Our General Conference Center

I know, no one is thinking about General Conference right now. But tonight I'm showing my board to my mom's Relief Society group, and I wanted to have the printables available to them if they decided to complete this project. If any of you are interested... you have three and a half months to complete it. :)

Two days before General Conference, I stumbled across this idea for engaging young children.... and I thought it was absolutely amazing. (And so are most of the ideas found on Jen Lund's blog - check it out!)

One of the main reasons I love this idea, is that it doesn't just distract young children from being disruptive during Conference, but it engages them and encourages them to listen! I'm not gonna lie. It took time to put together, but I am positive that Harvey will enjoy working with this board. That will hopefully translate into Justin and I being able to listen, and that will make all of my hard work worth it in the end.

Here's how it works...
Everything uses Velcro to move and switch around speakers and pictures depending on what is happening during Conference. (I found clear Velcro dots in the craft isle at Walmart, and if you look really closely at the photos you can see the little Velcro circles.) The clock has moveable hands and the little temple identifies the session of Conference.

All of the speakers (there are pictures for all the auxiliaries, and 6 general "man" pictures to represent anyone from the Quorum of the Seventies) start out in the pockets on the left side. At the beginning of a talk, Harvey can find their picture in the folders, then move him or her to the podium. After they are finished speaking, he can move them to their red chair. The first presidency sits in the top three chairs, the Quorum of the 12 sits in the next two rows, and the others just sit in the bottom two rows according to the order in which they spoke.

While the speaker is at the podium, Harvey can add topics cards to the speech bubble. This is what it would look like if Elder Holland was speaking about choosing the right, the holy ghost, and obedience...

The topics cards are on the right side of the board when they are not in use...

During a song, Harvey can move the arrows depending on who is singing and he can move pictures of the conductor and the organist(s).

UPDATE (3/20/2014):
I've been wanting to add a few things to our board, and I finally made the time to sit down and get it done. I'm so excited for my kids to use the updated board in a couple of weeks!

Here is the whole board, so you can see where I added new items:

I wanted to change the music section a little, because I noticed that Harvey didn't really do anything with it unless I prompted him. I figured it was probably because he couldn't read the words, so now that section is non-reader friendly. I split the two arrows up - one for the choir, and one for who is singing (men, women, or both). I also added little pictures of an organ and a music stand for the conductor. I also included both a male and a female guest conductor, and a guest organist.

I also added a map. Jen Lund had a map on her original board, and I went back and forth on including it due to space, but I finally decided to make it work. I added an airplane, like she has, to move around any time a country is mentioned. I also added 5 of our favorite temples, so my children can place them on the map wherever new temples are announced.

I also liked her idea of placing her family members in attendance on their couch watching Conference, but I couldn't figure out where to add that feature due to space. Now I have added a picture of our family on the couch to move from session to session instead of the temple. (This isn't included in the download... for obvious reasons, but the temple is still there.)

I also wanted to add a little more diversity to our anonymous Quorum of the 70s guys, since there are men called from all over the world, after all. I added a couple more skin colors.

Lastly, I added a spot for my kids to write in a couple of the statistics given during General Conference; total members of the church, full-time missionaries, and total operating temples in the world. (Don't trust those numbers, I just guessed for the picture.) The dry erase marker will wipe off the contact paper with a tissue.

(end edit)

Isn't this idea amazing?! Jen Lund offered to e-mail all of her files upon request, but she was in the hospital having a sweet baby boy during Conference weekend. I got so antsy/excited about this idea that I compiled my own files... and then she e-mailed me back. She said she didn't mind if I shared my files, so here you go! (I found most of the files on lds.org.)

Here are all of the printouts for the board. You'll have to print a couple of the pages more than once, but it's noted in the file. You can preview, print or share from this, but you can't download. See my explanation below. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD and save this file to your computer.



Here are the topics cards. Print this out twice: adhere one copy to the board, then cut the second copy up for the individual cards. Feel free to use all of my pictures, but if you'd like to personalize your family, father, and mother cards, just cut the label off the bottom and glue it on your own photo. Then laminate. You can preview, print or share from this, but you can't download. See my explanation below. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD and save this file to your computer.



 After I cut out all of the pictures and text, arranged them how I wanted them on the board, and attached them with a glue stick, I covered the board with contact paper. Then I added all of the Velcro circles to everything. I found clear dots at Wal-mart by the scrapbooking supplies for about 4 dollars a pack. (I needed 2 packets, plus a few extra dots to complete the board. (EDIT: with the updates, it's close to 3 packets.)

For the colored pockets, I glued on the labels, laminated them closed, and then used an exact-o knife to slice along the opening (just enough to cut through the laminate to "open" the pocket). I didn't even bother to glue them together first. After laminating, I didn't cut them out separately. It was easier to attach the two pages with pop dots to the board. If you have any questions about how to assemble the board, feel free to e-mail me (dayinmylifeblog@gmail.com) or leave a comment! And if you make one, I would love to see a picture!

I can't wait until General Conference!!!

**Okay... I'm having a little trouble keeping these available to you through box.com. Without boring you with too much detail, I'm only allotted so much bandwidth, and since these files are fairly large (130MB when downloaded together) my 10 GB bandwidth is exceeded fast. Sooooo, I know it's totally confusing, but I like being able to show you a preview of what you are getting and there is also a feature to print right from this blog, so I'm keeping the box.com widgets here. But the links to download, if you so desire, will now be through dropbox.com. If you missed the links earlier, here they are again:

General Conference Board (updated 10/1/19)
General Conference Board Topics (updated 10/2/18)

**I normally update the original file each time, so you don't need to download or print the updates if you are putting this together for the first time. The updates are just for those who downloaded and put together the board before the new people were called. :)

**But I don't have time to update the original file right now.. make sure you grab the updates you need!

Presidency/Apostle/YW/plus Update (10/2/18)
Sunday School (10/1/2019)

YM + a couple (3/26/21)

2024 Part 1 (4/14/2024)

2024 Part 2 (4/14/2024)