Young Women in Excellence Olympic Night

Last night I was in charge of putting on the Young Women in Excellence Program. Back in the day, when I was in Young Women we used to do a program with songs, talks, and then we'd all have tables set up with our Personal Progress display items. That's what I did all growing up in Young Women, but here they like to put on big "events" instead of a boring program. Since I'm the new Personal Progress advisor/Secretary they put in charge of it. Oh geez. Luckily one of the counselors was willing to help me out and we tag teamed the whole thing. We decided to do an Olympic theme. It quite a big production, but it was pretty casual so it made the evening fun and relaxing. We had the girls come dressed in their best athletic wear and we decorated the room with the Olympic rings (7 rings in the 7 value colors)and value colored balloons. We made torches to represent each value and the girls carried those in during our opening ceremonies. We sang the Star Spangled Banner and then did the theme and our YW President did a little talk about the YW program. Then I explained all the events that we were doing. Basically we had an event for each value and the girls would earn medals for completing the event(we had the medals tied to the value color). We had a faith walk, a divine nature crossword event, Individual Worth compliment sticker exchange, Knowledge Scattergories game, Choice & Accountability/Integrity Bingo, and Good Works Project Linus event. It turned out really fun and the girls loved it. We had each girl bring 4 things that they've been working on in the different values and had the display tables next to the events so their parents could see what they've been working on. After the events we had closing ceremonies and we recognized the girls that received their medallions and also the girls that completed an entire value. Then one of our counselors had an awesome talk about the YW values and torches it just brought it all together. For refreshments our Mia Maid advisor did Patriotic mini cheesecakes. They turned out so cute. She used silver and gold muffin cups and then made mini cheesecakes with cherry or blueberry topping. All-in-all it turned out to be a pretty good night and it flowed pretty well too. We also invited the new beehives to come since all of their birthdays are in January so we made it a Young Women in Excellence/New Beginnings night. And if you know brand new beehives, YW is so exciting to them and they just eat it all up. I love that! They're so enthusiastic to do things and they're so happy that they get to be in with the big kids and not in Primary anymore. Hopefully one of the counselors will be sending me pictures of the night in the next few days so I'll post those if I get any.