Any former Young Women who read this blog, help me out here! What was your favorite mutual activity, one that you really remember? We're having our 2012 planning session tomorrow and I feel like I used all my good ideas in 2011. Thanks!
Every year at Christmas time as a mutual group we wrapped presents at Brown Santa, which was hands down my favorite activity every year.
We once toured mix 94.7 studios, which is also majic 95.5, and at the time, 104.3. It was just cool, and very unexpected. It was a fun "take a look at a potential career" kind of night.
Honestly, that's all I can remember! Whatever you end up doing, will be fine. I don't remember what we did, so much as that I had a good time doing it, and for the most part, I felt very welcome and that I belonged every week.
Unfortunately, the YW of the 90s as I experienced it was fairly sour. There is no value in repeating those experiences.
Ok. Now that I've relived all those poorer experiences in my own mind, here are the good ones that stick out
* The ward I was in when I was 12 volunteered monthly with the "Helping Hands" food truck. We'd rotate which group took the task for the month (e.g. Beehives, Deacons, etc). We'd go downtown and serve food to the hungry. This one sticks out as it was reoccurring and made an impact.
* When I was 14, in a different ward, they had the annual tradition that all the YM/YW would take baskets of fruit and breads to the widows and widowers and visit with them.
* There were a handful of snow tubing and water tubing activities that I recall. I don't consider either fun, but they are vaguely memorable as good group activities.
* When I was a Laurel I recall an activity that with adult lenses I can describe as, "Visiting Teaching 101."
* And a handful of cooking classes mostly for the fun of sitting around in the kitchen and gabbing - nothing of cooking skill ever came of them.
* As a Laurel we also volunteered with Habitat for Humanity a few times.
In summary - there are two types of activities I have positive-happy recollection of
* Meaningful service where one can feel the impact of the service (as, sorry, opposed to tying quilts to be shipped far away)
* General group togetherness (which is also an aspect of the service projects)
Serving food in the homeless shelter. (We also made dishes to donate)
Budget shopping. (We did this to teach us how to shop on a budget. We went to the mall and were given a certain amount of money and had to find certain specific items within the budget. Split in to teams and take pictures of what you find and see who can get the most bang for their buck. You could teach this principle many ways though. It was a lot of fun. I think we all got a cinnamon roll afterwards.)
Black light volleyball
Heart Attack families in the ward during valentines day with treats and things of that nature.
$4 Dinner - Ok, this one is good to do for a class activity. So you start out with a budget of like $20. Then you split into groups of four. Give each group about $4 and tell them to each find a different category of food. Like appetizer, fruit/salad, main course and dessert. And then you go to the store and each group finds something that fits in their category. Give them about fifteen minutes to shop. Then you go to a kitchen and prepare the food and then have a really fancy dinner! It was a lot of fun. I did it in my beehives class. It can also help with personal progress.
Photography class/lessons
These are my ideas but there are tons on this website as well: http://www.ldssplash.com/callings/young_womens/young_womens.htm
I could really go on forever and I am sure you don't need a comment that long...ha
Ah remembered another one. In one ward, the YW group would sometimes take a shift at the Bishop's Storehouse when our ward was assigned an evening canning shift. Granted, our nearest canning facilities are down in San Antonio, but the Austin storehouse might have tasks for teens to do as well. (Note: I noticed as a teen that they were always having us can dried beans. I later learned as an adult that that is the cleanest task that's the least error-prone ^-^)
Every year at Christmas time as a mutual group we wrapped presents at Brown Santa, which was hands down my favorite activity every year.
ReplyDeleteWe once toured mix 94.7 studios, which is also majic 95.5, and at the time, 104.3. It was just cool, and very unexpected. It was a fun "take a look at a potential career" kind of night.
Honestly, that's all I can remember! Whatever you end up doing, will be fine. I don't remember what we did, so much as that I had a good time doing it, and for the most part, I felt very welcome and that I belonged every week.
Unfortunately, the YW of the 90s as I experienced it was fairly sour. There is no value in repeating those experiences.
ReplyDeleteOk. Now that I've relived all those poorer experiences in my own mind, here are the good ones that stick out
* The ward I was in when I was 12 volunteered monthly with the "Helping Hands" food truck. We'd rotate which group took the task for the month (e.g. Beehives, Deacons, etc). We'd go downtown and serve food to the hungry. This one sticks out as it was reoccurring and made an impact.
* When I was 14, in a different ward, they had the annual tradition that all the YM/YW would take baskets of fruit and breads to the widows and widowers and visit with them.
* There were a handful of snow tubing and water tubing activities that I recall. I don't consider either fun, but they are vaguely memorable as good group activities.
* When I was a Laurel I recall an activity that with adult lenses I can describe as, "Visiting Teaching 101."
* And a handful of cooking classes mostly for the fun of sitting around in the kitchen and gabbing - nothing of cooking skill ever came of them.
* As a Laurel we also volunteered with Habitat for Humanity a few times.
In summary - there are two types of activities I have positive-happy recollection of
* Meaningful service where one can feel the impact of the service (as, sorry, opposed to tying quilts to be shipped far away)
* General group togetherness (which is also an aspect of the service projects)
Lets see...
ReplyDeleteIce Blocking
Video Scavenger hunt
Serving food in the homeless shelter. (We also made dishes to donate)
Budget shopping. (We did this to teach us how to shop on a budget. We went to the mall and were given a certain amount of money and had to find certain specific items within the budget. Split in to teams and take pictures of what you find and see who can get the most bang for their buck. You could teach this principle many ways though. It was a lot of fun. I think we all got a cinnamon roll afterwards.)
Black light volleyball
Heart Attack families in the ward during valentines day with treats and things of that nature.
$4 Dinner - Ok, this one is good to do for a class activity. So you start out with a budget of like $20. Then you split into groups of four. Give each group about $4 and tell them to each find a different category of food. Like appetizer, fruit/salad, main course and dessert. And then you go to the store and each group finds something that fits in their category. Give them about fifteen minutes to shop. Then you go to a kitchen and prepare the food and then have a really fancy dinner! It was a lot of fun. I did it in my beehives class. It can also help with personal progress.
Photography class/lessons
These are my ideas but there are tons on this website as well:
http://www.ldssplash.com/callings/young_womens/young_womens.htm
I could really go on forever and I am sure you don't need a comment that long...ha
You'll do great at whatever you choose.
Ah remembered another one. In one ward, the YW group would sometimes take a shift at the Bishop's Storehouse when our ward was assigned an evening canning shift. Granted, our nearest canning facilities are down in San Antonio, but the Austin storehouse might have tasks for teens to do as well. (Note: I noticed as a teen that they were always having us can dried beans. I later learned as an adult that that is the cleanest task that's the least error-prone ^-^)
ReplyDeleteThose are awesome! Thank you guys so much for helping.
ReplyDelete@Janell - I really agree that some meaningful service would be best. I'm looking into adopt-a-highways and food kitchens, @Jess' suggestion.
@Laura - I looked at that same website a couple days ago! Great minds ;) The video scavenger hunt and $4 dinner looked awesome to me too.
I have a pretty good list now, so hopefully they'll be able to pick some fun stuff! Thanks again.