Okay, it has been a little over a week since my last post and it’s time to post, and now that I have deleted the spam comments that have shown up in the last week I can begin. I see that some of you have been posting machines over the last few days, so hopefully mine will be seen among all your furious activity. 😉 Let’s start with a quiz- which of last weeks videos were actually of my church choir and not just songs picked from the web by someone else? C’mon- the post mentions one directly, and you might be able to logically deduce another one even if you don’t watch/haven’t watched them. The answers are in the order of the videos in the previous post. Good luck! Answers will be forthcoming.
[poll id=”6″]
.
So on to the post topic (and all said- “finally!” 😛 ), last night we had the second first of my small group events for the 4th-graders at my church. Why the ordinal confusion at the beginning of this paragraph? Well, last Saturday was the first scheduled event, for the Saturday night boys but one of the leaders backed out due to work so we are rescheduling it. Last night was for the second-Sunday-service boys. Or as it turned out, boy. That’s right- out of over a dozen 4th-grade boys that service only one showed up. So it was two leaders and one boy. The chosen event was indoor mini-golf on a glow-in-the-dark course. Being really nice out, and with outdoor courses starting to open, it was quite dead for a Friday night- no one in front of us though people started to come in behind us. So since it was just the three of us, we kind of spoiled the one boy. His mom gave him extra money for food or whatnot, but told him not to spend it on the video and redemption games, so what did Brian and I do? Spent a few dollars on tokens for him of course!
.
About the title of this post, even though last Saturday was canceled, I still can gather a statistic for that day as the one at church who was going to notify the parents of the cancellation failed to do so for some reason, so as far as the parents and kids knew it was still on. The result? Only the two confirmed students would have been there (only one showed up only to be disappointed since I called the other one personally as I had their number). Lesson learned- if the parents don’t RSVP, the kids most definitely will not be there.
.
So what was the deal? I know warmer weather kept people away who would have otherwise dropped in, but these were planned events. Do boys not like mini-golf? Was it too expensive? Do all of them have full plates outside of church to prevent participation in any event? Well, the last can’t be true as there were plenty of kids at the official movie night last year and at the winter retreat. I hope it wasn’t me! 😮 Okay, not likely. I really want the next one to be successful. To be safe, I think we will not make it mini-golf. Plus, hopefully something cheaper than the $8.50 this one cost. Maybe we could have an all-ministry event again like a picnic and games (maybe hiking) at the forest preserve- something to perhaps bring up to the leadership.
.
Edit: I asked the kids tonight about it and they pretty much agreed that mini-golf would have been fun, but the outdoor kind not indoors. So, we will likely try this again for the middle of May. Of course, this was the kids talking. I didn’t get a chance to question the parents so who knows if cost or transportation was a consideration? In any event, now to locate a local, fun outdoor course…
In my defense, I usually do not have time to check blogs or email on the weekends.
I’ve learned from throwing 4 kids birthday parties a year that RSVPing is not popular. We have had a (very) few kids show up who didn’t RSVP, but those usually call that morning and say – oops, forgot to RSVP, can they still come? Every time we have a party, I worry about any kids showing up. We did have a problem once, but only once, thank goodness. I don’t think the birthday girl noticed since Grandma and other rarely seen family were able to make it.
If it makes you feel any better, my girls have yet to show up to anything we’ve planned outside of youth group. They are 7th graders, and it doesn’t surprise me that you are having a problem with even younger kids coming – parents are busy and forgetful or just plain not involved in their kids’ lives enough. Don’t take it personally. Chris had better luck when he actually gave his kids a flier to take home to their parents. I don’t know if you’ve tried this, but it might be worth a shot for next time.
As for the poll, I must be honest – I just took a shot in the dark from memory. If I spend the time to go back and find the post and listen to all the songs again, Beeber’s nap will be over and I will have nothing to show for it. SORRY! When you give the correct answers, I will be more than happy to listen to your church’s choir songs – you are singing, right?
There’s nothing to defend taylhis- I just knew someone would take it that way even though I qualified it with “NOT a dig.” I guess it’s my fault for mentioning this sort of thing in the past. I’ll try to be more careful with my words- sorry. I will edit the post now…
You don’t have to edit the post – it was a lighthearted comment playing off of your ‘NOT a dig’ disclaimer, plus a good way to let you know that I’m usually not around on the weekends – nothing more 🙂
As to the rest of your comment, believe it or not we gave the kids at least two invitations. We even talked to the parents at the end of last Sunday’s service to make sure they knew about it. Still, only one commitment (another *almost* commitment) and a lot of maybes. Well, all the maybes turned into nos apparently.
I am singing in the songs, yes, but so are about 50 others so good luck picking me out by listening to them. 😀
Okay, thanks for that Taylhis. 🙂