This is our second Harry Potter competition for
the Young Single Adult Ward my husband is
the Bishop over. We did another one a couple
of years ago, and you might remember it.
I transformed the cultural hall into the Great Hall
with each house having a table in their own color.
Electric candles and banners were hung over the
house tables.
We dragged all of our Harry Potter paraphernalia
over to create the Great Hall. Hubby is Dumbledore,
and I am Professor McGonagal.
I blew up a picture I had taken of
the podium at the Harry Potter Studios in
London to make the owl for the podium.
I borrowed some very cleverly made
spell books from a friend for some decor.
I have to make some for myself.
Everyone came in through a maze of hanging letters
in the entry of the building
to find Ollivander and to choose
their wands.
I had made 80 wands from two sizes of chopsticks
and hot glue and beads. They were then spray painted
and placed in a foam block to dry.
Of course, if you are a Harry Potter fan, you know
that you don't choose the wand, the wand chooses you,
so I had them pick a number between 1-4, and then
a number between 1-15. The first number determined
the drawer they would open in my little old desk,
and the second number was counted from right to left,
thus choosing the wand.
After being sorted by the Sorting Hat and
Professor McGonagal, they were led down
the hall by one of the professors or staff.
If they wore a costume from their house, they
were automatically sorted into that house.
This is our Bishopric, Ward Clerk and High Councilor
and their wives. You might notice Ollivander, Professor Umbridge
(boo), Professor Trelawny, Hagrid and Snape. They took turns
escorting the kids down the hall into the Great Hall.
The lights were turned low so that the candles
all glowed.
This year we were lucky enough to borrow
someone's slushy machines to have Frozen Butterbeer.
I have also made it using my ice cream freezer,
but this machine can produce a lot. I really
would love one of these machines.
I had printed off stickers and placed them on
plastic mugs for the Butterbeer.
You could choose to top it with the cream or not.
The meal served was a breakfast of pancakes
and sausage (or bangers) and baked beans (very
authentic and served at the Three Broomsticks
with breakfast.)
The month proceeded as shown above while
we tried to make everything Harry Potter related
throughout the month.
We had the ward over for egg rolls one night
after ward prayer.
Even the kitchen was decorated for that,
and house totals were shown in the jars.
The jars kept reappearing with the levels
changing as the house points changed.
We made over 100 egg rolls. The kids really loved this.
Once a month I serve a brunch to the Ward Council,
and I chose to try Toad in the Hole.
It is Yorkshire pudding or popover batter with
sausages baked in. You could have it with
syrup or onion gravy. I really loved the onion gravy.
Throughout the month the
Young Single Adults could log onto to a web site
set up by one of the kids with specifications
on how many points they could earn and for
what, and house totals. This really encouraged
them to do a lot of service and activities.
Points were given for all kinds of activities,
focusing on service and getting to know one another.
The kids could log onto the site to get ideas and
then post their points and even pictures of
some of the things they had done.
The most points were awarded for the Scavanger hunt,
because it was the most intensive, but each person could
earn 250 points for participating.
So you can see I and my alter ego, Professor
McGonagal have been very, very, very busy
this past month.
Our closing ceremony was the Yule Ball,
which turned out so great, but I will
save that for another post.
Hope you or your group can use some of
these fun ideas. This was so much fun for
the kids in the Young Single Adults Ward.
