Race on your face

If you're looking for a game to increase your attractiveness whilst also entertaining you around the dinner table, then look no further than Race on your face. Race on your face is a race to be the first to get an item (be it a Jaffa Cake, cheese biscuit, poker chip or even a sweet - see above picture) from the top of your forehead and into your mouth without using your hands.


I played it live on air last week with the delightful Fred and Lindsey on the McCauley & Co show on BBC Radio Scotland and it thoroughly entertained my family and I at my cousin's wedding on Saturday. Full details of the game are featured below. If you've got any particularly dazzling pictures of you playing the game I'd love to see them. Simply email me at organisedfunforeveryone@gmail.com.

How do I play it?

• Players each place the appointed item in the centre of their forehead. You might want an Umpire to make sure that all items are positioned in the same place to prevent some players having an unfair advantage
• On the word go, players race to get the item into their mouth by wrinkling and moving their face. If it falls off the player has to place it back in the middle of their forehead and start again. First one to get the item in their mouth wins
• There is a method to making it work, but if I tell you here it’ll ruin the fun and give you an unfair advantage. Go figure it out.

Knights, Horses & Cavaliers

Another ace alternative to your bog standard game of Musical chairs. In this format players play in pairs but must assume a different 'position' when the music stops.

How do I play it?

• Get your friends to pair up, ideally with someone from the opposite sex
• When the music’s on, the pairs must prance and dance around at will. When the music stops the games facilitator shouts either ‘Knight’, ‘Horse’ or ‘Cavalier’
• ‘Knight’ means the male has to give his partner a piggy back, ‘Horse’ means the male has to give their partner a horse ride by getting on all fours and ‘Cavalier’ means the male has to get down on one knee and the female sits on it
• The last couple to execute the maneuver is out and so the game plays on until the remaining couple is announced the winner
• To purchase Organised Fun click here.

Toilet Paper Mummies

I’m not quite sure what the element of appeal is but this is one of my favourites. This was another one we rolled at the Manchester Kids Good Ideas Show, but again is good for adults as long as they are at the jovial genial stage of the evening. For those conscious of wasting valuable resources, you can wind your toilet roll back up for use, but be warned you are left with an inelegant pile of unhygienic bottom wiping material.

How do I play it?

• Split players into teams of three and give each team a toilet roll
• Decide who’s the Egyptian Mummy and stand them in the middle between the other two players. The two players then wrap the third in the toilet roll by winding it around them so that they look like an Egyptian Mummy. If the toilet roll breaks, they must tuck the broken end in and carry on
• Once done, players must then wind the paper back onto the toilet roll
• The winning team is the one who completes the task first
• To purchase Organised Fun Click here.

Human Musical Chairs

Human Musical Chairs was one of the winning games at the Kids Good Ideas show in Manchester this weekend. The game follows the same format as musical chairs but kids play in pairs and use each other as 'seats'.


It's ideal if you haven't got enough chairs for the gathered masses and also works brilliantly as a game to get the parents involved as the kids can sit on their oldies backs. I rolled it out at a friends party a couple of months ago and it also proved to be a winner when played with just grown-ups.

To get started get everyone into pairs and get them to agree who’s a chair and who’s a human. Once everyone’s made fully aware of their chair or human status the game proceeds as with the standard game of musical chairs but this time when the music stops, the chairs get on their hands and knees and the humans sit on top. The last pair seated are out, leaving the last pair to win.

Looking for new ideas for kids party games?

Who'd have thought so many kids would want to be running around an exhibition centre when summer was in full bloom outside. Well in Manchester this weekend, it was quite clearly the thing to do. The Kids Fun Ideas Show is designed to armour parents with a stack of ideas on how to keep their little lovelies entertained in the face of the impending summer holiday stretch. The levels of parental desperation were apparent in the hoards that keenly burst through the opening doors at 10am on a Sunday morning. What happened to the papers in bed with a pot coffee - aaah yes you all have kids.


The show was brimming with thousands of very excited kiddy winks. As well as running a whole host of workshops on how to entertain the kids during the summer holidays, we also did a pack of party games up on the main stage, designed to give parents some inspiration on how to put some life back into the bog standard kids party format.

I'll feature three of the winners in tomorrow's blog entry.

Welly Wanging

If you've got not been lucky enough to be bought up on a diet of country village fetes, then the Welly Wang maybe a new concept to you. Welly Wanging is exactly like Hammer Throwing but with wellies instead. What you don't know what Hammer Throwing is either, Jeez, right let's start with the basics. OK, Welly Wanging is a competition to see who can lob their wellies the furthest - simple.

I’d recommend adopting the underarm wang as quite often the unequal weighting of a traditional welly causes the overarm lob to pitch unpredictably. Wang with the sole facing forwards as air getting caught in the welly as it flies through the sky slows it down and impacts on final measured distance.

How do I play it?

