What follows is a conglomeration of tactics used at a variety of all the Relief Society meetings I've attended, anywhere I've been whether I was a member of the ward or not. Keep in mind that I'm not advocating these tactics, simply illustrating them. FYI: I don't know exactly how many wards I've been a member of. The number is somewhere between 35 and 50.
Be so disorganized that you start really late. Ignore the prescribed time between Sunday School and Relief Society and extend it out as much as you can. Being disorganized and scattered is a real help. The later you start the meeting, the less you will have to do.
Make certain you don't conduct opening exercises properly. We are told it should be organized and brief. If you are disorganized and long winded; you can fill up a lot of minutes without saying much of anything, or anything useful.
Never address sisters by name. Simply assume that everyone knows everyone and you must be an idiot if you don't know Sister Smith, who is the daughter of Sister Jones, who is a cousin to Sister Brown, who has been in the ward for at least 40 years.
Clutter up the weeks with craft activities and social events, if you have any Relief Society events at all. Just because the motto has always been, "Charity Never Faileth" doesn't mean it hasn't failed in your ward. Who says you should serve people, render aid or any other type of relief. Church should be fun, for you!
Make sure you announce, and then cancel, a lot of events. Sisters need to understand that nothing can be relied upon and you frequently fail to follow through with anything.
Mess up the music. Never know if you have anyone who can play the piano, actually in attendance. Waste time by asking if anyone knows how to play.
If you are forced to use recorded music, never master your equipment. It wastes more time if you mess around with it, trying to get it to work properly. The possibilities are endless here. If you have to sing without it, you can only sing one verse a cappella and you'll end up with time on your hands.
Several musical false starts with the equipment can ensure the audience feels frustrated and jangled.
Don't put announcements anywhere, especially online or in the bulletin. This way you can rehearse them all verbally and waste more time. This technique has the added benefit of allowing you to get a lot of facts wrong, like the date, time or something of similar importance.
No one in the audience will be able to remember anything or have time to write it down, insuring they will not attend and you won't have to be bothered with them. This also prevents everyone not in actual physical attendance from ever knowing about anything.
Inject constant comments into the proceedings, especially if you think they are funny. This ensures that anyone trying to speak is interrupted constantly, the spirit cannot be felt, and you have drawn sufficient attention to yourself. After all, you are number one, aren't you!
Send multiple clip boards and signup sheets around to all the sisters, the more the better. You want them to be confused and distracted from what's going on up front.
Relief Society means you make crafty thingys. Make sure all available surfaces and wall spaces are covered with them. You want people to have as many visual distractions as possible. You wouldn't want them actually concentrating on the lesson or other highly relevant things, like feeling the spirit.
Be sure and squeeze the actual lesson time down to around 20 minutes or less. Really corrupt wards can eliminate it entirely, by declaring that there is no time for it. Since a good teacher would have prepared 30-40 minutes of lesson material, she will be disheartened by having her preparation rendered futile, ensuring she will be unhappy and resentful in her calling.
Encourage other sisters to hijack the lesson away from the teacher, so that irrelevant tangents can be pursued. Better yet, if you are leadership, hijack it yourself. Pontificate so that everyone knows that your opinion is the most important one in the room. You are leadership, after all.
Make sure teachers are poorly trained. This way they cover very little of the actual lesson and try to cram in everything, including the kitchen sink, in the last few minutes and not have time for the important issues.
It's an added plus if they go overtime. because then children will open and close the doors. trying to see if the meeting is over while increasing pandemonium. There is the added benefit that you can simply dispense with any closing hymn by declaring that time is gone. If you haven't done your job well, you might be forced to sing one verse of the closing hymn and we don't want that happening.
Make sure older sisters visit other older sisters and younger sisters visit younger sisters. If anyone actually does their visiting teaching, this will ensure they only get acquainted with a limited number of sisters their age.
Well, you may want to delay constructing visiting teaching assignments at all. You can wait six months at least. It will reduce your workload and people will move out, never having visiting teachers or being visiting teachers. This is especially likely with young adults who are highly mobile.
Treat younger sisters as visitors to Relief Society, instead of as equal sisters. The young should respect their elders, which means the young don't deserve any respect from their elders. Keeping young people alienated from people, events and especially participation will help them feel marginalized.
