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Planning
Decorations and Program for Your Activity
by Clark L and Kathryn H. Kidd
In these days of minimal budgets, the food chairman is the person who
is most responsible for pulling rabbits out of hats.The adults who attend your party will expect to be fed the best in terms of quality and quantity ,and
if children are involved they’re going to want to eat mass quantities
of whatever you serve. Future
columns will give you ideas for feeding large numbers of people
on a shoestring budget. As food chairman, however, it will be up to
you to decide how much food will be prepared by your committee,
and how much will be provided by volunteer ward members. You’ll
also need to know how many committee workers you’ll want in the
kitchen on the day of the event, and what each of them should
be doing.
As you make your preparations, don’t neglect the things that are easily
overlooked. Chief among
these are salt and pepper, butter, and ice. Napkins,
dishes, cups, and cutlery may also come out of your budget and
be your responsibility to provide. You
may also need to have utensils brought from home, because most
ward kitchens don’t come equipped with exotic items such as a
melon-baller, unlimited rubber spatulas, or muffin tins. (If
utensils are brought from home, make sure they go home with the
people who brought them.) Remember – everything
that has anything to do with food is your responsibility. If you forget something, it will not be on hand when you need it.The Food Chairman should always come to an event prepared to mark the
dishes and utensils brought by other ward members.(This is a great job for an older child who may be tagging along
with a parent.) Usually
just a roll of masking tape and a marking pen will do. As
people bring their food assignments, make sure their name is
somewhere on each dish or utensil where it will not come off,
and use your handy marking equipment if necessary. You
don’t want to make an enemy for life because Sister Jones never
got her temple-shaped Jell-O pan back after the last activity.
Another huge responsibility of the food chairman is to know your budget
and stick scrupulously to it. You
may think the amount you’ve been allotted isn’t nearly enough
to do whatever you want to do, but you don’t have the authority
to override that decision. Any extra money you spend will be used at
the expense of somebody else’s ward activity. Don’t
even consider exceeding your budget unless you’re willing to
make up the difference from your own checkbook – and that practice
is usually frowned upon as well. You
should also resist the temptation to ease your budget burden
by asking ward members to bring expensive items. Asking
for a salad or a plate of cookies is reasonable, but it isn’t
reasonable to assign someone to pay for a roast beef or a ham. Doing
so will simply transfer the budget burden from your activity budget
to the family budget of that poor family.
Decorations
Chairman
Although the food chairman may complain that he or she doesn’t have enough
money to do a creditable job for your ward activity, your lot
is even worse. People
have to eat, but they don’t have to be surrounded by decorations. (At
least that’s the viewpoint of the men, who know where the real priorities are.) When money is handed out for decorations,
the decorations committee chairman may get a minimal amount or
nothing at all. This
means that creativity, rather than a checkbook, is going to have
to be the basis for everything you plan.
When you’re in the process of decorating, remember your audience. For example, you don’t want to put cunning
little porcelain figurines on the tables if children are going
to be invited to the event. Frilly
decorations may not be the most appropriate (or most durable)
if men are part of the equation. If you have handicapped people who have trouble
navigating, you may want to avoid lots of little knickknacks
on the floor. Look at
the theme, look at the participants, look at your budget, and
then go from there. Much can be done with few resources, if you’re
willing to expend a little creativity.
Even though decorations aren’t considered important enough to get the
lion’s share of an activity’s budget, the overall enjoyment of
that event will be greatly influenced by the decorations that
are in place. You are an artist, and the location of your
party is your palette. You
can create a thing of beauty, even in a ward cultural hall. But
work with the other committee chairmen to make sure your decorations
enhance their plans rather than provide a logistical nightmare.
One other piece of advice is to make sure you know your budget and adhere
strictly to it. Just
as you wouldn’t want somebody writing an unauthorized check on
your personal checkbook, the ward doesn’t want you skimming money
from its meager account in order to enhance your decorations.
