Major Activity
Guide M-10 – Poster Contest – Keep Christ in Christmas
Summary & Scope
The Council’s supports our commitment to evangelization through the message of keeping Christ in Christmas to the youth of the parish. The project is led by the Family Director. We approach the youth on two fronts, through SGG school (grades 2-6) and the Middle School Youth Group (grades 6-8).
Planning/Timeline
The Director should begin planning with the school (Principal and Executive Assistant, Beth Kelley and Mary Gundling respectively for 2025) and Youth Group (Melody Evans for 2025) contacts in October. The goal is to have them both wrapped up and to then be able to present awards before Christmas break.
SGG School: The 2025 plan worked well and included kicking the project off to the students at the school’s chapel service in the PLC before Thanksgiving, so they then would have the break to work on them. We provided a Flyer to the Principal that then was included in the weekly electronic newsletter that goes out to all families. The current/prior Director has a copy of the Flyer that could just be reviewed and updated as needed each year. The Word document is converted to a PDF to then be submitted to the school. The school can identify when they would like to do the awards presentation (ex. After the last mass or assembly before break) and then back up a week or so for the due date in order to give time for judging. The school will collect the entries in the office, to then be picked up by the Director/designee.
SGG Youth Group: Like above, in October plan with the Youth Group coordinator to announce the contest prior to the Thanksgiving break and establish due dates to give time for judging to be able to present the awards at the session(s) before Christmas break. The current/prior Director has a copy of the Flyer that could just be reviewed and updated as needed each year. The Word document can be printed and copies made to hand out to the students at each session (the coordinator can confirm counts each year). The Youth Group meets on Sunday afternoons and Wednesday evenings. Students attend one session per week. So, the announcement and collection would be made at both sessions and the awards given out at whatever respective session the winners attend.
Judging/Awards: The Director should announce the timing in the December Council meeting and solicit volunteers to meet to judge the winners. We select a winner per grade for the school and a winner per grade overall for the youth group (both sessions evaluated together). The award is a $25 gift card from Barnes & Nobles, at the school’s suggestion (don’t do anything food specific, could consider Walmart, but the school liked books for the students for this event). In 2024, the overall volume of participation was low, so we approved doing a $15 gift certificate for all the other participants. This should be evaluated year by year based on the number and quality of entries. We do not commit to this or any specific level of award. There are certificates available from National that can be ordered as part of an annual kit and then used to print the name of the winners/participants depending on volume of entries. This would need to be ordered in advance of starting the project. We also ordered bookmarks, or could do some other simple item, to give to all students at the time of the awards. This was well received.
Note: We approach this as a council level competition for just St. Gregory the Great. We do not look to coordinate collecting them to then submit up through a District/State/National level competition. So, our timeline is driven by the school/Youth Group and not deadlines to advance to higher levels.
Suppliers
National does provide a formal kit. Mainly it has been used to provide a supply of certificates. This could be periodically ordered in the future as needed based on volume/counts.
Resources Needed
There is a larger coordination effort needed here by the Director. The Director will need to purchase (or arrange to be purchased) the gift certificates, update and deliver the school flyer, copy the flyers for the youth group and deliver, plan and order any trinket to be distributed to all the students (bookmark, etc.), and announce and hold a session to judge the posters with volunteers. In the past, we have had about 4-6 brothers involved. We should also open attending the announcement and especially the award presentation to the broader council. It would be good to have multiple members/brothers attend those.
Resources
- PDF of this page – PDF