Beads, an ongoing activity

I came up with this idea years ago based on something Outward
Bound does. It's an excellent ongoing activity to use during service trips (or throughout a whole year) and one of only a few things our group doesn't want to change from year to year.

At a meeting at the very beginning of the week, we hand out a shoestring and pass around a bag of gold beads. One at a time, youth take a gold bead and string it on the shoestring as they talk about the things they are looking forward to, the things they’re worried about, the things they need from others in the group, and what they are going to give to the group and those in it.

At the second meeting, we pass around notecards and ask each youth to write down four qualities or characteristics they think are the most important for youth in the group to exhibit during the week. Each youth then picks a partner, and from their eight qualities they come up with four; each pair then works with another pair, and from their eight they pick four; and so on, until the entire group in this way has chosen four qualities of characteristics. Finally, each quality or characteristic is assigned a different colored bead (for example: responsibility = black; open-mindedness = yellow; good attitude = green; teamwork = purple).

For the rest of the week, we conclude every evening meeting with a bead ceremony, where each youth has the opportunity to present beads to other youth and explain to the rest of the group why s/he is presenting that particular bead to that youth. Warning: some of our bead ceremonies have lasted for more than 3.5 hours! Limit the number of beads, or try changing the rules every now and then (for instance, one night, ask youth to pick a bead and award it to themselves, and explain their choice to the group).

At the end of the week, conclude with a final bead ceremony. Pass around a special closing bead and have youth reflect on their week and the group as they take it.