Speed Dating Activity

Have any of you seen the movie HITCH? It's one of my very favorite! I LOVE the scene when Will Smith is teaching the other dude to dance....so funny! And, I LOVE the ending song at the wedding. "Now that we've found love, what are we gonna do.......ohh".

So, when I saw an idea from Arizona for a youth activity mimicking Speed Dating, I was like "Hey, they did that in Hitch". And I thought it would be grand.......so I started running with this idea. I will admit that I had a hard time figuring out how to make this all come together.

In the end, I worked with our Insurance agent (and friend), Ryan Reilly. He also works with the youth (Young Men's President) in his church congregation (ward). He also seems to know a TON of people. And with his help, we were able to get 100 kids together on Tuesday night for this fun activity.

Side note here - these two pictures above are brothers and sisters interviewing each other...kinda funny. But, they were good sports.

There were 5 area high schools represented. We did end up with about 20 less boys than girls, but everyone was a good sport about it. Some girls had to sit without a boy across from them for a 'round or two'. Other times, a boy would talk to two girls at one time during that 'round'.

These two are from our ward. They were already going to prom this weekend together. Kinda cute.

Another one from our ward - she pretended to be miserable....and ended up texting with a 'cute' boy the very next day. Totally admitted they would both do it again. Funny!

Each ward brought pop and cookies to share. The leaders ended up serving the cookies to the kids at the tables while they continued to talk at the end.

Steven was at scouts with Logan, so I brought Saydee with me. She ended up helping Ryan with the siren. They would set a timer for 60 seconds, then the kids would chat/ask questions/laugh.....when the siren went off, the boys would move down ONE chair.

At the very beginning, I welcomed them and told them I was going to make them VERY nervous and that I would make them have the MOST AWKWARD part of the night RIGHT THEN (I had them turn off their cell phones).  I assured them that NO ONE would die and if they would turn them off, they would have a good time.

Some kids were like "How do we get phone numbers if we can't have our cell phones on?" I held up a pencil and asked them if they had ever seen one of these? Hee hee.

Our Young Men's President, Aaron Sharp gave them all a little talk on dating. He shared a couple funny dating stories and encouraged them to treat each other with respect.

The girls and boys divided up and Ryan talked to the boys about treating each girl they were sitting across from with kindness that night.

Chris Russell and I encouraged the girls to remember the influence they can have on boys. They can help boys become really GREAT men. And, of course, to have fun!

We asked the ward to submit questions. I typed them up and we provided the questions and they used the crap out of them.

Here's the leaders - hangin' out....

Everyone helped put the tables and chairs away and clean up was a cinch!

I was quite nervous about this activity turning out - especially when so many kids and adults were coming that I did not know. But, I can honestly say that the feedback was superb. We will most likely put another one together this fall, possibly with a dance following. Yee haw!

 

Comments

[Jackie]

WOW! as YW pres in our ward I would LOVE to do this--however with barely 40 youth within a 3/4 hour radius...NOT gonna happen. BOOO! Glad it turned out so fun as it looks like a great activity!!