What’s new? March 4, 2008
Nothing much I guess. We’re all pretty healthy. (knock on wood) I went to the Y this morning for step aerobics. Fun times. Feeling really quite tired.
Last night I had a hard time falling asleep. (Which is nothing new to me.) But last night I couldn’t stop stressing about our ward Christmas party. Yes, the CHRISTMAS party. It is currently March. In case you don’t know, I’m the ward Activities Committee Chairperson. But I have no committee. When I first got this calling I actually felt excited. I had some ideas for new activities. But now I’m just so worried that all my ideas will turn out to be flops! And with no committee to help me out with planning and ideas, it’s all left up to me. I can delegate stuff out to the church auxiliaries. But that’s not quite the same. Certainly people are willing to help. But sometimes times it seems like if it’s not your calling to take care of X, Y or Z, then you feel less responsibility to really take care of business. I’m just worried about asking for help, but things still not getting done. Or stuff only gets half done, then the rest falls on my shoulders. Coming up and executing activities for over 100 people of various ages and backgrounds is harder than I thought!
Before I had this calling I was on the activities committee for our ward before it split. I guess I didn’t realize how much work the former chairperson did. She asked us committee members to help out. And I volunteered to do what ever needed to be done. But I’m realizing that she took on the brunt of the work. She must have been so stressed out! And now I’m in charge and like I said, I currently don’t have a committee. I’ve also been asked to do the ward bulletin board. I’m supposed to take pictures and spot light different families in our ward. In addition to that, I’m also the building scheduler for the three wards that use our church building. I’ve been doing the building scheduling for about 3 years now. No wonder I’m up nights stressing about how to pull off stuff. We’ve got our first activity coming up in less than two weeks. It will be a Munch and Mingle pot luck dinner right after church. Pretty low key. I hope it stays low key.
Heaven help me when it comes time to do the BIG ward activities like Halloween and Christmas. Woah baby. If anyone has church activities experience or ideas, I’d love to hear them.
I feel for you Carolyn. I’ve never had that calling, knock on wood, but if I were in your shoes, I’d be stressing too. Here is my two cents worth of advice.
1. Make sure there is something fun for the kids. If the kids aren’t having fun (or at least anticipating something fun that is coming later in the the activity), then the parents aren’t having fun either. Our ward Christmas party this last year was a dinner with a couple musical numbers and a short Christmas hymn sing-along. Boring! The kids got candy at the end, but it wasn’t enough to make the evening pleasant.
2. Make sure the food is good and plentiful. You will be forgiven for an activity that didn’t go as well as you’d hoped if the food was decent. And even a great activity can be ruined if the food is disappointing. Sad, but true.
plus, you are in charge of book club!
Call some committee members!!
I did have this calling, but I remember that I had a committee to help. It was fun being the one to decide “this is what we are doing”. And since you don’t have to have traditions, according to your bishop, let the imagination go wild. Let me know if you’d like to bounce ideas off of me.