activity limits

[Portia]

Not a complaint, but a genuine policy question.

A local singles' ward offered on the order of 13 activities in 17 days. (!) No skin off my back if people want to get together that often, and the weekday jaunts have been truly epic (Park City, massive swimming pool, hike to a waterfall, you get the picture) . . . but does that strike anyone else as really frequent? I assume other people work, and have school, and such. I always thought of "full participation" as coming to Sunday and weekday meetings . . . but man, you would do nothing but church for nearly 20 hours per week! I thought they cut back on meetings a couple of years ago?

[Rifka]

That does seem quite an activity-dense period! I've never been in a ward that had that many consecutive activities. My guess is that they're trying to find something for everyone to enjoy, not necessarily that everyone has to attend at the same time. Sort of like Relief Society activities now a days. Also, I've noticed that singles wards (I'm assuming that's where your activities were taking place) tend to have more activities than married/family wards. (Probably something about "the more we can get single people together, the greater the chance that some of them will fall in love and get married.") I don't think you have to go to every ward activity ever planned to be considered "fully participating." Just pick some to go to and don't worry about the others. And have fun! Those sound like some pretty awesome activities!

[Yarjka]

Why are church activities so often athletic or crafty in nature? How about a Read-a-Thon, or Dungeons and Dragons, or even a Movie Night? In fact, they should set up a ward computer game club, where we can have a weekly game of World of Warcraft (which already has the same acronym as the Word of Wisdom, so it's a perfect fit).
In general, I'd like to see the arts featured as much as sports in ward activities. Here are some ideas:
Theater (perform skits or Whose Line is it Anyway?-type activities, or produce a full play)
Concerts (attend a classical concert, opera, or ballet (perhaps too expensive?))
Film (could have an activity once a month where the ward works on producing a film--just a couple of hours a month and you could have a good production, assuming one or two people are familiar enough with film to donate their equipment and do the editing--it could be a great learning tool for people to later make their own short clips for the "I am a Mormon" campaign. Actually, how about a "We are the ___ ___ ___ Ward, and we are Mormons!" video that features specific members of the ward--or a video that makes up fake personas and features them in a crazy Mormon ward)
Video Games (everyone has some old systems lying around, and old television sets are easy to procure--set these up and have fun playing video games together; have competitions, etc.)
Board Games (similar to the video game idea--everyone brings their favorite board game and they can be in charge of teaching that game to everyone, then you just play games all night, maybe drink Hot Cocoa or something too).

[Cindy]

Why are church activities so often athletic or crafty in nature?

Amen. When I was on the FHE committee in my old ward, the committee chairs asked for ideas for our next FHE. I suggested board games, but they said, "No, we did that three months ago. People will get bored doing the same things all the time." Then someone suggested dodgeball, and everyone else thought this was a brilliant idea. I pointed out that we'd done sports three of the last eight weeks, but they thought that was fine. I then mentioned the fact that I had a medical restriction that prevented me from participating in sports, and I pointed out that other people might have problems like this as well. This wasn't a persuasive point either.

Two days later I got a call asking me to head up the dodgeball activity. I stopped going to committee meetings after that.

[Whistler]

I'd like to see more diverse events too! I just found out that some ladies in my ward have a neighborhood book club, and I was excited about going tonight except I'm sick with a cold.

I think maybe part of the problem would be that so many people have different values when it comes to arts of any kind. You can change the rules of volleyball without offending too many people, but watch the wrong Disney movie and some parents might get annoyed. I heard a woman last testimony meeting say she was proud of eliminating all outside media sources in her home (not sure what that means, but I'm scared). Point being, people get ridiculous with church-sponsored activities?

[Marduk]

It means that you only view movies that you yourself have scripted, filmed, and edited.

[Cindy]

And you only read news that you've written yourself.

[Dragon Lady]

I'm surprised, I'll admit. Most of my wards over the past several years have had book clubs on a monthly basis, game nights (board, card, video, etc) at least one per semester but in some wards monthly, ward movie nights (typically projected onto a screen outdoors), camping, etc. Sports and craftiness have actually been rather limited. I've been missing crafty meetings, because I'm not a crafty person on my own, but would really like to be. So I like making things at RS meetings where someone else comes up with the ideas.

Portia, as for your original question, yes the new Handbook has severely cut down on the number of meetings, but not really the number the activities. They have cut back on some, though. Like Primary no longer does quarterly activities. I think mostly the focus has changed from every auxiliary having a billion different activities and tried to focus it more on family-centered activities. Ones where the entire family participates instead of everyone going in different directions every night of the week. In a singles ward, though, you could argue that having lots and lots of activities is helping the focus on the family. There are clearly some exceptions, still. YM/YW still have weekly activities. So does Cub Scouts, though Pack Meeting is a family affair. RS still has "meetings" (which are usually activities). But, at least as far as RS goes, it has very clearly been stated that you shouldn't feel obligated to go to every single meeting. They're offering variety so that more people can find one that they're interested in. It's not intended to give everyone a taste of everything. So no, do not feel obligated to go to every weekday activity. In fact, I'm of the opinion that weekday activities are mostly for the social experience and do not qualify for being a fully active member at all. That is reserved only for Sunday meetings.