🎊10 ideas for closing your sessions well

Like every good story, every group session has a beginning, a middle, and an end. 

In stories and in group sessions, these moments define the experience.

There are new adventures.

There is uncertainty.

There are breakthroughs.

And there are endings.

But so often in group sessions, we skip the ending. In stories, the ending is often the part that we look forward to the most. The same goes for group sessions and events. But somehow the ending doesn’t always materialize. Art of Gathering author Priya Parker writes that in group experiences “there is a tendency to close without closing.” 

Why? Because we fall into common “closing pitfalls”:

• We don’t plan for a closing 

• We run out of time

• We assume that it will happen on its own

• We don’t think it’s important

• We avoid it (knowingly or not) 

• We don’t know how to close 

We need endings. In stories, endings help us resolve all of the dangling threads. In group sessions, endings play an equally important role. They give group members the chance to become aware of and make meaning of new knowledge. And this awareness increases the likelihood of putting what they’ve learned into action.

Exceptional facilitators and teachers know the value of closing well. They plan for it. They design ways that will help every participant finish the session with a sense of closure and inspiration. Like the last bite of a spectacular dessert at the end of a meal. A final bow of actors on the stage. A perfect note at the end of a symphony.

So how do we close well?

Here are 10 tried-and-tested ways you can close any session from a 30-minute demo to a multi-day event or course. Online or in-person.

1. One-word check out. Invite participants to say 1 word about how they are feeling at the end of the session verbally or in the chat. This works well for short sessions for example between 30 – 90 mins.

2. “One thing I learned… Therefore I will…” Invite participants to complete the phrase “one thing I learned… therefore I will”. This works well for longer sessions for example between 1-2 days or longer.

3. Group Photo. Invite participants to strike a pose to reflect something they’ve learned in the session and take a photo (with consent!).

4. 1:4. Ask participants to draw four columns on a sheet of blank paper and write 4 things at the top of the column, and then debrief in pairs or groups:

👉Fact – something they know now that they didn’t know before 

👉Question – something that they are still wondering about (if they are) 

👉Aha! – one or more new ideas they now have 

👉Action – something they will do as a result of their new discoveries.

5. Letter from My Future Self. A great way to close longer sessions. Invite participants to imagine themselves at some point in the future. Launching a project. Securing a new job. A big event. Write a letter from your future self, describing in detail what has happened and how you feel. Tell the story as if you were successful beyond your wildest imagination. You can save it and read it later. You can also use tools that will automatically send the letter to you in the future like https://www.futureme.org.

6. Shower of Appreciation. A powerful closing activity for groups who have been working together over a period of time. You can do this in person or online. Set the timer for 1 minute. One person sits physically or virtually in the middle of the group. The other group members say as many things that they appreciate and celebrate about that person for 1 minute.

7. One Strength I See in You. One person in the group (person A) starts by picking another participant (person B) and says “One strength I see in you is…”. Person B listens to the strength and says “that is so true”. Person B then picks someone else in the group and repeats the exercise. The activity continues until everyone has had a turn.

8. One Clap Together. Simple and yet very effective. To mark the ending of a session invite participants to do 1 loud clap together and say “yes!” on the count of three.

9. Three Deep Breaths. Ask participants to take 3 deep breaths together. You can make the breaths symbolic of the end of the group session as well as the beginning of the next phase. 

10. A poem or a quote. Finding a fitting quote to share at the end of a session can add a final touch of wisdom and aspiration to a closing.

Here’s one of my favorites:

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. T.S. Eliot

Gwyn Wansbrough is a Facilitator and Experience Designer based in Barcelona, Spain. She works with people and organizations around the world to create dynamic and empowering learning experiences online and in person. She writes about facilitation, creativity, and learning in a weekly newsletter called The Quest. Subscribe here or visit www.gwynwansbrough.com to learn more.

Thanks to the exceptional facilitators at Partners for Youth Empowerment (PYE) who taught me many of these activities and the importance of closing well.