RS Activity: Stop the Bleed

I'm the new 1st counselor in the Relief Society presidency of the Ballard North Ward serving with Marne Tucker (president), Melinda Hicken (2nd counselor), and Leslie Thorne (Secretary).  With this new calling comes new responsibilities, one of which is the weekday Relief Society meetings.  FUN! 

The first few activities were already planned, including January's activity- Stop the Bleed.  We had Bro. Ken Womack (RN, Paramedic) come and teach us about how to control bleeding in emergency situations and when and how to use a tourniquet. 

I used smilebox to create this flyer.

We provided a children's class and invited spouses/ friends to attend.  The children's class was in the primary room and my two sweet daughters agreed to be babysitters.  We set up a TV with Charlotte's Web playing, had a few games available (twister, candyland, twister hopscotch), and a coloring table.  I sent around a sign-up sheet in the Young Women's class on Sunday for more babysitters, but no one signed up.  However, I was told by Sis. Phelps that her 2 daughters would be there to help.  Sure enough, when 7:00pm rolled around, those two girls joined my 2 girls to babysit, and I'm glad they were there.  We had 6 kids ages 1, 3, 3, 6, 10, & 10.  According to Lily, one child was an escape artist who thought it was a game to leave the room.  One of the 10 year olds and his brother, a 6 year old, kept leaving the room, too, but not as a game, just to wander the halls.  So, these sweet babysitters had their hands full.  The one-year-old thought it was hilarious to watch the kids run around the classroom (playing tag) and she would laugh really hard every time a child passed her.

While all that action was happening in the Primary room, we were busy having a very informative evening in the gym where we set up a classroom.  We had 31 people in attendance, which is a really great turn out for us.  As people came, they could grab a plate of munchies (we did a munchies potluck), and find a seat. 

At each seat, we had a bottle of water, writing utensil, a short pop quiz they could fill out while they waited to begin.

quiz

answers

Bro. Womack had set up a TV hooked up to his laptop with a Power Point presentation.  He also had a table at the front with some examples of tourniquets, trauma kit, and props for demonstration.

After his training, we had a table set up at the back of the gym for people to put together their own simple trauma kit that they could keep at home or in their car or emergency kits.  It included a dishtowel, scissors, gloves, 2 disposable tourniquets, and 2 packs of gauze all packed into a gallon-sized ziptop bag.

It was a fun and successful evening.  I'm looking forward to more classes like this!

I made sure our babysitters knew we really appreciated their help and gave them a little treat as a thank you.