it. Therefore: pre-spray the plastic and carry it around folded up.