Virtual Fun Days Social distancing means church fetes, Fun Days and community festivals have to be different this year – but there are still loads of ways to bring your community together. Check out our ideas for Virtual Fun Days and socially distanced events to have fun with neighbours, make new connections and build stronger communities. You can use these ideas with a few friends, family or collegues; the groups that meet in your church building or your whole community. We’d love to know what you do to bring your community together, so please post your photos and videos on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with #FunDay and tag @HopeTogether Want to see how a massive Fun Day works? Check out the programme from the Eden Project programme for their Virtual Big Lunch to see how a whole weekend can work online 1 Online event Socially distanced event Ideas Music Create a playlist on Spotify that can be shared with others and listened to during your event. You get a free 3-month Spotify Premium trial, which removes ads. Spotify.com/uk Hold a quiz Get the questions ready for your quiz, decide how you will score and a prize that can be sent to the winner. Players will need a pen and paper at the ready! There are lots of ready- made quizzes online to help you get started. You might decide to have one quiz master, or you could ask multiple people to host a round. Don’t forget to make a score board! Bake-off challenge Choose an item for your bake-off challenge, this could be anything from bread, cakes, or a show stopper! Agree a start and end time that you have to show the finished item. Encourage people to take selfies during the baking process. Decide how you will choose the winners (if you want someone to win) – will you have a panel of judges, or will everyone get a vote? Create a scoreboard and criteria that the finished item will be judged on e.g. presentation and creativity. Coffee chat room Have a session for those who may just want a friendly chat with other people. For some, lockdown has meant they have had little interaction with others. Give them the opportunity to connect. You might need to lend phones, laptops or tablets set up ready for people who are not internet-savvy. Fancy dress competition Set a fancy-dress theme and promote the competition before the event. Get attendees to post pictures on social media, or have a cat walk show on a video call! Decide how you will choose the best costume – will you have a panel of judges, or will everyone get a vote. Photo scavenger hunt There are lots of ideas of photo scavenger hunts online. Set the challenge and ask people to send in their photos, or post on social media using a set hashtag. The first person to complete all the photos wins! We have listed some ideas below. Chalk walk ways Create a fun walk way, outside your church or home, for the community to use. Add hopscotch, jumping jacks and more. Get creative! 2 Movie night Services such as ‘Kast’ or ‘Netflix Party’ offer the ability to watch films together virtually, including a chat function, so you can all watch at the same time and talk about what you are watching! Choose a suitable film and send a link to those attending. If your church has a large car park, you could try a drive-in movie! Food parcels Drop a yummy food parcel to those who have signed up for the event/ those in your local area. Include afternoon tea, or cakes. Be creative in what you can offer. Talent show Ask attendees to showcase their hidden talents! You’ll need to ask people before the event so that you can create a schedule. Decide how you will choose the winners (if you want someone to win) – will you have a panel of judges, or will everyone get a vote. Online raffle Rallyup.com/raffles is an easy way to create an online raffle. Choose your prizes and send the link out attendees. They can easily donate prizes to the raffle. Or post an image with numbers from 1-50 (or more, or less depending on how many people you expect to take part), ask people to choose a number and mark them off once taken, then draw the raffle after a set amount of time. Open mic Hold an open mic session, encourage people to sign up before the event so you can create a schedule. Give them the virtual stage and make sure everyone else is muted for the performance. TikTok challenge TikTok dances are becoming more and more popular. Choose a dance for people to learn and get them to send in their versions, or share on a video call. Dessert party Choose a dessert for everyone to make, or ask people to re-create their favourite pudding. Share the making and baking process together and then eat together! Recreating artwork challenge Choose a famous piece of artwork for your attendees to re-create. You could have a prize for the best masterpiece! Riddles There are lots of riddles online. Have some fun going through some riddles, challenging attendees to answer. Get others to share riddles that they know too. 3 Virtual escape room Escape rooms are fun to do in smaller groups of 4-6 people. The following links are to virtual escape rooms. Bank Heist escape room Minecraft escape room Fish/ sea themed escape room Getting out of Disneyland escape room Escaping Shrek’s hut escape room Harry Potter themed escape room 4 Household items fashion show Choose a list of up to eight items that are commonly found in the home. Give the list to all attendees and a time limit for them to create a fun outfit from the items. Things like towels, foil and toilet rolls work well! Virtual photo booth Using Zoom, you can create a fun backdrop for your video. Go to your Zoom settings and select ‘virtual background’, here you can select an image. Get creative! You can choose from your own images, or look online and upload new pictures. Canva have created a great selection of backgrounds which you can access with the 30 day free trial. Crafts Think about materials and items most people would have within their homes and choose a craft to complete. Lots of craft ideas can be found on the internet. Things like origami, making an instrument out of your recycling, or painting, could easily work. Colouring activities are also enjoyable. Karaoke Everyone chooses a song to perform to the group, hairbrush microphones are encouraged! Caricature competition Ask everyone to choose another member of the video call to draw, but don’t tell anyone! Give everyone 15 minutes to draw a creative caricature of their chosen attendee. Once the time is up, come back together to share drawings and guess who everyone has tried to draw! Dance party You can either host a whole dance party, or do short dance breaks in between other games/ activities. Create a playlist that can be shared, make sure they are good boppers! 5 Online event Socially distanced event Games Bingo Myfreebingocards.com offers free bingo cards for up to 30 players. They also have really helpful videos on how to play. Pictionary On Zoom, you can share a ‘whiteboard’. When in the meeting, click the green icon above ‘Share Screen’. Choose the ‘Whiteboard’ function. This shares the screen and everyone can interact and draw on the board. Take it in turns to draw and guess the different pictures. Hangman Hangman also works in the same way as Pictionary, using the whiteboard function as above. Take it in turns to play. Read my lips Someone says something while on mute and others have to guess what they’re saying. Prepare phrases that can be used, you may want to theme it e.g. books / films. Simon says You will need a host who is ‘Simon’, telling players what to do. If the command starts with ‘Simon says’ everyone must obey. But if the command doesn’t start with ‘Simon says’ they must ignore the command. If people get it wrong, then they are out. Once a player is out, they have to turn their screen off. Touch a body part: nose, ear, head, chin, eye, mouth, hair, neck, tummy, legs, knees, toes, clap your hands, scratch your head, blink your eyes, nod your head, bend your knees, turn around, touch the ground, pat your cheeks, laugh out loud, bend your waist, give a wave, bend your arm, jump up high, crouch down low, poke out your tongue, take a step forward, run on the spot, do a star jump. Lip sync battle The battle consists of contestant’s lip syncing to songs. The songs can be from any era, any genre, as long as they can provide the audio. A hair brush microphone is encouraged, as well as your best dance moves! Everyone else then scores their performance. For a socially distanced event, everyone needs to bring their own hairbrush! Two truths and a lie Each person takes it in turns to think of two truths about themselves and a lie and everyone tries to figure out who is fibbing. 6 That’s right Bob This is a memory game. Someone starts the game off by saying ‘that’s right Bob….’ Followed by a simple news story sentence e.g. ‘There was a cat up in the tree’.