Don't just ignore the Handbook, treat it as thought it couldn't possibly have any useful or relevant guidance and others will learn to do the same.
Be so disorganized that you start really late. Ignore the prescribed time between Sunday School and Relief Society and extend it out as much as you can. Being disorganized and scattered is a real help. The later you start the meeting, the less you will have to do.
Make certain you don't conduct opening exercises properly. We are told it should be organized and brief. If you are disorganized and long winded; you can fill up a lot of minutes without saying much of anything, or anything useful.
Never address sisters by name. Simply assume that everyone knows everyone and you must be an idiot if you don't know Sister Smith, who is the daughter of Sister Jones, who is a cousin to Sister Brown, who has been in the ward for at least 40 years.
Clutter up the weeks with craft activities and social events, if you have any Relief Society events at all. Just because the motto has always been, "Charity Never Faileth" doesn't mean it hasn't failed in your ward. Who says you should serve people, render aid or any other type of relief. Church should be fun, for you!
Make sure you announce, and then cancel, a lot of events. Sisters need to understand that nothing can be relied upon and you frequently fail to follow through with anything.
Mess up the music. Never know if you have anyone who can play the piano, actually in attendance. Waste time by asking if anyone knows how to play.
If you are forced to use recorded music, never master your equipment. It wastes more time if you mess around with it, trying to get it to work properly. The possibilities are endless here. If you have to sing without it, you can only sing one verse a cappella and you'll end up with time on your hands.
Several musical false starts with the equipment can ensure the audience feels frustrated and jangled.
Don't put announcements anywhere, especially online or in the bulletin. This way you can rehearse them all verbally and waste more time. This technique has the added benefit of allowing you to get a lot of facts wrong, like the date, time or something of similar importance.
No one in the audience will be able to remember anything or have time to write it down, insuring they will not attend and you won't have to be bothered with them. This also prevents everyone not in actual physical attendance from ever knowing about anything.
Inject constant comments into the proceedings, especially if you think they are funny. This ensures that anyone trying to speak is interrupted constantly, the spirit cannot be felt, and you have drawn sufficient attention to yourself. After all, you are number one, aren't you!
Send multiple clip boards and signup sheets around to all the sisters, the more the better. You want them to be confused and distracted from what's going on up front.
Relief Society means you make crafty thingys. Make sure all available surfaces and wall spaces are covered with them. You want people to have as many visual distractions as possible. You wouldn't want them actually concentrating on the lesson or other highly relevant things, like feeling the spirit.
Be sure and squeeze the actual lesson time down to around 20 minutes or less. Really corrupt wards can eliminate it entirely, by declaring that there is no time for it. Since a good teacher would have prepared 30-40 minutes of lesson material, she will be disheartened by having her preparation rendered futile, ensuring she will be unhappy and resentful in her calling.
Encourage other sisters to hijack the lesson away from the teacher, so that irrelevant tangents can be pursued. Better yet, if you are leadership, hijack it yourself. Pontificate so that everyone knows that your opinion is the most important one in the room. You are leadership, after all.
Make sure teachers are poorly trained. This way they cover very little of the actual lesson and try to cram in everything, including the kitchen sink, in the last few minutes and not have time for the important issues.
It's an added plus if they go overtime. because then children will open and close the doors. trying to see if the meeting is over while increasing pandemonium. There is the added benefit that you can simply dispense with any closing hymn by declaring that time is gone. If you haven't done your job well, you might be forced to sing one verse of the closing hymn and we don't want that happening.
Make sure older sisters visit other older sisters and younger sisters visit younger sisters. If anyone actually does their visiting teaching, this will ensure they only get acquainted with a limited number of sisters their age.
Well, you may want to delay constructing visiting teaching assignments at all. You can wait six months at least. It will reduce your workload and people will move out, never having visiting teachers or being visiting teachers. This is especially likely with young adults who are highly mobile.
Treat younger sisters as visitors to Relief Society, instead of as equal sisters. The young should respect their elders, which means the young don't deserve any respect from their elders. Keeping young people alienated from people, events and especially participation will help them feel marginalized.
Don't just ignore the Handbook, treat it as thought it couldn't possibly have any useful or relevant guidance and others will learn to do the same.
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