Ice-Breakers and Heart-Warmers: 101 Ways to Kick Off and End Meetings [Paperback]

Steve Sheely (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 125 pages
• Publisher: Serendipity House (July 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883419794
• ISBN-13: 978-1883419790
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #809,831 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Small groups made intimate, February 29, 2000

By 

R. LaVine (Santa Rosa, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ice-Breakers and Heart-Warmers: 101 Ways to Kick Off and End Meetings (Paperback)

This is a great book if you have a small group, say 5 or 6, and are doing this for a church function. It had great ideas, but I could not use it because my group was larger, and not all christians. I needed something a little more general.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for new groups, March 7, 2001

By 

Melissa T. (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ice-Breakers and Heart-Warmers: 101 Ways to Kick Off and End Meetings (Paperback)

Imagine being forced into a new setting with a group of people you don't know. You're nervous about what people will think of you. Will you do or say something stupid?

This book really helps banish these fears, because, in effect, everyone is required to act silly for a few moments. For example, show the group your hidden talent (in our group, people seemed to be very double-jointed)! What does your name mean and why were you named it? There are some interesting stories out there. Shy people are also required to participate...thus getting them to speak -- which they may not do otherwise.

The more we do ice-breakers, the looser we become. It helps for starting out Bible studies, when people might be worried their thoughts will come across as "stupid." These activities help you realize it's OK to be silly, and to loosen up.

I only gave the book four stars because it's very vague on copyright. Some of the ice-breakers are "visual" -- they require that everyone "see" a specific page in the book (some activities use graphics). Is it OK to photocopy these pages so our group can use them? I looked all over for information/permissions regarding this, but couldn't find any. Another reason it only gets four stars... my mom lost the book soon after we got it, so I didn't get to try too many of the ice-breakers out on my group. So, we're getting the sequel ASAP.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of great ideas but too church-oriented., September 15, 2005

By 

Hanoch McCarty "The Energizer!" (Northern California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ice-Breakers and Heart-Warmers: 101 Ways to Kick Off and End Meetings (Paperback)

It has many icebreaking activities but was simply too church-oriented for me to use it at all since I deal with school and secular groups primarily. It would be a lot of work to remove all the religious references. And many of the activities seem to be repeats from many other books I've read. Not as innovative as it ought to be. Since people attend lots of meetings, you've got to have new activities in order to keep them from being bored.

Still, if it had been titled with "for Church Group leaders" it'd be a great resource.