The Trainer’s Treasure Trove.
By Beverley Williams.
Fenman, 2000.
A4 ringbinder, ISBN 1 872483 95 X.
£195 plus carriage.
In the Introduction to this new resource for trainers, the author comments that over the years trainers collect favourite activities, etc and one of the fascinating aspects of training is the wide diversity of these individual ‘Treasure Troves’. The collection of 50 activities from this prolific producer of excellent activity collections represent the author’s own ‘Treasure Trove’ which she is sharing with other trainers to use, modify or add to as they wish and so enhance their own ‘Troves’. The author comments quite rightly, that it can take years to build up one’s own ‘Trove’, so, particularly for new and not too experienced trainers, these activities supply more than just the start to a personal ‘Trove’.
Many of the activities are not completely original in that their bases have been in use for many years under different guises and disguises, but these have been given the Williams treatment and many have been modified in a way that she has found to produce an effective application. Many too are original (as far as anything in training is original). One of the pieces of material, suggested for use when people are seeking ways of solving personal problems, or looking to their future lives and careers, I can personally guarantee as original. This is an inspirational poem ‘If you painted your life’ and I was privileged to receive a copy of this soon after the author wrote it. The collection is worth its weight and price in gold if only for this poem.
The activities are collected in nine sections, each individual activity being summarized at the start of the resource and many containing OHP masters and very apt cartoons. The sections are titled Joining Instructions (including a novel method of sending these); Openers and Icebreakers including ‘The Comfort Zone’ that introduces participants to ways in which their learning from the event can be enhanced); Brainteasers and Energizers (some mental agility puzzles as well as a physical activity to shake off post-lunch lethargy); Exercises (a selection of problem-solving group activities); Inspirational overheads (Five OHP masters usable in a variety of situations); The Quizzes; Role Plays; Brainstorming; and Evaluation Sheets (how to run the final validation and evaluation, and action planning sessions, with a selection of reactionnaire and questionnaire approaches).
This is a gold mine of ideas and practical help for trainers, inexperienced and experienced, that will pay for itself over and over again. Very well recommended.
Leslie Rae
August 2000
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