New Beginnings Personal Progress University

As a leader it was so neat not having to come up with a new theme for Young Women in Excellence. We already had it planned out.  It also saved us money because we were able to use the same decorations for both. To see the Young Women in Excellence go here.

The theme was to have a Personal Progress University that the girls belonged to all year and then during the year they had the opportunity to earn awards and a diploma by doing their personal progress and getting involved in 5 special University classes that were held throughout the year.

The invitation for our New Beginnings was an acceptance letter to our Personal Progress University that was mailed to each young women’s home.  We did have an issue with some parents actually throwing the letter away and not even opening it because the envelop and letter looked so authentic. I thought it was fun to mail them, but you may want to hand deliver them.

We referred to the Laurels as Seniors, the Mia Maids as Juniors, the Beehives as Sophomore and the girls coming into young women’s as up and coming Freshman.

The night was considered orientation for the university and we held classes to inform the young women and their parents about personal progress.

As the young women arrived they received their school ID. We found these clear ID badges at Wal-mart and added the ribbon we found from the Dollar-Tree.

We had a school song “Come Unto Christ” and our school colors were blue and gold.

We also gave the girls a cute pencil boxes that said “tools to succeed in Personal Progress” on the front and we filed it with pencils, highlighters, post its and a scripture pencil.

We had a table for registration where they received their orientation packet for the nights activities.  I divided the girls by their last name into 3 groups to rotate to each class. This way if a family had more than one daughter in young women’s they would be able to stay together for the classes.

Here is what our program was like:

Someone welcomed everyone to the University

We sang the school song

My secretary introduced our Academic Calendar which had all of the up and coming dates on it for the year.

We then had introductions of the faculty and counselors who were my presidency and the advisors.

“We are so blessed at this University to have such wonderful faculty and counselors to serve the students in many different ways.  These are the women who make up the student success center.  They can provide you with any and all information regarding getting started and staying motivated to work on your personal progress.  You will have a counselor assigned to you for the year.  Please use the opportunity you will be given to meet with them to determine an appropriate course load to achieve your medallion.”

We then introduced the school ambassadors who were the Laurels.

“Our school ambassadors are our leadership team in young women’s. They provide service, encouragement, and love to their fellow students.  They help the young women realize their talents and skills and lead our school in the right direction.  They are great examples to all of us.”

Then we introduced our alumni which were any of the girls who already have their medallion.

“We are honored to recognize our distinguished Alumni who have shown outstanding personal achievements.  These wonderful young women have earned their personal progress medallion and are being great examples by either working on their honor bee or doing their personal progress a second time.  They have experience to offer anyone who needs help.”

We then called up all the girls coming in this up and coming year and welcomed them as well.

I introduced our “University Programs for Success” which were:

1 – Personal Progress University activities (5 during the year)

2 – Awards and diploma earned all year long by passing of goals and attending activities (I will give more detail how this worked in my next post about our young women in excellence).

3 – 12/2/4 program

starting as a Beehive 12 value experiences a year, 2 value projects a year and 4 years later you have your medallion earned.

We then dismissed and rotated through the 3 classes:

1 – Loving Personal Progress

2 – Introduction to Personal Progress

3 – Why do your Personal Progress

We all ended back in the gym for refreshments that had to do with a school cafeteria. We found trays at wal-mart that resembled a lunch tray.

It was an awesome night and what a fun year we have had. It really got everyone excited about personal progress and provided a way for us to think about young women in excellence all year long.  We just had our young women’s in excellence last week to end our University so I will be posting all the details next week.