Plan for a family day

Meet up with other families for a meal out, and make it a day of real adventure for you and the children by organizing an informal car rally to your destination.

It's always fun to join up with other families at the week-end for a meal out, but what can often happen is that while the grown-ups linger at the table to talk, the children grow bored — especially if there is a big age difference. Our plans for the day include games to keep the children entertained, and an informal rally to your destination in which everyone can join.

A point to stress is that you, as the organizer, are not also expected to act as host. It's up to all the families to help, to pay their way, and to provide their share of prizes for the children's games and the car rally.

Your first move in planning this great day out must be to find out how many other families want to participate, and how many cars will be available.

Now, choose your destination. Ideally, this shouldn't be more than an hour to an hour and a half s drive away, since you have young children to consider.

Do you want to have lunch in a restaurant? If so you must book your tables in advance or, better still, a side room to accommodate you all.

There is an alternative to a restaurant — a picnic. You could ask each family to contribute something in the way of food and drink. You will need a field, with permission from the farmer, or a site on common land, with plenty of parking space.

The rally
Once you have decided on your destination, enlist the services of someone else to help you work out the route and devise a simple questionnaire for competitors.

Choose a route which is not too complicated, since you want your friends to arrive in time for lunch! And, as a preliminary, drive over the proposed itinerary in advance with your helper. This is the time to work out precise directions for all the cars that are coming — like this:

Leave Amersham old town on the A 414 heading North. Within three miles take a left turn off the dual carriageway into a road signposted "Little Missenden".

Without getting bogged down in unnecessary details, make your directions precise and use obvious landmarks like garages, pubs, and signposts for changes of direction. Give the mileage between each point, so that competitors are quickly aware of missing any turnings.

At the same time, make a careful note of subjects suitable for your rally questionnaire. You can have great fun setting a tangle for your friends to unfold, making the questions as difficult or easy as you like. A simple approach is to test their powers of observation by asking this kind of question: "How many islands are there in the lake on the Amersham/Little Missenden road?" Or, "How many windows are there in the front of the last public house as you leave Amersham?"

Of course if you wanted to make your questionnaire even more complicated, you could set the questions in the form of riddles: "My first is yellow stone, three floors high, and has hundreds of lines ... what and where is it?" The answer is: "The telephone exchange in old Amersham."

As an exercise, try to fit the following riddles to the illustrations below:

1 With glass in hand and clock on head — two wings from my back do spread.

2 My first follows treasure, my last precedes case — in fields, and meadows and every green place.

3 This house is brown and cream and white — its long green lawn is very bright.

4 I am metal, god and planet — here I stand all made of granite.

5 Whether I sound vain or not I'm higher — upon this fine Elizabethan spire.

6 We eat grass, we give you milk — our coats are as smooth as silk.

Keep the route and the questions a secret between you and your helper until the day of the outing. But, in the meantime, you must arrange with the other families what you are all going to bring. For the rally, each car will need a supply of pencils, paper and maps of the area. If you are having a picnic, you'll have to work out what each family will bring, including crockery and cutlery, so you know there is ample for everyone. And you will need materials for some of the children's games that we suggest later in this chapter, as well as a supply of small prizes for winning teams or individuals in the rally and games. This kind of detail is crucial to the success and smooth running of the day!

On the day
Probably the best starting point for the rally is from your home. Allow at least half an hour for everyone to assemble before you want the first car to move off. When you are all together, get each family to draw lots for who goes in whose car. This way you will mix people up together. Each car is a team. Give each team two copies of the rally route and the questionnaire.

The first car to leave should contain your helper. He or she can check that the route is clear, and arrive at the destination in time to clock in the teams. Despatch the competitors' cars at 10-minute intervals, keeping careful note of who went when. Yours is the last car to leave, so that you can help with any possible difficulties or delays experienced by the teams on the road.

As cars reach the finishing point, they must report their arrival to your helper, and hand in their completed questionnaires. The winning team is the fastest car to submit correct answers to all the questions.

After lunch
As the organizer of the rally, you have done your duty! With a clear conscience, you can hand over the organizing of the children's games to the most sensible teenagers in the party. They will love taking charge, provided you also supply them with ideas for games and a good stock of prizes.

You will find a number of outdoor games such as Blind-Man's Buff and Elastic Skipping explained in detail. There are also the ageless favorites like Dutch Hop-Scotch and Marbles. Another good game is to set up a prize in the centre of a circle drawn on the ground, and to let each child have five throws of a small pebble to knock it over and win it.

There's also this variation on Postman's Knock. Various forfeits such as eating a cake with your hands tied behind your back, singing a verse of a song, drinking out of the wrong side of a mug of water, and so on, are written on pieces of paper and put into sealed envelopes. The "Postman" is blind-folded and spun around five times in the centre of a circle of children. He then delivers a forfeit to the first person he touches. In turn, the victim becomes the postman.

If everyone enjoys the day as much as we hope, you'll probably find yourselves repeating the exercise at least twice during the summer holidays. And it could be an excellent birthday treat for one of the family.