I would love to hear what your Relief Societies are doing in your additional activities. Living in different places, and being unique individuals, the creativity must be awesome everywhere we are. So, PLEASE share some of the great things you are doing.
When our new activities program came out (in 2009), so many of us were stumped as to what to do. Sis. Beck told us that each ward is an individual unit with individual needs peculiar to that unit. Urging us to go to the bishop, she invited us to look at our members as people in need. All of us have needs and most of us need help figuring out the best way to fulfill our own needs. Since our organization is one of service and saving souls we should be sincerely organizing our wards and helping our members better their personal lives in the hopes of attaining salvation. Our needs may be different, but there is value in sharing ideas sparking additional ideas that can only help, boost, and strengthen all of us.
Another very important point I have come to understand is that Relief Society can never compete with the world’s form of entertainment and empty dinner parties are not fulfilling to the soul of a daughter of God. Don’t serve “crafty” crafts at your meetings when you can be serving knowledge and power to overcome the hardships our world smothers upon us. Sisters are welcome to amuse themselves any way they choose, on their own time, but when they come to a “Relief Society-sponsored” activity make sure they go home armed and ready to strengthen themselves, their families and homes, and one other.
I think we all recognize the signs of the times. Things are beginning to wrap up and the angels are bursting to come forth and announce the Coming of the Lord in all His glory. But, by golly, our daughters’ (immodest?) prom dresses are sure going to be pretty… Or, maybe we need more decorations for our home now that the holiday season is approaching…
Don’t get caught up in the world! You have power to save your families. If you don’t know how–learn how–and share that knowledge with your sisters.
So, please, won’t you share some of your activity ideas here so we can all find powerful ways to strengthen our loved ones, one another, and ourselves?
Well, if I could get my counselor to direct the committee to do what I would like them to do we’d have empowering activities; But! I can’t dictate, only suggest and hope they get it. Sometimes they do, but most times they don’t. However, in our teeny, tiny branch we are focusing on getting the less-actives out so we feel successful when they come, no matter what we’re doing. I would love to know what others are doing too.
To give you some perspective, we have roughly 90 sisters on our records. At our last activity we had a smash-all-the-previous-records twelve sisters attending. On Sunday’s we have 12-15 total sisters, divided between the three auxiliaries. We have a lot of work to do.
It always interests me when sisters say that they are helpless because others don’t have the same vision. Someone at some point in time has to be the one to break the mold and Sis. Beck taught us how to do that. What is the harm in a president suggesting she be in charge of a certain activity and she use it to teach her vision? Or a president sitting down with her presidency and teaching her vision to them, so they are all focused on the same goals?
It doesn’t matter the number of sisters you have to work with. What matters is that those who are there have vision, feel love, and enjoy sisterhood that fills them with power, spirit, and value every time they get together. Otherwise, you’re kind of wasting your time.
Very interesting topic!! I am a RS president of a Utah ward. We have about 110 sisters. We try to focus our activities on the needs of the sisters, and I don’t feel like our activities are anything extra amazing-but they do fulfill the needs (I hope!). Crafts have taken a back seat almost completely, because of what this post says, and also because the handbook specifically says that activities should be low in cost and that it all should come out of the budget. (This is our interpretation, anyway.) We did do one mother/daughter activity that included a slide show/talk on the symbols on the outsides of temples, and the importance of temple attendance. We paid for a small craft for each family to work on together (it was a picture of a temple, modge podged on a block of wood and it said, ‘the temple, I’m going there someday.’) About 45 sisters and daughters came.
We had a night learning how to index. About 10 people came, but those who came were greatly blessed with what we learned. We had a holiday dinner with a speaker on ‘finding self-worth as we draw closer to the Savior.’ About 40 came to that. We had a service night where sisters came and prepared calendars and care packages for our ward missionaries. About 25 came. Sometimes, however, sisters just ‘need’ one less activity in their lives, so choose not to come, and we are sensitive to that.
As a presidency, we decide what topics we would like the Relief Society to focus on, and leave it to our counselor, meeting chair, and committee members to hammer out the details. Sometimes we ask for topic suggestions from them, and then decide yes or no.
We use our meeting committee for 3-4 activities a year and call temporary committees for service or temple and family history activities 3-4 times a year. The needs vary-sometimes the sisters need to learn something particular, sometimes they need to give service, sometimes they just need to be with other sisters or be spiritually uplifted, sometimes individual sisters need to be invited to be on committees for one reason or another. We try to involve as many people as possible in carrying out the activity-just to get them to come.
Rozy, I agree, sometimes it is hard to have a vision that isn’t quite getting there, but we do always have to consider the counsel of our counselors!! There are so many things I have wanted to do, but can’t quite get my counselors on board. But there is a reason they were called to their positions. We just do the best we can with all the given circumstances!
Thank you so much for sharing these successful meeting ideas. It really is a constant challenge and with so many sisters busy it’s hard to hit the need time and time again.
Rozy, I may have answered a little too quickly, because I too understand how hard it is to have enough support to feel like you’re getting anything done.
But another thought I had: Our “activity” schedule is in flux right now. In the next few years Enrichment/Activities are going to change again, because in so many wards they aren’t really fulfilling the need of the sisters. Some inspired sister is going to come up with a new way to look at uniting our sisterhood without the burden of a “monthly” activity. Maybe. Meanwhile, taking this problem to the Lord can help us stay positive, inventive, sensitive, and even visionary.
I serve at a care facility and I started doing a quarterly musical evening where we invite various musical talent to come in and perform. This next time we are asking the children of three of our men who served in WWII to share their fathers’ experiences with some musical numbers and a sing-a-long. We have a presidency of five couples working together and us girls have gotten together a couple of times just for the sake of connecting, since we aren’t in a ward situation. In itself these are not spiritual activities, but every Monday night we hold a FHE/Book of Mormon study class and every Tuesday night we hold our Sunday lesson meeting.
Right now, creativity and inspiration is a good part of the answer. I still think we need to promote Christ-centered power in our activities, and make sure the sisters we are responsible for have an opportunity to gain or strengthen their testimonies of the Plan of Salvation, their part in it, and the gospel of Jesus Christ. And sometimes this works best in smaller groups.
Keep up the great work!!