DOTS {Depend on the Savior} -Young Women in Excellence

Last fall, our wards youth and leaders were in the midst of Phoenix Temple Cultural Celebration. Planning & preparing for the celebration occupied every Wednesday night, (plus some Saturdays & Sundays) from September-November 2014. So when it was all said and done mid-November...I was wiped out! However, my presidency & I still needed to plan & execute an Evening of Excellence to recognize our sweet YW and all that they had accomplished in Personal Progress that year.

So...as a presidency, we decided to KEEP IT SIMPLE!! I knew that we wanted our theme for the evening to be "DOTS-DEPEND ON THE SAVIOR." For the year of 2014, We motivated our YW by having them earn DOTS as they worked on their Personal Progress. Each class had a mason jar to fill. As the girls earned their DOTS, they helped fill up their class jar. When the jar was full, the class got to have a fun activity or party of their choosing.

But I wasn't quite sure how we were going to pull this fun motivational activity and our YWIE all together. Oh...and I forgot to mention that at this time...the holiday's were already upon us.

 

As I looked online for ideas, I found this post over at

PEEK-A-BOO PHOTOS

http://www.peekaboophotos.com/evening-in-excellence-personal-progress/

Her ideas and execution of this event were ADORABLE! I LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT IT!!

I especially loved her use of GOLD DOTS, instead of using the value colors. Plus, since we were in the midst of the holidays, gold dots would be festive...and that it was!

As a presidency, we decided to have our YWIE take the place of our traditional Christmas Party. We also decided to keep the evenings program very casual. Once everyone arrived, we had a prayer & the theme, & then let our YW & parents munch & mingle.

We served donut holes & had hot chocolate bar that the YW & parents could munch on, as they walked around admiring the projects that were displayed. It was FABULOUS!! 

I have to give a shout out to my one of our sweet Beehive Advisors, Lindsay Bangart, for making 2 of these AWESOME donut hole trees. They turned out SO. DANG. CUTE!!

 

We kept the decorations VERY SIMPLE! We covered the tables & backdrops with gold polka dot wrapping paper. We used gold & white paper plates on the walls as polka dots.

We added gold Christmas trees & few gold ball ornaments here & there.

(I don't have a picture of it BUT we had taken pictures of the YW & framed them in a gold frame so they could display it with their projects.

After Munching & Mingling for about 20 minutes, we had a brief program.

 

It was a great evening. Simple, yet spiritual and a wonderful way to celebrate our YW and all that they accomplished in 2014.

For the hand out, We made each girl an ornament that had a picture of Christ in it, with snow. They decorated the trees in the front of the room, till the evening was over. They were super cute!!

(Of course, I forgot to take a picture of it).

BLANK INVITE FILES

Hi All!!
I've had LOTS of requests for some of my blank invites & tags for New Beginnings and Young Women in Excellence. I am attaching the ones that I have made. I don't feel comfortable attaching any that we've used with other people images, photography or downloads. So...I'm just going to post the ones I've made myself, from scratch.
Just click on the picture, once it opens right click on it and select "Save Picture As." Then, once you've downloaded it to you computer, you can add your own text to it via Photo shop (or any photo editing software you may use).

YW LEADERS BOARD MEETING

~invite~

"Taste the Rainbow" NEW BEGINNINGS

~invite~

 

~sign~ 

 ~blank tag~

 ~text for programs~

YW Christmas Party

~invite~

 

HOPE THAT HELPS!!!

S.T.A.N.D. YW Board Meeting

The beginning of every year, I have a YW board meeting with all my YW leaders.
We go over leadership training, our calling responsibilities {per the handbook of instruction}, teaching responsibilities, & the Personal Progress program.

This year I really wanted to discuss the Handbook Section 3,

 "Leadership in the Church of Jesus Christ."
 But also tie the evening into the new 2013 mutual theme of 
"Stand ye in Holy Places."
 

I wasn't quite sure how I was going to pull it all together but was hoping to figure it out before our meeting. :)

 

As I was studying the handbook, reading talks & watching videos on serving the YW of the church when I came across the talk from conference a few years back by Sister Beck called "Mothers who know..."

