Essential Workshop Materials: Supplies We Can't Live Without

Here at AJN Smart, we are absolutely obsessed with stationery and all types of materials, so much so that if you open any cabinet in this office, you're sure to find some materials in every single wrinkle. If you don't believe me, come follow me and I'll show you. I'm going to prove it to you. Come over here. Come on. Come on. Come with me. Come over. This drawer, if I open it, you're going to see lots of stationery. See? Whoops. Stationery everywhere. Look at this. Pens, post-its, dots, post-its. What? Two post-its. So look at that. That is just crazy amounts of stationery. We love it. So in this video, I'm going to show you our favorite workshop materials. First up, we have the basics. These three things, these three tools, you're going to see in every single workshop you run as a facilitator. And these three tools are going to help participants visualize and brainstorm ideas and also just organize their thoughts visually. First up, we have sticky notes. You're going to use these in every single workshop and you're going to want participants to have some square sticky notes, but also some rectangular sticky notes. They come in all different sizes. Wow. Unexpected. Shapes, colors, and sizes. And they're going to be perfect for helping participants visualize ideas. Next up, we have our Sharpies. We like to use the Sharpie fine point pen. When you're in a workshop, you're going to notice that participants want to write a lot on a post-it note to get out one idea, but these Sharpies encourage people and participants to be more concise on the sticky note. There's so much sweat on my face. Next up is voting dots. You're definitely going to be using these in every single workshop you run because you're going to be encouraging participants to vote on a challenge or an idea together. So you can have the red voting dots. You're normally going to see these in workshops, but also you can have the bigger green voting dots. That's the basics. Let's move on to the next stuff thing. Oh, by the way, I wanted to let you all know, we are not getting paid for advertising any of the stuff or any of the materials that we were talking about. My hand, it's green. Okay. Next up, we have the surfaces that includes flip chart or whiteboards, which we have behind us, which are actually glued in to the wall, installed onto the wall. Or we also have, or other whiteboard, which you can move around. These are very, very handy as well. The final surface that we have is magic paper, which is here. It's a roll of dry erase paper that you can stick to any surface and you can write on it with marker. I'm going to show you how to rip the magic paper. So it comes off like this and there will be a little tear somewhere, somewhere out there. What's here? There's a little tear here and you just rip it like that. Easy. And we're going to stick it to the surface. Okay. I'm going to just put it here. Maybe it's probably not a good idea to have anything else behind it, but it still works. And there you go. And I'm going to get a little marker. That's it. It's so cool. And then when you're finished with this, rip it off and just put it in the bin if you want. Okay. You need to actually get me just getting this into the bin. I'm going to try. Are we ready? One, two, three. Can you actually edit that so it goes in? So I'm going to give you a pro tip. When you're facilitating a workshop, if you've been called in to a space by a client to run an in-person workshop, make sure that prior to this workshop, you figure out what type of surfaces are available to you. Is there going to be a flip chart there? Is there going to be a whiteboard there for you to work on? Are the surfaces smooth enough for your magic paper to stick on? You need to figure out all of these practical concerns prior to the workshop so that you're prepared and ready to run the workshop as smoothly as possible. That's the surfaces. Make sure you have one. Time. Time is precious, but it's not like other precious things. You can't hold it like a book. You can't smell it like a sharpie. You can't taste it like a post-it. But you can manage it in order to run a successful workshop. So here at AJSmart, we always like to use the time timer. Although it does kind of break sometimes, but it's really great for participants to actually be able to see how much time they have for every exercise. You can also use any other visual timer that's out there, or you can also use your phone. You just need some way to visualize the time for your participants. This is really going to help keep them focused throughout the workshop. One, one, two. Okay. Next up, we have the tech equipment. Now, don't worry. I know this is a lot, but it doesn't have to look as complicated as this. Let me bring you over here and I'll show you exactly what you need. So what you're going to need for your technical equipment is you're going to need a laptop first and foremost, because you are probably going to be sharing some slides with participants. So having a laptop is going to be really good for that. You are going to need a clicker if you are going to be sharing slides so that it's easier for you to switch between slides. You're also going to need a screen, which you have behind me to project the slides up onto the screen. The screen is going to be really useful as well. If you're running an exercise with participants where it requires them to share examples of things that other participants need to see. Another thing that you should have as a facilitator is a Bluetooth speaker or just a speaker where you can play some music for participants during exercises. We like to use music when running some exercises, which requires participants to work together alone, which means they're going to be writing down their ideas, but it's in complete silence. Once again, you need to be prepared for this and you need to check in with the client prior to the workshop to see if they already have a Bluetooth speaker. If not, just bring your own. Next up is the arts and craft materials. My favorite part. In some of your workshops, you're going to be getting participants to take part in exercises that require them to use some arts and craft materials. So for example, you might need participants to do a concept sketching exercise. So they're going to need some A4 paper for this, some masking tape to stick the pages together, scissors, some nice colors or markers to add to their drawings or add to their sketches. We have some really fancy ones here, but you really can use Crayola, any type of markers or coloring pencils, whatever you want. And also some Blu-Tack if they need to stick up their concepts on the wall. And also, a clipboard is really, really handy as well for participants to be able to have a surface to lean on when they're drawing or visualizing their ideas. Finally, we have the survival materials. When you're setting up your workshop space, you're going to need some healthy drinks and snacks for each participant in order to keep up their energy throughout the workshop. What we have here is a collection of things. We have some water. We normally have some still and sparkling water on the table for the participants. Normally we have little bowls of mixed fruit and nut. This is a really good snack to keep the energy up. We have some fruit and we also have some healthy little snacks. They're not crisps, but they're just some healthy snacks that are not going to fatigue your participants. You have to be very careful on the snacks that you choose for your participants so you don't actually tire them out. You can't have anything really unhealthy because that's just going to drain their energy. Now, I'm going to actually sit up straight because my back is going to violently break in half if I do this any longer. But that's it. Make sure you have some nice snacks laid out for everyone so that you can keep the energy levels up. Thank you. And there you have it. Our favorite essential workshop materials. Please share in the comments if you have any other workshop materials that you really love to use in your workshops. Okay, that's enough out of me. I'll see you all next time. Bye! Bye! Bye! Oh my god! That's permanent!