Serve the Leaders

Serve the Leaders is a night we try and run towards the end of each year.  It works best with groups where you have a few older, capable kids (or young adults). 

The idea is to give your volunteer leaders the night/week off organizing anything, and the kids organize the night to say 'thankyou' to the leaders for their work throughout the year. That's the idea in principle - the format and content of the night can vary, but this is how we normally do it:

Form a committee or a team of capable kids who are responsible for organising the night.  You definitely need a youth leader to oversee the organization, to make sure the kids are on track, within budget, and from a due diligence point of view, but this person should avoid doing any actual work - it should be a supervisory role only.  

We have a sit down 'formal' dinner, with (cheap) caterers who come in and cook a meal.  Everyone pays around $10 or $12 for the night, and we finish the night with a disco.  We encourage people to dress up to make it a bit more special. 

The kids create invites and hand them out to everyone a few weeks before the night.  

On the night, we hand out recognition awards and have photos from the year in a powerpoint presentation.  

As a volunteer youth leader, attending these nights is really rewarding on a few levels - one it's amazing to see how capable kids can be when they set their mind to something.  It's very empowering for them and as a bonus, it doubles as a great method of identifying and raising up future youth leaders!  It's great for the moral for not only your volunteers but for the kids as well when they run a great night.