Tons of Hoe-Down Club Ideas

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The fall has arrived and its a perfect time of year to plan
a Young Life hoedown club! 

Location

• Borrow
  a barn.
• If you
  can’t find a barn, find a field. It’s better to do the field party earlier
  in October so it’s doesn’t get dark as early. In 2019, Daylight Savings
  Time ends on Nov. 3, so after that, it will get darker earlier.
• If you
  use a field without lights, you could circle up cars and use headlights.
  Bring jumper cables in case you drain a car battery! 
• You’ll
  also want to make sure a bathroom is close by. You can rent port-a-potties
  for $150, maybe even get a parent to sponsor it. Who doesn’t want their
  business logo on a sign taped to a portable toilet?
• If you
  can’t find a barn or a field, you can do it anywhere, just make sure to
  decorate! 

Decorations

• Christmas
  lights are a must.
• Aluminum
  bins filled with ice and bottled cokes.
• Hay
  bales are great. Try and get them donated, but if not, you can probably
  get 30 for $100 from a local supplier. 
• Checkered
  tablecloths.
• Tons of
  ideas on Pinterest

Games/Mixers

Finger Countin

Use your skit characters to do a funny game sell about how their mama taught
them to count and add. Stand back to back, each person holding out one hand. On
that hand they can hold out no fingers, 1, 2,3,4, or all 5. When they turn
around (on the count of 3) they add the fingers together with their opponents.
The first one to yell the correct sum moves on to the next round.

Seed Spittin‘

Kids race to cut open a pumpkin, pull out the seeds and spit them towards their
partners who are holding a plastic jack-o-lantern. The one with the most seeds
after 90 seconds (with loud music playing in the background) is the winner.

You can also spit sunflower seeds into a cowboy hat.

Plunger Olympics

If you’re going for more of a red neck theme instead of a barn party, you can
make up all kinds of games using plungers.

• Ring
  toss on the plunger
• Unrolling
  toilet paper race with the toilet paper roll on the plunger
• Using
  the plungers as gloves to catch balls being tossed
• Get
  creative

Pie-Eating Contest

Few things are as redneck as eating contests. You can go many different
directions with this one. Just call 3-5 folks up front and pick one of the
options below or create your own.

• Fill
  pie tins with gummy worms and whipped cream and have a race to see who can
  get all the worms out first without using their hands. Start a rumor in
  the crowd that real worms are mixed in with the gummy worms.
• Fill
  pie tins with M&Ms and flour and have a race to get the M&Ms out
  using no hands. Make sure to have water for them to drink after getting a
  mouth full of flour. Take pictures!

Turkey Head

If you’re doing it in November, you can do a slight twist on the ol’ surgical
glove on the head game, because it does look like a turkey. Get three
volunteers to pull the glove over their head, just below their nose. When the
music starts, they race to blow it up as big as they can. It can get huge! Take
pics.

PROGRAM

Here’s a link to download
the script we used for our program characters. They were Hot Sauce
Cowboys and the “bad guy” was a cranky old man.

EXTRAS

• Make a
  good country music playlist to have going as kids arrive. Ask a kid to
  help make it (but make sure it’s clean.
• Here’s
  a Spotify
  playlist a friend made for a hoe-down club, but it’s a couple
  years old.
• Use
  eyeliner to draw freckles on girls, like we do at camp.
• Considering
  getting 2 skit characters to host the whole night. They can learn some
  redneck jokes and do a little routine throughout club.
• Get
  someone to come call a square dance or learn to do it yourself by watching
  Sean McGever at YLHelp.com.

Songs

Download
a song sheet we made here. It feels more “hoe-down-ish” to
pass out song sheets than to use a screen and slides. It includes the following
songs:

• Mama
  Don’t Allow
• Wagon
  Wheel
• Chicken
  Fried
• Springsteen
• I Saw
  The Light
• Amazing
  Grace

Download
guitar chords for all the songs above here.

Last year we did use slides. Download
PowerPoint Slides for all the songs below here.

• Wagon
  Wheel
• High
  FLyin Lord
• Let my
  light shine bright
• Barefoot
  Bluejean night
• Chicken
  Fried
• Banana
  Song
• Springsteen
• Let
  there be light
• I
  could Run Away
• I am
  Yours

What other Hoedown ideas do you have? Email
us here and we’ll add them to the post.