Medieval Times

Lots of people in our ward have said that it was the best activity we have ever had. My parents ward had done it for years so I stole all their ideas. We asked for everyone to RSVP. I started asking for RSVPs about 5 weeks before the activity. We had each family sign up and tell us how many people from their family were planning to attend and if they were going to bring 2 loaves of French bread or 2 lbs. of grapes. I also called every family who had not RSVPed. We had over 200 people come. I took all the families who RSVPed and divided them into 6 kingdoms. Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, Orange and Purple. I spent a lot of time trying to make sure all the kingdoms were equal- same numbers of primary, young women, young men, women and men. And also that there was an equal mix of personalities (not all the outgoing families on the same team, etc.) 2 weeks before the activity I handed out everyone’s kingdom assignment and asked them to wear the color of their kingdom or a Medieval costume. We had dinner which was fried chicken, grapes and french bread. It was all finger food so all we had was plates and cups on the table. We just had water to drink. We started with dinner and then had a mock tournament afterward. We had activities for all ages. We had a under 7, age 8-11, young women, young men, women, men, couples, 50+. Everyone under the age of 12 got to participate (we didn’t want any hurt feelings). For the other events we would have each team send up a selected # of Young women, Relief Society sisters, etc. This was what made the activity successful. We involved as many people as possible. The games consisted of lots of different things from Maiden in Distress where a husband would run across the gym with a sheet and his wife would jump onto the sheet and then he had to drag her back across the room. We had horse races with adults on children’s bikes. Jousting with skateboards for horses. This last year we had someone dressed up in armor come and the children under 7 got to have a sword fight with the knight (we used PVC foam for the swords). We had a strong man pull where 2 men would stand on a tree stump and have a tug o war trying to pull the other off their stump. We also used scooters in one event for the horse. We had a ballast event where the women balanced on a 2 x 4 and had a pillow fight trying to knock each other off. My ward has done this event twice the first time we had a lot more food but had so much left over we scaled back to only chicken, grapes and bread.
We kept score. First place got anywhere from 5 to 15 points depending upon how many times we were doing each event. Second and third places also got points.
To fill in time in between events we would say things like the first person to bring me a…………………… will get 5 points for their team. We asked for everything from a temple recommend, a Costco card, a penny, a baby wipe….etc.
This let everyone stay involved. It got really competitive at times. Church ball comes to mind but it was really fun.
by: Kathy H