I had a light bulb moment!!!

I thought I could do my leadership instruction & call it

"Leaders who know...STAND."

 I would use each letter of the work STAND & talk about our responsibilities as YW leaders {per the handbook}.

Here is what I came up with...

I pulled out a section of the handbook to share with my leaders for each letter that we discussed.

S-Strengthen-Handbook 10.1.1 & 3.2.3

T-Teach & Testify-Handbook 3.2.4

A-Apply-Handbook 3.2.1 & 10.5 paragraph 3

N-Nurture-Used a portion of Sis. Becks talk "Mothers Who Know...Nurture."

D-Do more by doing less-Handbook 3.3.3, 3.3.4, 10.8

 

Here is the handout that I made for each of my AWESOME leaders to that home that evening so they could remember the 2013 theme.

I just printed a picture of the temple out on card stock that I had put the word "STAND" onto & modge podged it onto a 6x6 tile.
Thanks again to Mindy Evans Photography.
Who has the most beautiful pictures of various temples and allows you to use them for personal use.
The evening turned out GREAT!! I am so lucky to be working with the most amazing YW leaders on our board. They are fabulous!!
Good luck to all you YW presidents planning your board meetings.

UPDATE: I'm adding the BLANK files for this evening for all of you who would like to use them for your own board meetings. You can download by just right clicking on the image and saving the pic to your computer. If you do use it and post it, please just link the file back to my blog. THANKS!!!

Hope this is a help to someone, somewhere. :)

 

"Keepers of His Light" YWIE 2012

The mutual theme for 2012 was "Arise & Shine Forth."

So for our Young Women in Excellence program this year, we chose the theme to be

"Keepers of His Light."

 The whole evening was based around the girls individual testimonies. We wanted to spend the evening talking about the girls testimonies as their 'LIGHT.' How Personal Progress has helped strengthen that 'LIGHT.' How they can that light with others.

Naturally, we chose yellow to decorate in. I added grey & white (who doesn't LOVE grey & white?)

We also decorated with black lanterns & battery operated candles all over the room that were paired with pictures of Christ.

We held it in our RS room. Here is a look at the front of the room. The backdrops on either side of the large projection screen are just rolling chalk boards that we covered in white fabric. One of my Beehive advisers has boatloads of white fabric because her hubby is a photographer. I borrowed the chair covers from my friend who decorates for weddings. The yellow chair ties were from my secretary. :)

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the yellow and grey together.

 Down each side of the room, we set up narrow seminary tables so the girls could display their PP items. We asked the YW to display an experience/project they had done during the year that had strengthened their testimony...strengthened their 'LIGHT."
We also had each YW write down her testimony for us prior to YWIE.
That evening, we had a wood block with each girls testimony typed up on one side & The Living Christ on the other side. These blocks served as a sort of name plate for their display, as well as their hand out. I can't take credit for these blocks at all. My adorable secretary made ALL 25-30 of them for the girls.

"The Living Christ"                                          Testimony            

As the centerpieces on these LONG display tables, we grouped large frames filled scriptures that had to do with light. I made these & just printed them on card stock.We grouped lanterns and pictures of Christ around them and a few votive candles.

Even with 6-8 those narrow seminary tables down both sides of the room, We needed more space for YW displays. One of my AWESOME advisers has the idea to put another table in front of the piano to camouflage it. I LOVE the way it turned out. It hid the piano perfectly & gave us the extra space we needed for the girls displays.

 

In the back of the room we  had the dessert table, a small table for programs & a wall of pinwheels that we made to cover up the seminary display on the wall.

For the dessert table, we hung a painters tarp up behind it, to cover up a seminary display. We added the cute (and oh so easy to make) yellow Polk-a-dot garland & the Shine Forth Sign.

For the centerpiece, we just filled up frames with pictures of various activities that we'd done during the year. I WISH I had a picture of the DELICIOUS DESSERT that my first councilor made for that night. We wanted something "yellow." She make the BEST vanilla pudding parfaits that I have EVER tasted!!

Here was our small table with the programs on it. By the way, the program was fantastic. I really brought in the spirit to the evening. It went like this...

