THE PROCESS

I've had acouple people ask me about my process of putting students in groups. Since I forgot a thing or two the first time I responded, I thought I'd just post it for all to read.

The first three weeks of Oasis we do not go into breakout groups. Instead, we are having them fill out registration cards with the usual info on them, plus answer the question "If you could be in a breakout group with two friends who go to Oasis, who would they be?" Then we go into a lengthy process.

a. Enter the cards into our database.

b. Pull pertinent info from a report and print on a 2" x 4" cards...
NAME
GRADE
CHURCH (we get a few)
INVITED BY (we ask this also)
SCHOOL
FRIEND 1
FRIEND 2

c. Begin linking the cards together by friends they requested. We try to give them both of their friends, but only guarantee them one.

d. Once everyone is linked, we put the 6th and 6/7th groups on one table and the 7th, 7/8th, 8th on another table.

e. Then we begin arranging them by school and affinity (skaters, athletes, etc.). We try to make sure there are a core group of students in each group.

f. The last thing we do is put the "best fit leaders" with the group.

g. Last week there were about 35-45 kids in each of the 12 groups. Each of the 12 groups is assigned a name and location in the church. We put 5-8 leaders in each group and let them subdivide themselves once they get to their location when it comes to discussion time. That way, if one leader is gone, they can figure out how to redistribute and don't depend on me.

h. Each of the 12 breakout groups has a coach or two to help facilitate the group.

i. After the first week of breakout groups, we will tweak where we need to. If we did it right, like this year, it's not time consuming.

The students breakout group name is printed on their label when they check in. When we didn't have a check-in system, we printed labels just like you would for a mailing except it just had their name and breakout group on it. They would then just get their sticker as they came in.

The first 4 or 5 years I did this, I did it alone. That wasn't too bright. This year, six volunteers did the majority of the work. From beginning to end, my guestimate is that they put in about 80 hours total, I put in 20 and my amazing AA put in 40. We got the whole thing done over a five day period. Had I done it alone, it would have taken FOREVER!