Harry Potter Cup Competition for Young Single Adults

This is our second Harry Potter competition for

the Young Single Adult Ward my husband is

the Bishop over.  We did another one a couple

of years ago, and you might remember it.

I transformed the cultural hall into the Great Hall

with each house having a table in their own color.

Electric candles and banners were hung over the

house tables.

We dragged all of our Harry Potter paraphernalia 

over to create the Great Hall.  Hubby is Dumbledore,

and I am Professor McGonagal.

I blew up a picture I had taken of

the podium at the Harry Potter Studios in

London to make the owl for the podium.

I borrowed some very cleverly made

spell books from a friend for some decor.

I have to make some for myself.

Everyone came in through a maze of hanging letters

in the entry of the building

to find Ollivander and to choose

their wands. 

 I had made 80 wands from two sizes of chopsticks

and hot glue and beads.  They were then spray painted

and placed in a foam block to dry.

Of course, if you are a Harry Potter fan, you know 

that you don't choose the wand, the wand chooses you, 

so I had them pick a number between 1-4, and then

a number between 1-15.  The first number determined

the drawer they would open in my little old desk,

and the second number was counted from right to left,

thus choosing the wand.

After being sorted by the Sorting Hat and

Professor McGonagal, they were led down

the hall by one of the professors or staff.

If they wore a costume from their house, they

were automatically sorted into that house.

This is our Bishopric, Ward Clerk and High Councilor

and their wives.  You might notice Ollivander, Professor Umbridge

(boo), Professor Trelawny, Hagrid and Snape.  They took turns

escorting the kids down the hall into the Great Hall.

The lights were turned low so that the candles

all glowed.

This year we were lucky enough to borrow

someone's slushy machines to have Frozen Butterbeer.

I have also made it using my ice cream freezer,

but this machine can produce a lot.  I really

would love one of these machines.

I had printed off stickers and placed them on

plastic mugs for the Butterbeer.

You could choose to top it with the cream or not.

The meal served was a breakfast of pancakes

and sausage (or bangers) and baked beans (very

authentic and served at the Three Broomsticks

with breakfast.)

The month proceeded as shown above while

we tried to make everything Harry Potter related

throughout the month.  

We had the ward over for egg rolls one night

after ward prayer.

Even the kitchen was decorated for that,

and house totals were shown in the jars. 

The jars kept reappearing with the levels

changing as the house points changed.

We made over 100 egg rolls.  The kids really loved this.

Once a month I serve a brunch to the Ward Council,

and I chose to try Toad in the Hole.

It is Yorkshire pudding or popover batter with

sausages baked in.  You could have it with

syrup or onion gravy.  I really loved the onion gravy.

Throughout the month the

Young Single Adults could log onto to a web site

set up by one of the kids with specifications

on how many points they could earn and for

what, and house totals.  This really encouraged

them to do a lot of service and activities.

Points were given for all kinds of activities,

focusing on service and getting to know one another.

The kids could log onto the site to get ideas and

then post their points and even pictures of 

some of the things they had done.

The most points were awarded for the Scavanger hunt,

because it was the most intensive, but each person could

earn 250 points for participating.

So you can see I and my alter ego, Professor

McGonagal have been very, very, very busy

this past month.  

Our closing ceremony was the Yule Ball,

which turned out so great, but I will

save that for another post.

Hope you or your group can use some of

these fun ideas.  This was so much fun for

the kids in the Young Single Adults Ward.