Enrichment Ideas

[MorningStar]

Also, our theme this year is on providing relief. I thought we could include with the photos the ways each sister likes to serve.

Oh yeah, and I was told that I get to be in charge of Ladies' Night Out. YAAAAAAAY!!!!!

[WillowTheWhisp]

One of the most fun nights we had was when I taught the sisters how to make corn dollies. We had hysterics because most of them didn't turn out right but the sisters just laughed at their own. Another similar silly fun night was when we made the hot wheater bottles with lavender in. One sister hadn't sewn hers up properly at the bottom and all the wheat fell out. She was 'blaming' the person who was pouring it in saying 'you're missing the hole!' then she held it up and we saw it all streaming out of the bottom. She was helpless laughing.

[Heckya]

My mother's old ward had her come in a teach some very simple interior design tips. If you have someone with interior design talents in your ward or if you know someone from outside your ward. It was an enrichment that got a lot of praise. Another time they had her come and teach them how make toparies and other types of floral arrangements.

I really like the idea on teaching how to correctly apply makeup. It's something all women can benefit from....it seems there are always new tips to learn.

[havejoy]

At the last Relief Society Birthday Party we had a skit about Visiting Teaching. At the beginning of the skit we were "finishing up" the VT lesson and then chatted for a couple of minutes. Then we told the the lady we were Visit Teaching that we needed to get home and get some other things done. At that point she said she enjoyed our visits so much that it would be great if we could get together with all of our children and go to the park or out to lunch. One of us then said that we were very sorry but we had used up our alloted time with her that month but we'd be back the next month to see how she was doing.

All that to kind of point out that VTing shouldn't be a chore. That we should really get to know the sisters on our list and become friends with them so that we enjoy and look forward to the time spent with them. I followed up the skit with a talk letting the women in RS know that if they had someone on their list or a VT companion that wasn't working out for them, to let me know so I could make some changes. I got about 15 requests for changes and the VTing is getting done a lot more frequently now.

[MorningStar]

Great idea!

[Rebky]

I'm glad you revived this thread! I'm HFPE leader and I am SO frustrated with the new format. I was in Primary for 5 years so the 'change' happened while I was in outer-darkness. I had heard of the change but never really thought about it, it was going to happen less is all I gleaned from it. So now... it rests on ME. Mid-week activities... I just can't wrap my mind around keeping all that organized! I don't know what everyone likes to do, I've asked a couple ladies to do a PlayDayz group for moms with lil ones. We have PondDayz where we all sit at the lake in the summer and play with our kids one day a week. We have Ladies Night Out because some of the ladies like to go out to eat (that hardly seems like a RS thing to do, but they want to do it) The Playdayz girls do stuff every other month, same with LNO No one was showing up for the quilting group and the poor lady was setting up her frames so I felt obligated to support her and I am interested in quilting not at all! We closed it. I finally just told them we are opening up the building every 2nd tuesday again and having cooking classes, book exchanges and Humanitarian projects... workshops and socials like we used to. Basically we are doing it the old fashioned way.

How DO you organize the groupings? Is that the HFPE leaders job? Or is she to do the QUARTERLY things? The outline is pretty vague. I'm up to my eyeballs in the Birthday Dinner. The presidency keeps saying... we need more groupings... nothing is going on in the weeks! They have ideas and tell me to work on them. Cottage Dinners for Couples. How is that for the single sisters in my ward? Am I the Activities Leader now? No. Suddenly this feels like a BIGGER JOB with the Quarterly change instead of lightening the load on the sisters, which I thought was the point. Add to this, they don't like having meetings. Am I being a Weenie? Well I feel better for venting anyway!

[havejoy]

The way we've done it in my ward (and it's working great) is that we sent around a paper asking the ladies what they were interested in learning or teaching or being a part of. Then we took that list and found there were several ladies who were interested in starting a book club. We picked someone from that group and asked them to be the leader of it and organize meeting times and places and be in charge of making sure a book got chosen from a list of LDS authors, etc.

We did the same for the movie night, kids play group, scrapbooking group, crafts group, monthly luncheon group, cooking group, sewing group, breakfast group and all the other groups that got organized.

The group leaders determine how often their group is going to meet and what they'll be doing. They are responsible for contacting my enrichment counselor and letting her know the details. She passes that info on to me (RS Pres.) and I put in in our announcements. I get to church a few minutes early on Sundays and stand with the missionaries who are handing out the programs for sacrament and I hand out the RS announcements to all the ladies.

Having a designated leader for each group frees up the enrichment counselor so she can concentrate on the 4 big enrichments we have during the year.

[Rebky]

thats a great idea... writing it down! Thank you!

[AmyL]

Thank you ladies for all the wonderful ideas. I just got called to be on the Enrichment Committee! :) I am very excited!

[Guest pinkiwikisses]

A friend of mine was just asking me about Enrichment ideas. What are the best Enrichment activities you've ever had or what do you think would be really great? My favorite was when we did a recipe exchange, brought samples, and had all our recipes compiled into a book.

:)

In my ward, we have a YW vs RS volleyball tournament. It's lots of fun!!! (and not to mention, the RS always wins) :)

When i was in YW, we also did a recipe exchange. I think I still have the book that we compiled too.

Hope this helps,

Jen

[NPCNS]

We also sent around a paper asking the interests, then had a variety of groups set up by the interested individuals. We have had mixed results. The quilting group's leader took an active interest and put a great deal of work into it, and as a result was the most successful. Other groups had no real leader, so they kind of fizzled out. Still other groups had many interested participants who decided it wasn't so interesting after all, and the leader got stuck with a lot of time and effort without anything to show for it.

For the summer we are trying the idea of self contained groups, the you can attend sporatically and still get something out of it. One example is a meditation walk at a local nature center.

We struggle with the fact that we have these large chunks of people whose time is exactly opposite the rest: Young marrieds who have mostly weekends available, Seniors and moms who prefer mornings, and working ladies who prefer evenings. It is tough to schedule

[havejoy]

Our best attendance has been at the Cooking group. We meet once each month and so far have had classes on cake decorating, German cooking, freezer meals, Chinese cooking, appetizers and a few others. Next we have scheduled bread making, jam & jellies, and homemade pies.

[mychildrensmother]

I wish they did more knitting and crochet etc.

They do a lot of cooking but I hate cooking! Also card making.

I don't actually go often to enrichment. They have a policy of not telling us what they will be doing. I would go if it was practical craft.

[crcnb]

I found an enrichment idea online somewhere about "Women through the ages" or "Women of the scriptures" it was a musical and had some really cute songs such as Sariah singing to Lehi "Are we there yet dear husband". Has anyone heard of this or know where I can get it? I can't find it again and am not sure where I found it before.

[Elgama]

my favourite was one I had when I was away someplace, where we just took along our favourite snack the book we were reading, craft project we wanted to do, laptop with game on it etc and just chilled out together

-Charley

[kayle]

Do any of you have a handout that lists all of the areas of interests/talents/hobbies/etc. that I could hand out to the sisters in my ward to find out what mini-classes and enrichment activities that they would be interested in taking or teaching? Years ago when I had this calling I know that I saw one, but I don't have it anymore?

[idahomommyof4]

Kayle, If you pm me your email address, I will get the one that we used for our ward and scan it in and email it to you. I'll pm you with my email address :)

Alyssa

[kayle]

Thanks so much!

Edited July 13, 2009 by kayle

[katieb]

Alyssa- I was wondering if you could email me that list also...?

[sonia999]

Wow its Excellent ideas