Ideas to make Soapmaking into team building exercise

[TandCC]

I was asked to make soap with 15-25 participants at their regional staff mtg as one of their team building activities. Any ideas how to add more team into soapmaking?

 

[toxikon]

Hmmm, well. I'd stick to melt & pour. I'd have safety concerns about such a large group of unexperienced folks handling lye. Too many cooks in the kitchen could lead to dangerous results.

You could pre-prepare some soap clay for some of the group to make into decorations/embeds. Some of the group could be in charge of preparing ingredients and keeping the workspaces tidy.

Perhaps splitting them into groups of 3-4 "teams" would be best. One person making the embeds, one person preparing ingredients, one person keeping things neat and clean, and one person doing the blending/pouring.

Here's what I'd do:

Buy a 10lbs block of M&P base, some soap clay, a handful of colourants, any other gear needed. Get a bunch of small boxes to line and use as molds.

Split people into 3-4 person teams, give everyone the same "theme" they must adhere to. Maybe something like "Ocean", "Nature", etc. Adds some fun challenge to it.

Give each team a step-by-step guide.

Let them go wild!

When soap is done and cut, sit down and look at all the creations and discuss.

 

[shunt2011]

You would also need to make sure you have insurance that will cover it.

 

[dixiedragon]

I like toxikon's ideas. I am also wondering if you could do something like provide the basic instructions and a box full of tools and then they figure it out from there? Since the purpose is to do team building? It could also be fun if each theme had 2 teams working on it, so you can compare and see what different directions they went in. Not in a competition way, but just to observe how they did different things.

 

[TandCC]

Those are some great ideas. I do carry professional liability to cover the "classes " I teach.

 

[dixiedragon]

How long would the class last? It might be really fun to do something like divide the members into 2 teams. Each team is responsible for producing 2 (or more) soaps following a certain theme. For example, maybe day and night. Or spring, summer, fall and winter. Each team has to produce these from the materials in the box.

 

[PuddinAndPeanuts]

You might find inspiration for activities in the team challenges that a lot of the cooking shows have

 

[lenarenee]

I don't know what your time frame is, but I'll post this in case anyone else
might be interested:

https://cleantheworld.org/

Making hygiene kits. You provide the number of people you have and other details, and they ship the supplies to you.

 

[TandCC]

How interesting! I really like the idea of incorporating the kits