Ideas for Activity Professionals Week

Activity Professionals Week begins Monday, January 25 and runs Monday to Friday, the fourth week of January. The best ideas for it give the activity team what they rarely get: time, a thank-you that names real things, and a week where someone else plans.

The week is set each year by the National Association of Activity Professionals. These ideas are for administrators, department heads, and coworkers who want to say thank you. Most of them cost nothing.

Give them time

Time is the gift activity staff almost never get. Their day is built around everyone else's.

• Cover one activity a day so the activity team can take a real lunch, sitting down, off the floor.
• Ask department heads to take turns leading an activity. The administrator reading the Story Starter at the afternoon coloring table says more than any card.
• Cancel one meeting the activity team usually has to attend. Don't add paperwork that week.
• Let them leave on time, every day, and mean it.

Say thank you in specifics

A general "thanks for all you do" is kind. A specific thank-you is remembered.

• Write each person on the activity team a short note. Name one thing they did this year that made a difference you saw. A real moment beats a big word.
• Say it out loud, in front of others: at the morning huddle, in the all-staff email, at the start of a meeting.
• Ask nurses, aides, kitchen staff, and housekeeping to add a line to a shared card. They see the work up close.
• Put a box at the front desk for families to drop in notes for the activity team.

A thank-you from the table

The people the activity team serves can say thank you, too. This works best when someone outside the team runs it, so it stays a surprise.

Pick a drawing from Sunday Blooms, the pack for this week. You'll find it, with a question to start with, on the Activity Professionals Week page. Lily of the valley fits. Its Story Starter is "Did you ever leave a surprise on a neighbor's step, or find one?" Its follow-up is "What's a kind thing a neighbor did for you?" Read them aloud while everyone colors.

Then ask whoever would like to sign their page. Gather the pages into a folder, or hang them on a wall the activity team walks past. It's a thank-you card the whole building colored.

Lilies and sparkles, shown above, works for a party later in the week. Its Story Starter is "Did you like to dance, or watch from the side?" Play some music, and some people will answer by tapping along.

Feed them

Food is the classic, for a reason. Just make sure the activity team doesn't end up planning it.

• A lunch they don't plan, set up, serve, or clean up.
• A coffee and treats cart that comes to them, so they don't have to leave the floor.
• A standing order for their favorite snack, left in their office all week.

Invest in the work

The thanks that last longest show up in how the work goes the rest of the year.

• Fix the thing they keep asking for. A printer that prints dark lines, a cart with wheels that roll, a locked supply cabinet, a sharpener that works.
• Pay for a class, a conference day, or the hours they need for a certification.
• Add to the activity supply budget for the year, and let them decide how to spend it.
• Ask the team for one idea that would make their work easier. Then do it before the end of February.

Make the work visible

Much of what the activity team does happens while everyone else is busy. Let the building see it.

• Put up a wall of the year's best activities: finished pages, old calendars, event flyers. Use photos only with a yes from everyone in them.
• Give the team five minutes at an all-staff meeting to explain one activity that works and why.
• Write a short piece about them for the printed newsletter that goes to families.

Thank the people who help them

No activity runs alone. Aides bring people to the table. Housekeeping notices who'd like a page left in their room. Volunteers sit with someone on a long afternoon. Kitchen staff put a page at each place before meals.

Ask the activity team who they'd like to thank, and help them do it. Gratitude that gets passed along goes further.

If you're on the activity team

Let people thank you. Take the lunch. Leave on time.

If you're planning your own activities for the week, keep them easy to run. One pack on one theme works well. Print a drawing from Sunday Blooms in Regular and Bold, read the Story Starter, and let the table do the rest. Swallowtail on hydrangea asks, "Where do flowers look best: a fancy vase or an old watering can?" It's a question that starts a friendly argument in any room.

After Friday

Put one date on next month's calendar to check in with the activity team. Ask what helped during the week and what didn't. A thank-you that comes back in February means more than the one in January.

Then write the week into next year's calendar now, while it's fresh. Note what worked, who led which activity, and what the team said they'd like next time. Next January, whoever plans it starts with a list instead of a blank page.

And if you're looking for a thank-you that lasts all year, a year of Tablewell is a gift to the whole team.