Joe - thank you very much those sound great! I'll copy your post and take it to our meeting next week.

Last year we had cotton balls dipped in 5 flower fragrances and had one fragrance per bottle and mixed them up unlabeled. We handed a bottle to each person as they registered and then told them they had to find someone with a similar "smell". That turned out to be fun, but we wanted something different and these sound great.

Thanks again.

Another really neat ice breaker is "Secret Smells" from Texas A&M's Junior Master Gardener Book. It is basically like the card game (Number 1) above, but you hand each person a black 35mm film canster with a cotton ball dabbed with something smelly. The groups have to find themselves the same way insects do - by smell (No talking!). Just a bit of caution. Some people do get smell induced migrane headaches.

EJB190 - thank so much for your suggestion. We have a meeting next week and I'll have some good ideas to share.

Judy

Oversize nametaqs are good ice breakers. Have people search for at least 2 matches. Example:
EDDIE GREENMAN: fruit trees, grafting, vegetables, stand-up comedian, guitarist, songwriter, flirt.
(limit garden comments to 4) (minimum of personal info:3)

Also, on my website there is a cute little quiz. Logon to
http://www.mindspring.com/~erhoades/contests/index.htm and scroll to Name That Tree.
You are welcome.

Thanks Eddie - but I was unable to log onto your website for some reason.

Great suggestions! We have played MAster Gardener Bingo to introduce new members to the group at their first meeting after training. I divided a sheet of paper into 25 squares and put some gardening characteristic in each one. The instructions are to get the signature of someone in each box who has: a water garden, grows raspberries, starts their own vegetable seedlings, sells at a farmer's market, has more than 3 types of lilies, etc, etc. People mingle and talk, and when their cards are filled with signatures (cannot repeat names if you have a large group), we play BINGO by pulling names of people present out of a hat. When you cover five people's names in a row, you have a winner!

WOW - what a great game also - thank you for your input.

Judy

Judy,
Sometimes , on certain days you can't always get what you want - on the Internet. Please try again as this is a cute quiz on my site, listed below. Once there, click on contests and scroll down to the tree quiz.
Sample:
tree clue - HAND
answer - PALM tree
Eddie

Here is a link that might be useful: CONTESTS

Eddie - you've got a real cool website !!! Thank you very much for sharing.

Taste tests of unlabled edible herbs are fun to do, even more fun in the yard wear they are actually growing.

Passiflora - that also is a great idea and one that I will jot down for the future. Unfortunately our county extension office is leasing the building and only has a small postage stamp area to have some demonstration areas set up. We were trying to get a grant to move to a larger facility with lots of land, but last year's hurricanes in put the move on hold.

Jujam:

Update? Results?

Joe

This is TOTALLY unhelpful, but...My friend Yulia and I joke a lot about "Extreme Gardening, the sport". Her extreme gardening events are "boulder-moving" and "pit-digging". My extreme gardening events are the "overplanted garden-bed one-foot balance for weeding" and the "bulb-a-thon". Gardening is NOT for wimps :-)