• Set a wanging line
• Stand behind the line and launch your welly
• The umpire then needs to replace the landed welly with the player’s marker
• Each player gets three wangs and the longest is taken as the winner’s distance
• The winner is the one who throws their welly the furthest
• To purchase Organised Fun click here.

Pool Pogo

With the sweet scent of summer in the air and the promise of some organised fun in the sun, I wanted to share a brilliant poolside piece of entertainment that filled many a ten minutes on our French holiday last year. The game is called Pool Pogo and is essentially a race from one end of the pool to the other by bouncing up and down and making sure you touch the bottom on every bounce

How do I play it?

• Get yourselves lined up at the end of the pool
• On the word go, you race to the other side of the pool with your hands held behind your back bouncing up and down
• Racers need to ensure they touch the bottom of the pool on every bounce. This is vital to give yourself the compulsion to propel yourself across
• To purchase Organised Fun click here.

Human Crufts

Human Crufts is one of the many brilliant inventions by the wonderful Bestival Festival team at last year’s Camp Bestival. Our friend Knipey put on a storming performance in his pink velour dog suit but was robbed of his victory by a nine year old. The event involves pairs of friends (one of which pretends to be the pooch and the other the owner) competing in an agility class, freestyle performance and beauty contest.

How do I play it?

• Decide on your judging panel (ideally three people) and get everyone else to pair up and decide who’s the pooch and who’s the owner
• Pairs then go away and practice their show routine (a freestyle performance of their choosing), the agility class and agree the outfit for their beauty contest
• Meanwhile the judges can set up the obstacle course. Think along the lines of planks to balance on, obstacles to jump over and if you can get your hands on one, a tube to tunnel through
• Contestants then compete in the three classes and are scored out of ten by the judges who hold up a score card at the end of each performance
• The competing pair with the highest score at the end of the competition wins
• To purchase Organised Fun click here.

Arcadia's leap

Last year, whilst picnicing in the sun on Hampstead Heath some friends came up with this brilliant challenge which we rolled out on a recent camping trip to Dorset. It's called 'Arcadia's leap', named after the lovely friend who's birthday it was invented on. It's a genius bit of entertainment to fill a sunny afternoon if you happen to have a space hopper to hand.

How do I play it?

• This is a game of trust as well as jumping ability as contestants compete to see who can jump over the most friends. Very few rules apply and any jumping style can be adopted
  
• Get your first friend to lie on the ground and the contestant leaps over them, ideally with a Space Hopper though freestyle is just as much fun
  
• On each successful jump, another player lies next to their friend making the distance to be jumped further and further The contestant who jumps the furthest wins

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Bale Tossing

A couple of weeks ago, my lovely sister Rachel got married. Apart from the obvious fact that my sister was getting hitched, one of the highlights was the splendiferous selection of organised fun spectaculars that were put on for the guests pleasure and entertainment. There was Welly Wanging, Toss the bale, Croquet and Boules, and a whole host of daftness involving the zip wire that couriered the guests to the bottom of the field.

Luke the groom put on a dazzling performance on the Bale Tossing. Determined to demonstrate his strength, agility and all round perfection as the new hubbie he managed to toss the bale so accurately that it returned to land on his head and knock him to the floor.

How to play it

• First of all you need to get your bale tossing bar set up. This is essentially a bar that can be easily raised once everyone has cleared it. There are a number of ways you can do it, but my brother in law Luke developed the following
• Find yourself a good strong fence, a post and rail type is ideal and firmly rope your two ladders onto the fence about 3 to 4 metres apart (or the same length as your metal bar) so they point upwards You need to make sure the rope knots are tight as there is quite a force of the bale hitting the raising pole and you don’t want them to fall on people causing a nasty accident
• Next, you need figure out a pully system. Cut the strong cord into two equal 10 metre lengths. Attach them to each end of the raising pole. Attach something heavy to the other end of the strong cord and throw this over the top run of one of the ladders. When you pull on the cord the raising pole should easily slide up the ladder. You have to adjust one side at a time or have two people at the ready to raise the pole
• You might find that a whole bale of straw is too heavy to throw for the ladies and certainly the kids (and perhaps even the men). If you can track down a horse’s hay net, this makes an ideal means to hold a split bale
• Once you’re all set up, the event plays in rounds. Contestants take it in turns to throw the bale over the pole. If you make it you’re through to the next round. If not you’re out. The person who can throw the highest is the winner
• To purchase Organised Fun click here

Organised fun: A Treasure Trove of Games and Tomfoolery

Organised fun is a big fizzing sherbet bomb of a book featuring games and tomfoolery invented and perfected by generations of friends and families. It's got all the classics, as well as tons of ideas for new and fun things to do that don't cost a penny. Wherever they are and whatever the weather, the book is designed to ensure families and friends have the information and inspiration to spin their own fun for free.

To purchase Organised Fun simply visit www.amazon.co.uk