Program
Chairman
It is virtually impossible to predict how much work you’ll be required
to do as the program
or entertainment chairman for a ward. Sometimes
a program chairman is asked to provide a small postscript to
a sit-down dinner; other times the entertainment is the highlight
of the event. But whatever the case, you’re not going to
have a lot of money to spend to entertain people. In most cases, the entertainment for your ward activity will be
provided by your own ward members.
There are many different opinions about what constitutes “talent” in a
ward population. We’ve
all sat through ward talent shows where an earnest ward member
performed his heart out, while the audience bravely tried not
to laugh or cry. There are times when people come to a ward activity
to let their hair down, and in some cases a demonstration of
Susie’s musical knees may be a show-stopper. But there are times when ward members should
be able to come to an evening of entertainment with the expectation
of being uplifted. As
program chairman, you’ll be the person who sets the tone for
the event.
As
program chairman, it’s your job to carefully plan the entertainment
around people’s expectations. In
all likelihood you’ll have a “cheat sheet” for doing this. That cheat sheet is the theme of your party,
which was probably determined before you came on the scene. In future articles,
we’ll have many ideas for how to build a party around a theme. Don’t
limit yourself to those ideas; rather, see how you can work on
them to make them your own. When you’re doing your job as program chairman, don’t overlook the things
that are always overlooked. One
of these weak links often seems to be the sound system. The best play or road show in the world isn’t
worth the time it takes to put it together if nobody can understand
the words that are spoken. Lighting
is another thing you’ll have to consider. And
if you’re using a stage, don’t forget props and curtains – a
few inexpensive props can go a long way towards making the results
look more professional. And
don’t underestimate the enhancement you can make to a ward dinner
by piping in classical music or having someone play classical
selections on the piano as background music to people’s conversations. Again,
this is something that will cost you next to nothing, but will
greatly contribute to the mood you are trying to set for the
event.
Here’s a piece of advice that program chairmen should engrave in stone: Not all people want to be the center of attention. Don’t ever plan
an activity where ward members are cajoled or otherwise forced
into taking part on the program without their knowledge or consent. You may think it’s hilarious to drag the gawky
financial clerk out of the audience to hula with the Relief Society
president, but the financial clerk may be so humiliated that
he’ll never return to church. There
is absolutely no piece of entertainment that is worth the loss
of a person’s human dignity – unless, of course, that person
volunteers to sacrifice that human dignity on the altar of the
evening’s festivities. Make
sure everyone has a chance to be the center of attention for
a few moments if he wants to be, but don’t force people to do
things they are unwilling or unable to do.
As entertainment chairman, everything involved in the entertainment falls
under your jurisdiction. If
there are any warm-up activities, they should be your responsibility. Contests (complete with rules, judges, and
prizes) are up to you, too. If
there are written programs or other printed materials, these
are your responsibility – at least until you delegate them to
somebody else. But no matter what you do, stick to your budget. Rely
on donated materials and prizes, or give prizes that don’t cost
a lot of money. The most perfect evening of entertainment
will not end well if the bishop realizes the ward has gone into
debt because of your extravaganza.
Diplomacy
is also a talent that must be cultivated by those in charge
of coordinating the entertainment for an event. While
it should always be your goal to provide a professional level
of entertainment at any event, you must also realize that most
of your performers will be amateurs. People
also have different levels of commitment to an assignment – Sister Brown may practice
all week for that song she is singing, while brother Johnson
may not even glance at the music until the night of the performance. The poor entertainment chairman must walk
the fine line of trying to encourage the best performances
possible without causing any offense to the participants. Although
we would all hope the entertainment at ward events would be
the best possible, it is more important that no one ends the
evening
feeling hurt, embarrassed, or unappreciated. Part
of the responsibility to plan entertainment is to work with
other people and be sensitive to their feelings. Even
the best activity will be forgotten within six months, but
hurt feelings can last for decades
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