Leadership activities

In my CCF in school I am being told to create a leadership activity for me to do a SMEAC brief on and then do the activity. I did come up with an idea for a leadership activity, but the idea was too complicated and against health and safety. Has anyone get any uncomplicated and fun activities which will only need up to 4 pieces of equipment. (I passed and got 47/50!)

KISS

Keep It Simple Stupid

Not calling you stupid :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: that is just a great acronym that you will hear at some point in your cadet career.

Don’t try and make a SMEAC EX to complicated as it will more often then not go wrong. Keep things simple and they are much here easier to manage!

I have tried to make several complex Exercises and every single one of them was thwarted by a cadet who had mange to see a loop hole I hadn’t!

Others will give you great simple SMEAC Exercise ideas but one I always used to use was a mine field/obstacle course.

Equipments:

Rope
Blindfolds
Objects to Retrieve

Have the team blindfolded and only the leader can see. (You can say there is some sort of Gas or something, we always used to use Gad masks as blind folds).

The leader then has to instruct the team to retrieve certain objects in the course.

If they step out of the course then they can be ‘dead’ or ‘eaten by the resident radioactive panther’ or whatever you see fit.

Ex complete once all the objects are retrieved.

———————

Not a great one for team work but good for leadership and uses minimal equipment.

Use your imagination and make your own situation up, it is always more fun with an interesting story behind the ex.

Try and build on this as well to make it different from an ex the cadets may have done before.

I wish I could give you a more in-depth answer but I’m on the move at the moment! Maybe try mixing this with another exercise suggested by others on here!

If in absolute panic mode then try and modify one of the blue badge leadership ex’s!

Hope this helps and good luck!!!

I have done something similar to the Rope and blindfold exercise, but it did not go to successful. I am still thinking, but I believe with time I will be able to come up with an idea

A really simple one to do would probably be be putting up a tent in a restricted time or taking it down retrieving all equipment and getting of that area in restricted time.

Also another one I have seen done is just rope being put in the shape of a H for a helicopter (again with the KISS after all its mostly about the brief than the actual exercise)

Have fun! :+1:

The problem with these is the brief. People get over excited with all sorts of nonsense that is completely irrelevant and cadets get distracted by it.
If you are going train cadets in these things, ensure that they are taught to sort the wheat from the chaff.
Just say you have to do this, you have 10 minutes, here is the kit crack on, no elaborate back story that would even stretch the likes of Spielberg’s imaginings. They are supposed to be working together, not worrying about fictitious meanderings. On the latter point I would say they already do work together in less mind-spinning ways, just think of drill, end of night clear up etc. So do we need anything artificial.
If you want to get into screenplay scenarios do that later.

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Or you could ignore that and do it as a SMEAC brief, which exists for a reason.

As tasks become more complex the scenario becomes more and more relevant, so leaders should get used to using the correct format from the start. That way as things build up they already have the basics in hand.

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I am a cadet not a leader

Who says you can’t be both?

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No I mean I am a cadet and not a staff cadet leader

I do want to be both!

I rather think that that is the point of the back stories… :wink:

People new to SMEAC almost always mix the situation and mission parts together. By presenting them with superfluous information, you start to introduce them into critical thinking.

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Some people struggle with thinking. Not sure they are ready for critical thinking.

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The simplest way to get into writing tasks is Google “team building exercises” (and similar terms), find a suitable activity that you can “cadettify”, then write the scenario around the task.

It takes a bit of knowledge and experience before most can just sit down and knock out task briefs for fun. A Google search should show up several articles and resource websites. A lot of them are aimed more at workplaces so many won’t have impractical equipment requirements, plus they don’t use scenarios like we do which gives you scope to dress it up a bit.

There are a few cadet and military specific task resources that you might come across, but some of those get into bench, barrel, and plank territory that might not have the equipment for.

You dont want to be a Cpl who is both a cadet and a leader?

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yup safe and its pretty interesting to see the solutions. did this one on a camp and it was hillarious

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I have a few I created for a flight of about 15 if that would be helpful, involving paper and pens an/or string and hockey sticks