Having greatly enjoyed reading Karen Cooley and Kirsty McEwan's previous book Legendary Away Days, I was happy to be offered the chance to read this companion publication. Set out in the same accessible style as the original, this book promises games to match the objectives of the different types of away days previously set out, and aims to provide the reader with “a collection of new and unique training games as an indispensable resource” (p. viii).
The first part of the book deals with running the games, giving definitions of the different types of games included in the book (icebreakers, energisers, team games and individual exercises), when and how you might use them and problems (pitfalls) that you might encounter with each type. It was good to see that Cooley and McEwan had retained the “potential pitfalls” feature as games books sometimes ignore the fact that things can go wrong, and it is useful to have some suggestions about how to retrieve the situation. It also reassured me that the authors speak from actual experience of running these games. The second chapter deals with choosing the right game: how you might want to consider the organisational culture in which the participants are immersed and the mood prevailing in the group. I thought this was another useful feature, as while experienced game users might do this without thinking, those who are new to this might easily choose an inappropriate game when another might work much better in a particular event. Some more brief chapters deal with venue considerations, ground rules, debriefing, effective facilitation, cultural diversity and health and safety and insurance issues.
Part two brings us to the games themselves, though not without pausing for a reprise of the types of away days (conference, morale boosting, etc.) and a one‐page chapter with suggestions of games that would be particularly suited to the different types. Chapter 13, then, is the description of the 33 “new and unique” games. Each game has brief information about its type (e.g. team game, icebreaker), what it is suitable for, the numbers of people who can play simultaneously and how long the game takes. The bulk of the description (as is typical for this type of book) is broken down into a description, preparation required, any variations that are possible and potential pitfalls. But what of the games themselves? The majority seemed fine, however there were a number that gave me some concerns, often with respect to the authors' claim that these are new and unique. Game 13, entitled “Getting to know you” is very similar to a game called “Getting acquainted” which appears in Susan El‐Shamy's (2003) book, Dynamic Induction, but with the interesting difference that the new version is impossible to play as directed (the suggested minimum is too few to achieve the result). Game 32 in the book is called “Tonight's news” and is by far the most in depth game. Unfortunately it seems very similar to Ken Jones' (2002) game “Newsroom”, which appears in his recent book Emotional Games for Training. New and unique are also descriptions which I have difficulty in applying to games 18 (“Legendary word game”) and 31 (“Time for tea”), both of which are very similar to commonly played games.
I have used some of the games, with mixed results. I adapted “Getting to know you” so that it was achievable by the number of participants I had, and it worked very well. With another group, I used “Prize draw” (a game designed to improve decision‐making skills) with a suggested duration of 50 minutes, but which lasted for about 20 minutes with this particular group. As a group they are OK with the idea of playing games for particular purposes, so it was not a matter of failing to engage with the material, there just was not enough substance to keep them going.
To conclude, whilst Games for Legendary Away Days, ties in well with its sister volume, I was somewhat disappointed with some of the games themselves. Not only was I disappointed in their lack of originality at times, but the problematic instructions for some of them might make the promise from the publishers that “the user has (virtually) a guaranteed success rate” a touch difficult to achieve.