~OPENING REMARKS: by me :) based on Pres. Monson's talk "Believe, Obey, Endure." from the YW General Broadcast back in April of 2012. The prophet stated & I emphasised

"Is there a way to safety? Is there an escape from threatened destruction? The answer is a resounding yes! I counsel you to look to the lighthouse of the Lord. I have said it before; I will say it again: there is no fog so dense, no night so dark, no gale so strong, no mariner so lost but what the lighthouse of the Lord can rescue. It beckons through the storms of life. It calls, “This way to safety. This way to home.” It sends forth signals of light easily seen and never failing. If followed, those signals will guide you back to your heavenly home.

I wish to talk with you tonight about three essential signals from the Lord’s lighthouse which will help you to return to that Father who eagerly awaits your triumphant homecoming. Those three signals are believe, obey, and endure."

 It fit PERFECTLY with our theme of LIGHT & TESTIMONIES.

~TESTIMONIES OF VALUES: We then had 6 YW & 2 leaders bear their testimony on how a specific value strengthened their testimony.

~VIDEO PRESENTATION: One of my advisers had put together a video of all our YW bearing testimony on specific questions we asked them. This way EACH one of our YW were represented, but they didn't all have to get up & talk in front of everyone. It turned out GREAT!!

~CONCLUDING REMARKS: Our Bishop spoke about lightness & darkness. He based his remarks on the series of videos that Elder Bednar put out on that subject.

~CLOSING SONG: "Light on a Hill" by Jenny Phillips

For this song, we had our YW form a HUGE circle around the seats where everyone was sitting. We gave each girls a battery operated taper candle and turned off the lights before the music started.

The song started out as a solo for the first verse with only the soloist candle on. The rest of the room was dark. Then at the 1st chorus, we had a few more YW join in singing. As each girl joined, she would turn on her candle.

A few more started singing at the second verse until by the time we got to the second chorus ALL our girls were singing and all the candles were lit. Filling the room with light. It was BEAUTIFUL!! The girls did an absolutely AMAZING job with the song and the spirit was defiantly felt. At the end of the song I think the entire group of parents & leaders sitting in the middle were crying.

Here is our Pinwheel wall that we made to camouflage another seminary display. I can't take any credit for this either! My AWESOME second councilor made ALL THOSE PINWHEELS & I think they turned out DARLING.

The whole night was just PERFECT! It couldn't have turned out any better. I have to give credit to all my amazing YW leaders! They are the best & there is no way the evening would've been that great without their help.

I LOVE my calling! And my YW! I am SO blessed.
UPDATE: I've had lots of emails asking for the artwork that I used at this event. I have added it below. Feel free to download for your personal use. However, if you post it online, please link it back to my blog.

Thanks!!!

Daughter of a King YWIE

I have been blessed in my life to have 4 busy, busy boys. I've recently been blessed to have added 25 surrogate daughters as well. 

MOST my girls wearing their tiara's they were crowned with

Right after I was called as YW Pres. in my ward, my presidency and I started planning our YW in Excellence.  After LOTS & LOTS of prayer, we chose "Daughter of a King" as our theme. We had given a challenge to the YW at the beginning on 2011 to complete an entire value in Personal Progress. Which I am proud to say, ALL COMPLETED! (Unless they were new to our ward or new to YW).

We had each YW decorate a table about herself and the value she completed. We place those tables around the entirs culteral hall. We gave each YW a silver framed picture of the temple with her name on it to use as a nameplate for her table.
Then we had each girl present the table that evening. They ended their presentation by saying..."My name is _________________ and I'm a Daughter of God."

Talk about inspiring!!

They were then walked up to the stage (by one of the YW who has  already earned her medallion), where they sat in a HUGE throne, were crowned with a tiara (again they were crowned by a YW who's already received her medallion).  & awarded with stickers and bookmark ribbons in ALL the values they've completed while in YW.

The tiaras decorated the front of the stage

The evening turned out BEAUTIFUL!! I am blessed to work with inspired and hard working women that helped pull it all together. I'm also grateful & so humbled to be serving such an AMAZING group of YW.

Thanks to Rachel, for the pictures. I TOTALLY forgot my camera...AGAIN!!