Postcard To Tim: "Learn some cool dance moves:)"
How to end an online session with a nice wrap-up
Years ago I was asked to hold a series of workshops to support a team of 14 persons to find their strategy as a community of experts.
The sessions were online, in different weeks. So, one of the challenges was to find good starting and closing activities that could relate to the previous and following sessions.
One of the activities I have invented for them is the one below.
Postcard to Tim - who is Tim anyway?
Tim is an invented fantasy character from Mars.
He does not know very good the language of Earth's people very well so we need to explain to him the things in simple language.
He will join our team at our next session and it would be nice to write a letter and send it to him upfront so that he knows which were your highlights today and also which advice would you give him for his participation in the next session.
I have created templates for these letters and used Miro to invite everyone to write their letter for Tim.
Here is one example of one of the letters, a funny one:
Why dance moves? One of the participants had the idea to dance Macarena with 14 people online after a break which was the funniest moment ever:) Imagine 14 persons, movements are delayed in the call, and everyone trying to catch a move of someone and copy it was amazing! The movement helps a lot in sessions, anyway!
How does a letter help?
First, it helps as a reflection on the highlights of what just happened.
Second, it is nice to think about someone you write to and keep it simple.
Third, it is a great closer because you hear the highlights from everyone in a specific structured way.
As a bonus, you can start exactly from these highlights at the beginning of the next session. They will remind themselves what they did last time and also how they can contribute to the success of the next session.
What about a letter to your future self?
A variation of the letter above is a letter to my future self. This one I experienced as a participant in leadership training some years ago.
The idea was to write to your future self how and which learnings will help you in the future, visualize and feel your future self. It was very powerful.
This one fits better with the training session and it is a nice way to end and wrap up for the participants while having something to take away with them that will help put into practice what they just experienced.
Bottom lines:
Letters are magic. They are powerful and if you can also write them by hand they are even more making their “job” because it is deeper the brain connection towards what you write there will happen. A letter to Tim is a nice way to close a session and to use it as a starting point as well for a follow up session. It can be both online or in person used.