What should I do about the lack of unity in our YSAs?

[apexviper]

We don't have enough active YSAs to make a branch let alone ward. We have over 300 YSAs on record in the stake with 30 active at most. I have a few YSA friends in the stake. One in my ward and 2 in a ward I attended when I was younger. The 4 of us have talked and each of us feel a lack of unity among the YSAs but neither of us are YSA representatives. The only time we see any other YSAs are official YSA activities and those who are in our respective units. Outside of church activities there is no contact as far as we can see.

What should we do? This isn't going to build Zion.

[Dravin]

Invite YSA to activities outside of the official YSA activities. As it sounds like you lack control over the program I'm not sure what other proactive steps you can take. Even if you did have control over the program other than possibly encouraging people invite others to activities outside of the program I'm not sure what you could do.

[Quin]

We had something similar not long ago (few years ago). By adding a Ward, we actually increased average attendance by over 600 people across all the wards.

Even if only 1/3 came, 100 is enough for a ward.

We had slightly over half of our inactives come active.

Granted, it was done with a bit of razzle dazzle... Esp for the new formed YSA ward. (Lots of notice, and getting e word out in advance, and getting people on board & setting things up, etc).

But the split was very energizing.

I'm not involved in the politics, leadership, or oversight... So I have no idea what it took to pull that off. But it created a lot of positive change.

Q

[apexviper]

It doest help that the actives don't invite less actives to things.

[notquiteperfect]

I don't think it would hurt to suggest to the reps to start a YSA fb page. You may need to clear it with the stake president but that's a way to touch base, get to know each other and get info and invites out there.

[apexviper]

I don't think it would hurt to suggest to the reps to start a YSA fb page. You may need to clear it with the stake president but that's a way to touch base, get to know each other and get info and invites out there.

The sad thing is we have one and it doesn't help.

[Guest]

Whatever it is, offer food.

[apexviper]

Whatever it is, offer food.

Believe it or not, even that doesn't work. This is one stake that's hard to work with.

[notquiteperfect]

"As a man thinketh, so is he."

Start thinking and speaking as though things are already how you'd like them to be. Thoughts and words are very powerful. There's also a poem that describes this idea:

Thinking, a poem by Walter D Wintle. poets love Poem at allpoetry

[ditd]

Do you have stake YSA reps? If not push to have them called. Are there ward YSA reps? if not push to have them called.

Pray with your friends about good activities to do.

I was in a stake such as yours with maybe 35max active YSA, it took one good event to bring us all together - somebody organized a temple trip for a weekend (the nearest temple is 5hrs drive). They organised it 2 months in advance so people could organize work arrangements etc.

We all drove up together on Friday night stopping for burgers. We went for a walk in the local national park before going to the temple (and local LDS shop) and then went to to dinner followed by a Celtic music and dancing event in the evening. We went to church on Sunday and some family of a couple of the YSA invited us for Sunday lunch before we drove home. The stake covered petrol costs for those driving and paid for our meal on Saturday which really helped as we just brought cereal and our burger on the Friday.

After that our YSA group were so close knit, we used to get involved in most stake activities, just hang out and even now many of us have traveled away from the area we stay good friends.

[apexviper]

Do you have stake YSA reps? If not push to have them called. Are there ward YSA reps? if not push to have them called.

Pray with your friends about good activities to do.

I was in a stake such as yours with maybe 35max active YSA, it took one good event to bring us all together - somebody organized a temple trip for a weekend (the nearest temple is 5hrs drive). They organised it 2 months in advance so people could organize work arrangements etc.

Yes, we have reps. Our ward doesn't though because the YSA President is in our ward. I talked with her about it and she accused me of insinuating she's not doing her calling and that she's not doing enough. She also said she had to know the names of those whom I've talked with about it which was false since the important issue is addressing the concern. The thing is we have activities but nobody does anything outside of the activities. If we're not at an official church YSA activity we aren't speaking to one another.

[bytebear]

Have game night. Do it once a month, always on the same night (like 2nd Wednesday, or 1st Friday night of the month), always at the same place (or announce the location well ahead of time). Start with a prayer, but make it about good clean social fun. Be consistent and never cancel and people will start working their schedule around it. If you can do twice a month, and get a good turn out, great! And it doesn't even have to be an "official church" event even if it kind of is.

Edited February 10, 2014 by bytebear

[bytebear]

By the way, the absolute best social game for any size group (even dozens) is Celebrity. All you need is pens and paper. And it's a blast!

Celebrity (game) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Guest]

Our YSA group was pretty tight-knit. We did FHE together and got together socially at least a couple of times a month. Someone would organize a game night or volleyball game or Saturday hike and just invite everyone. Not everything was official.