a stopwatch or other timing device
	a notepad and pencil for scorekeeping
	blank slips of paper
	one basket per team for the slips

	Teams will be formed based on number of attendees.  There may be multiple teams if the number is big enough to want to avoid too many people shouting at once.
	Each team will huddle as far from the other team(s) as they can.
	Together they will write down, on separate scraps of paper, a few names of:   books TV shows plays songs movies These five are called the categories; each submission is called a phrase.  Some groups allow "famous quote" and "person" as categories, but for our first time out, we're going to skip that.
	Please write large and clearly.  Charades is a timed game and it's not really fair to the actor if he loses time trying to read what you wrote.  :-)
	All of the phrases are put in their team's "hat".
	Timekeeper can be one non-participant the whole time OR someone from each team can time when the other team gets it and/or hits the limit.

	No team should write down any phrase unless at least three people on the team have heard of it.
	All words in the title must be in English.
	No acronyms can be in the title  (ie:  not "Tales of the FBI")
	No more than 7 words
	There can be proper names in the title but not if it's a one-word title (ie: no to "Gigi" but yes to "I Love Lucy".)

	Whomever is running the event should review what the five common gestures for the categories abover are so that we're all on the same page for that.
	Each team will send one person to reach into another team's hat to pull out a phrase.  This person is called the actor and the rest of the team members are now guessers.
	The actor is given up to ten seconds to think about how he will act this out, using only his body and face.
	He may not talk or draw letters/numbers/symbols in the air.
	When a guesser shouts out the whole phrase correctly, the time makes note of the number of seconds spent in that turn.   Each second counts as a point so this is a game where the lower the score, the better.
	When every team has had a turn, that ends a round.  Play returns to the first team to start a new round, choosing a different actor from that team so that the previous actor will now be a guesser.
	We'll decide at the time how many rounds make a game.
	The word is not required to be exact.  For instance, if the phrase were the book "Pool of Blood" and the actor finds it easier to act out "Pull" than "Pool," that's fine.  The actor need not correct when a guesser yells "Pull"; the actor might just be hoping that if a later guesser yells out "Pull of Blood" he'll realizes that that makes no sense, but someone will hear how close that sounds to "Pool of Blood".

	First, start by gesturing which of the five categories your phrase belongs in.  If it's more than one (ie: "To Kill A Mockingbird" is a movie and a play), you can gesture both of them to give your team that extra information. Actually, it's also a book, so you could do all three!
	Second, always hold up the number of words in the full phrase.  Allow your team to echo back "Four words!" before moving on so you know they got it.
	Third, hold up the number of the word you're going to do first.  Frequently, it's the first word, but it may not be.

We said that If your teammate holds up two fingers, he's saying it's the second word.  Yell "Second word!" If he then rests three fingers on his forearm, he's saying that that word has three syllables, so yell out "Three Syllables!" If he then rests one finger on his forearm, he's saying that he's going to act out the first syllable, so yell out "First Syllable!"  When guessed right, he might put a two fingers on his forearm to show he's moving on to that.

	·         As with words, syllables need not be exact.  If the word is "Pullover" with three syllables, you could do "pull" + 'hoe" + "fur" and likely they'd get it from that.
	·         You can do more than one syllable at once by just showing both fingers-on-arm gestures.  A good example would be with "pullover".  Doing the 2nd and 3rd syllables at once would save time since "over" is a pretty easy word to mime.

	·         When someone on your team calls out something on the right track (ie: he said "Rabbit" but you're looking for "Bunny", point at him briefly and then make a rolling motion with your hands.  That gesture means "you recognized what I was doing but it's a different word along those lines).
	·         When someone on your team calls out the exact word you wanted him to, point at him with one finger and put the other finger on your nose.  That triggers him to repeat it so everyone hears it.  Then hold up the fingers for which word you're going to next.  For instance, if your phrase is "Dawn of the Dead" and he's just yelled "Dawn!" you're probably going to do the fourth word now…not waste time on "of" and "the".  It is REALLY important to do the nose touch and confirm the word because otherwise your team might have the wrong word OR think you gave up on that clue and were just moving to another word.
	·         When someone on your team calls out the almost the right word but it's too long (ie: he says "parting" but you wanted "part" or he says "lips" but you want "lip"), point at him with one finger and make a chopping motion with the other hand.  That should trigger him to cut it down so you can touch your nose when he gets it perfect.
	·         Conversely, someone yells "lip" and you want "lips" or he yells "part" and you want "parting", point and then make a motion like stretching taffy.  This tells him it's a longer form of the word.
	·          If the actor looks at you and makes a quick backward arching motion with one hand, it means you said it but then said something else before he could acknowledge you.  Go back through what you just said a bit slower so he can put his finger on his nose for the right one.
	·         Sometimes, it's easier to act out the opposite of a word.  If the actor points at you and then makes a slow arching motion with both hands, he's asking you to say the opposite of what you just said.
	·         Pulling your ear is classically called "sounds-like", but don't think of it that way.  Think of it instead as "rhymes-with".  So if you get the word "guards" and think that's really hard to act out, act out someone playing "cards" instead and then pull your ear.  That's the signal for your team to go through the alphabet  yelling out, "bards…cards…dards…fards….gards" until you touch your nose on "gards". If it's just a word that sounds like but doesn't rhyme (like pull and pool), don't pull your ear…just let it stand and hope they get how close it was on their own; if you pull your ear, they'll start yelling rhymes.
	·         If it's important for them to guess a small word (great if the first word is "The" or "A"), hold the tips of your thumb and index like you're showing one inch, signifying small word.
	·         If you want to do the whole phrase at once, like doing "Gone With The Wind" by acting out that you're being blown away til your gone, you can do that.  Just replace the third step in the big 3 (where you show which word your going to do) with a grand sweeping gesture, signifying "I'm doing it all at once".