Game Show Night & Dessert Auction

Who: All. Family
Objective:Mix, Mingle, Raise Money for YW Camp
Budget: $75, actual spent: $65
Flyer:

Set-Up: We had the stage set up for the game show and borrowed buzzers from a lady in the ward who uses them for school competitions.

Special Instructions: We served a simple dinner of Sloppy Joe's and chips with water to drink. I also set up a PB & J station with a couple loaves of bread, as the bread was on sale for .98/loaf. I grabbed the PB & J from my food storage and voila! We didn't want to serve up a big meal, because we knew that "full" people wouldn't feel like bidding on dessert items.

The Young Women brought in single portions for the "Buy It Now" Bake Sale Table. Items were either 25 or 50 cents. This kept making change a simple task. They brought cupcakes, rice krispy treats, brownies, bars, etc. Some of the YW and many members of the Ward brought in other yummy desserts to be auctioned off.

First we started with the dinner at 6:30pm.

At 7pm, the bishopric was ushered on staged. We played 3 rounds of "Stump the Bishopric". We had a panel of judges and a score keeper as well. 10 audience members came up for each round. They held up an item they had brought from home and the challenge to the bishopric was to see which one of them could be the first to somehow relate that item to the gospel. i.e., a light bulb is like the gospel because it sheds light on a lot of topics and can help light our way, etc. If the panel was pleased with the answer, they got the point, etc.

At 7:15pm, we ended the game and started the dessert auction. We had a member of the ward who is known for his un-shy antics and off-the-cuff humor be our auctioneer. He had the audience laughing. Our ward has gotten much smaller over the past two years, so I was really worried that we wouldn't raise very much money. I have heard of huge family wards raising in excess of $1,000 at their dessert auctions. We had about 30 dessert items to auction and brought in, with the bake sale table, $622.25. For our first year doing this (in over 5 years) I think this was a success. We plan to make it an annual event, although I think we will do just the dinner and auction next time and keep it simple.

We were finished with the entire activity by 8pm.

Turn-Out: We had about 65 people in attendance.

I was so busy with the auction items that I forgot to take any pictures. However, we had some really awesome cakes, including "The Golden Plates" and some fun dessert ideas, like caramel corn in a cute Americana Tin.

Jigsaw Jamboree

Who: All adults, 18+
Objective: To mingle and get to know one another
Budget: $0 (used plates and napkins we already had on hand)
Flyer:
Set-Up: There were 5 round tables set up, each containing 1-500 piece puzzle.

How-To-Play: Players are invited to sit at a table, and told not to begin their puzzle until the sound of the bell (which I held in my hand). Players are also instructed that it is a competition and the first table to complete their puzzle wins. However, there is a catch. Anytime the bell is sounded, players must get up from the table and switch to a new table. It does not matter which table they move to, as long as they move. The bell is sounded at random intervals.

We did this in January as our kick-off activity. Everyone loved it and it was fun because you never knew when you would have to get up. I was worried that 500 pieces would be too overwhelming. Surprisingly enough, it was not. Once the first table finished, the other tables did not want to quit. They wanted to continue until all of the puzzles were finished. We have a good mix of young couples and elderly, so this was something that all were able to enjoy without trying to explain too many rules (like if we would have played Scattergories or something).

Turn-Out: We had about 25 people come, which was actually perfect. It would have probably gotten a little too crowded with more than 5 or 6 bustling around each puzzle.