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!!!

"Taste The Rainbow~Savor the Blessings" New Beginnings

The end of January we held our annual New Beginnings. This evening is held for the purpose to introduce the YW program & Personal Progress Program to the girls who are 11 turning 12 each year. This year our theme was

"TASTE THE RAINBOW & SAVOR THE BLESSINGS"

 

 

We've known for a LONG time that we wanted to do a "RAINBOW" theme for this evening after getting the idea for our evening from here~

marcicoombs.blogspot.com

Love that Marci Coombs and all of her FAB-U-LOUS ideas!!

So we stole the idea from her and gave it our own spin.

 

Here's what we came up with....

 Here is the invite that we made for each of our YW. We tied a rainbow unicorn sucker to each one. They turned out adorable & the girls loved getting an invite with a treat to eat!!
Below is a BLANK copy of the invite that you are welcome to download and use.

 

 {a look at the front of the room}

Each YW value has a color...We wanted to introduce these values & Personal Progress program to the upcoming girls by talking about each value, it's color, what its color reminds us of and the blessings that we've experienced as we've worked on that value in doing the Personal Progress program.

We assigned the evening's program to our YW & may I just say they did a TREMENDOUS job!!

 

The program went like this...

YW THEME-YW

YW LOGO & MOTTO'S-YW

CLASS MEANINGS/LOGOS-CLASS PRESIDENTS

 

INTRODUCTION/WELCOME-YW Pres

 

INTRODUCTION & TESTIMONY OF PP PROGRAM-Laurels Class Pres

 

SPECIAL MUSICAL NUMBER-6 YW {2 from each class}

"I walk by Faith"

{there is a new version of this song that now includes 'VIRTUE' value in it}

 

VALUE PRESENTATION-1 leader & 7 YW

We had a 1 girl introduce each value. We gave them a simple script to go off of and asked them to elaborate with there experiences & testimony.

The script was "Hi my name is __________________. I've been asked to present the value of FAITH. The color for FAITH is White. 

To me that color represents __________________.

I have tasted of this value and savored in the blessings by

______________________________________________. 

GUESS WHO? SPOTLIGHT & INTRODUCTION OF 11 YR OLDS-2nd Councilor

(we presented each of these girls with a large rainbow sucker}

CLOSING REMARKS-BISHOP

 

This beautiful frame is my friend Terri's. She let me borrow it for my wedding I did in December & since then I've kind of hijacked it. :) I've used it MULTIPLE times & just LOVE IT!! I think I may need to buy her a new one and keep this one :)

The decorations were VERY easy and cheap. The back drops were created with colored crate paper streamers. The balloons we hung upside down so we didn't have to buy helium. I brought marbles to put in them before we blew them up to weigh they down but forgot to actually put them in the balloons. I would highly suggest that you DO use the marbles if you hang balloons this way. Ours hung OK, but kept sticking to each other because of static and I think the extra weight of the marble would've helped avoid that. We already had the colored table toppers in our closet. Can't get cheaper than crate paper and balloons.

Side Views

There were a couple things that I made new to decorate for the evening.

One was the value boards. We had these in our closet BUT they were old and icky from years of use. So I gave each value board a little face lift. They needed it!!

I also put together the small floral arrangements for each value color. Believe it or not..I already owned the vases (from my friend Emily's wedding I did last year) & I had ALL the flowers in my craft box, EXCEPT for the white ones & the gold (that I had to buy).  But making those were pretty cheap & easy! :)

 

In the back of the room we had the refreshment table & a candy table.

The candy table was what we had for the girls as their take home for the night.

Isn't this table darling. Thanks to my second councilor, JAMIE PIEPER, for putting it all together.

I made the pinwheels to go over the candy table. Super easy but time consuming. They make me happy!! But if I never make another pinwheel it will be too soon.

 

My cute secretary, RACHEL BLASER put together these buckets for the YW to put their candy in.  

 For the refreshments...We made rainbow cupcake & rainbow jello to serve. Both were a HUGE hit with the girls!! I can't take credit for either though. One of the advisers made all the cupcakes & My mom actually made the rainbow jello cups for me.

My adorable secretary also made the 2 pennant banners that we had in the value colors. We hung one on the front table & one on the refreshment table.

2 things that I'm a little OCD about are having the paper products & water bottle labels match. I know...no one else probably even notices but it's kind of a big deal to me.  We've had these cute rainbow napkins in our closet just waiting to be used for over a year. Don't they go just perfectly?

The whole evening went off with out a hitch!! Im grateful to all my AMAZING YW & the job they did on the program that night. Also to my AMAZING YW leaders and for their help pulling it all together. I am blessed!!

UPDATE: I AM ADDING the BLANK files that we used for this. You are welcome to download and use. Just right click on the image and save it to your computer. As always, if you post these images online, please just link it back to my blog.

 

Thanks!!

YW Christmas Gifts

 For our YW Christmas Party, we kept it S-I-M-P-L-E!! I was in the midst of JUST doing a wedding luncheon & planning a wedding reception for 5 days after Christmas. So I needed to make it EASY!!

Our Theme was "TIS THE SEASON." We had every leader bring a bite sized dessert for a dessert bar. Then I brought everything for a hot chocolate bar. :) the program consisted of all the YW leaders sharing their favorite Christmas story with the YW.  We ended the evening with our annual gift exchange, which is always a fave of the girls. REMEMBER...EASY!! The evening was perfect!! Simple, spiritual but fun as well with YUMMY food!!

For the handout, my adorable second counciler {Jamie Pieper} put together these fuzzy sock cupcakes for every girl. In the middle, we rolled up a small nail polish. We displayed the handouts on a cupcake stand @ the dessert table with the treats. We tied them in by talking about the new 2013 theme 'Stand ye in Holy Places.'

 

UPDATE: I am adding a BLANK copy of my invite for anyone who would like to use it. If you do, use it, and post it, PLEASE just link it back to my blog. Thanks!!!

 

 

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. :)