While big group games, which take in everyone, are splendid in promoting sociability and group spirit, nevertheless it is unwise to keep guests going at too strenuous a pace. The first result is a dropping out of participants and the next a growing lack of interest, which finally develops into an irritability that plays havoc with any spirit of play. On the other hand, it is almost as bad to ask guests to “just sit” and rest, thereby letting all the interest a leader has awakened die an early and natural death. Instead, it has proved very effective to have races, contests, stunts and trick games at this time, events that will keep up interest, but which will need only a few participants. The following chapter on “Races” was written for that purpose, to provide those very necessary fill-ins.
Kiddy Kar Race.
The course should be about thirty feet in length. The biggest men present are chosen for drivers, and there are two drivers for each team.
The Kiddy Kars are lined up at the starting point, with driver No. 1 sitting on the car, all set to go. At the whistle they are off, the cars propelled in the usual and only possible fashion! They travel to the goal about thirty feet away and return, immediately turning over their cars to the other member of the team, driver No. 2, who starts off without waiting for any signal, to run the same course. The one who is first to return to the starting place wins the race for his team.
The possibilities of a Kiddy Kar made for a five-year-old, but propelled by a forty-five-year-old are almost unbelievable.
The Reducer.
Eight men are chosen to run this race, four in each line, one behind the other. The first one in each line has a barrel hoop bound about with cloth so that no ragged edges are left to penetrate the reducee. At a signal from the leader the first man of each line runs up to the goal line, which is across the middle of the room, puts the hoop above his head and quickly draws it down over his shoulders to the floor, steps out of it, picks it up, runs back and gives it to the next runner, he himself going to the end of the line. The second runner does the same thing and so does the third, and then the fourth runner who first gets through the hoop and back to his place wins the race for his team.
No matter how stout the men of a group are, it always seems possible for them to get through their hoops. At innumerable social events I have looked for a fat guest to get jammed in his hoop, but as yet I have been disappointed.
Hippity-Hop Potato Race.
There are four couples in this effort, for effort it is. They form two teams, two couples in each team, one couple standing behind the other. Both the man and the lady of the first couple in each team are given a teaspoon with a large potato in it. At a signal from the leader these two first couples hurry down the room to the goal line, and return to give the spoons and the potatoes to the second couples of their teams.