How to Host a Country & Western Themed Party

Bring the Wild, Wild West to your facility!
Have clients dust off their hats and boots for some fun & laughter!

Gather a few volunteers to help you and organize the party into an all day program or keep it simple and plan a half-day party instead.

Make the Country & Western Party an annual event that clients can look forward to.

Attend clinical and house-keeping meetings to personally invite your colleagues at work. The best parties are those where there is teamwork and shared enthusiasm.

Prior to the date

• Create a Cowboy invitation
• Organise an all day 'Program of Activities' for the party
• Invite friends and relatives along via your 'Newsletter'
• Make cactus posters out of cardboard and paint in green
• Make large (A-3 paper) 'Wanted' Posters with photos of staff and clients!
• Make Sherriff's badges for clients to use
• Elect a "SHERIFF"
• Invite a Square Dance Club to perform
• Line up a classic cowboy movie from the list below or alternatively a TV episode of Gunsmoke, Little House on the Prairie, Bonanza, Maverick or Daniel Boone.

Decorating Ideas

• Old cowboy hats on walls and doors
• Setup a homemade bar with beer bottles on display (empty bottles will do)
• Hang inflatable cactus toys or use available template to made a cactus on cardboard and paint it.
• Fill old cowboy boots with tall grasses and greens
• Buy a couple of Hay bales and cover with hessian bags for guests to sit on

Dressing Up Ideas

• Bank Robbers
• Cowboys and cowgirls (bootcut jeans, large belt buckles)
• Bandits and Sheriffs
• Checkered shirts, bandanas

Create Wanted Posters

• Print out the supplied 'Wanted' poster
• Get hold of some photos of staff members: the cook, gardener, and manager for example.
• Place the photos in the space provided on the poster
• Scan/photocopy as many prints as you want in either in black and white or colour and post on walls around facility.

Movies to watch

• Blazing Saddles
• Stagecoach
• The Lone Ranger
• The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
• High Noon
• The Treasure of Sierra Madre

Food to serve

Savoury:

• BBQs – steak, lamb and sausages
• Corn on the cob
• Tacos
• Chips
• Pretzels
• Corn cake muffins

Desserts

• Apple pie
• Pound cake
• Lamingtons
• cupcakes

Drinks

• Apple Cider
• Beer
• Shandy
• and Rum!

Music to listen to

• Johnny Cash
• Glen Campbell
• Slim Dusty
• Dolly Parton
• Patsy Cline
• Kenny Rogers
• John Denver

Country & Western Party Entertainment

Lasso Competition

Planning

In the week prior to the party allow competitors to practice their skills with the lasso. Make lassos by using medium-sized ropes. Some of your male clients may be interested in learning how to tie a lasso from this link: http://www.wikihow.com/Tie-a-Lasso

Borrow a rocking horse to use for the lasso and set a space for the game in the recreation area or outdoors if possible.

How to play the Game

• Two group of players take turns lassoing the rocking horse
• Players stand or sit 2.5m (7 feet) away from rocking horse
• Each participant has three turns at the lasso
• Each time the lasso 'catches' the horse counts as one point
• After five or six rounds the team with the most points wins!

Water Pistol Shooting Game

Definitely an outdoors game!

Materials

• Six empty beer cans
• Two Water pistols
• A referee to keep score of who knocks down the most bottles each round

How to play

Eight to ten participants split into 2 teams are required for this game. Work out the distance for your shooting range to suit your clients. Adapt the game to the skills and capacity of your clients.

• Line up six beer bottles on top of a small table
• The first two players (one from each team) take turns hitting the bottles - they have 3 squirts each
• The referee keeps score of how many bottles are knocked down by each team
• The bottles are lined up again for the next round of players
• Continue until everyone has had a turn
• The team with the most points wins!

Staff Line Dance

Everyone will enjoy watching a Line Dance! After all it is only a set of repeated steps and it is all over in 3 to 4 minutes... and what fun!

Amuse your clients with a performance. Try two, three, or four people. Look for two females and two willing males from your staff, or gather a crowd!

Dress up in true country style and strut you stuff with these easy steps.

I have a few suggestions below, but feel free to change it as you like. There are dozens of tutorials online.

• https://vimeo.com/11074648
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA0yFERWaCk
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qdii_EqCzp8

Horseshoe Competition

This is an old game most people will remember. It's been played for the past 2000 years!

This game is suitable to be played by two players or two groups of players. The rules have been adapted but you may change it to suit your clients.

Materials

• A sandbox or sand area 1 x 1 metres (3 feet by 3 feet).
• 4 horse shoes (made of aluminium instead of iron)
• A stake extending 35 cm (14 inches) above the sand pit surface. The stakes can be wood or metal with a 2.5cm (1 inch) diameter.

How to play

• Each player stands or sits 1 metre (3 feet) from stake
• Each player tosses two horseshoes followed by the opponent's two shoes.
• There are two ways to score points:
  1. by throwing the horseshoe nearest to the stake or
  2. by throwing a 'ringer'. A 'ringer' is when the horseshoe encases the stake completely.
• Each player has two horseshoes and pitches them (underhand) in succession followed by the other player. This is called an 'inning'.
• After each inning the referee walks to the stake and scores the points.
• Any horseshoe landing 6 inches or closer to the stake counts as one point.
• A 'ringer' counts at three points.
• If both players score a 'ringer', the ringers are cancelled, no points for anyone!
• The game is played until the first player reaches 30 points or you reach your desired number of innings for the game.

Other Games

• Bottle Ring Toss https://www.goldencarers.com/bottle-ring-toss/4033/">https://www.goldencarers.com/bottle-ring-toss/4033/
  Replace bottles with beer cans.
  
  
• Ring Toss</br/> https://www.goldencarers.com/ring-toss-/3803/
  Also Quoits.
  
  
• Soda Bottle Skittles
  https://www.goldencarers.com/soda-bottle-skittles/3687/
  
  
• Knock Them Down Game
  https://www.goldencarers.com/knock-them-down-game/3802/