Winter Workshop provides camp aid
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OREM, UTAH
With the 700-acre MIA Shalom Recreational Property in central Utah buried under its annual winter blanket of deep snow drifts, late January seems like an odd time for the Young Women leaders from 37 Orem and Provo stakes to gather and talk about summer camp.
But gather they do — more than 1,000 strong for the recent MIA Shalom Winter Workshop held Jan. 31. The Winter Workshop has been held annually for nearly a quarter-century to provide information, correlated training and spiritual messages as well as a sharing of camp-related ideas and activities among the stakes assigned to use the MIA Shalom property.
Its initial use as a camp property dates back some four decades ago, when nine Provo and Orem stakes purchased the first 480 acres in the Little Swen's Canyon area 14 miles east of Fairview, Utah. MIA Shalom can host four different stakes — each in separate camp areas — during its nine-week camp period, with nearly 7,000 total Young Women attending annually.
The annual Saturday morning workshop begins with simultaneous administrative meetings. The agent stake president and the camp executive committee's priesthood leaders meet with the stake presidents in a priesthood leadership council to review budgets, operations, projects and policy.
Meanwhile, the sisters from the executive committee meet in a business meeting with the stake Young Women presidents and camp directors, reviewing policy and procedure, distributing schedules for camp-area assignments, waterfront use and stake-provided security and coordinating bus use, fees and arrival and departure times.
"The stake presidents' and Young Women presidents' council meetings are an attempt to have a collective understanding and unanimity among all the groups and individuals going to the camp," said President Steven C. Sabins of the Provo Utah North Park Stake, currently serving as MIA Shalom's agent stake president.
"Then we have a general session where we give general instruction and hopefully some spiritual insight as to what Young Women's camp is all about," President Sabins added. "After that, stake and ward Young Women leaders are given an opportunity to have three hours of workshops, where they can learn skills and learn how to develop programs for their own camps and hopefully be better equipped and have better insight on how to pull camp together and how to pull it off."
It's the general session that results in the masses, as the participants from the two early morning council meetings join arriving sisters who serve in stake and ward Young Women presidencies and in stake and ward camp callings. In past years, workshop participants have barely fit into one of the area's larger stake centers but, for several years now, the workshop has been held in the Orem Utah University 3rd Stake's stake center, taking advantage of the meetinghouse's dual chapels, four-sectioned cultural hall, large-size classrooms and building-wide closed-circuit broadcast system.
Keynote speakers at the mid-morning general session have included local priesthood and camp leaders as well as past and present members of the Church's general auxiliary presidencies, such as Susan W. Tanner and Sheri L. Dew.
After the general session, the building becomes a small-scale camp campus, as participants bustle about to attend the workshops, selecting from eight to 10 different classes offered in each of the four 45-minute sessions over the final three hours of the combined meeting.
"We offer a variety of workshops in which these leaders can learn or sharpen camp skills and learn of ways to strengthen the Young Women in their testimonies as they participate in the camp experience," said Renee Tueller, the MIA Shalom camp director.
Workshops are taught by sisters on the camp's executive committee as well as experienced ward and stake leaders from the Provo and Orem stakes. Individual stakes have their own camp themes and programs and use the workshops to supplement their plans and efforts.
The annual event is appealing to a wide range of Young Women and camp leaders, providing a sampling of basic instruction and skills to help new leaders feel comfortable in their camp assignments and amassing a smorgasbord of demonstrations, displays and information to be passed around leaders with more camp experience.
"Topics range from basic camp skills such as fire building, cooking, first aid, hikes at Shalom and flag ceremonies," Sister Tueller said. "We also cover topics like how to use youth camp leaders, basics for new ward and stake camp directors. We have topics on using the scriptures and the Young Women values at camp, craft ideas and — probably the most popular class — 'sharing camp ideas.' "
With the 37 stakes including a number of Hispanic wards and branches as well as the Utah Valley Ward for local hearing-impaired Church members, the translation of the general session in Spanish and American Sign Language has been available for several years, with some Spanish-specific workshops more recently offered entirely in that language.
