in Carnation, PH meetings were held in the Gym (er, CULTural Hall)
Once yours truly bailed out of the previous meeting early, went to the gym, and set up the chairs for PH
IN A CIRCLE
to suggest that we have this meeting (more) as equals, + we didn't have to look at anyone's back.
I should have brought a 'talking stick'!
When the brothers arrived, they were obviously perplexed, however there was no effort to change the seating to place 'leaders' in front facing the group.
Count one for the Gipper!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2024 12:08PM by GNPE.
When I arrived regardless of the setup. I would walk over to the back row, pull a chair away from the pack, sit down and stretch my legs out. Sometimes I leaned against the wall if there was one. If the lesson has value, I would listen. If it was a lecture, I took a snooze.
If I had to sit for near an hour on a uncomfortable cold metal chair, I was going to make the best of it.
No matter how we as Aaronic Priesthood holders attempted to set up chairs, we would receive a tongue lashing. There were always 30 chairs. Five wide and six rows, nope!
Just got to the point that it was better to do nothing because some leader (take your pick) we had bishopric, seventy, elders, high priests and young men who would walk into the cultural hall and within 5 seconds tell us grunts (12-14 year olds) that it was being set up "wrong". And there were times that the adults would quarrel over stupid stuff called setting up chairs.
And it really was stupid. After an opening song, a prayer, stupid announcements about men needed for.... We would adjourn after 15 minutes. All those chairs would need to be refolded, tilted on their sides and reloaded onto the flatbed cart which was stored under the stage. Except, the high priests or seventies would meet on the stage and we youngers would need to carry those chairs onto the stage using ramp steps.
At the end of ph class, we would be herded back into the cultural hall to remove the chairs from the stage.
Looking back it was a tremendous waste of time setting up and taking down chairs every Sunday.
As an outsider, seems that there's a lot things done in the CH is a waste of time....except those behind the curtain shenanigans that ED became famous.
I too was tasked for a while with setting up the chairs in the gym for priesthood meeting. I was told to set up two carts worth of chairs but then left to my own desecration.
Sometimes it would be two blocks of chairs with a single isle between them. Or, three blocks of chairs with two isles. Occasionally I would set them up with a slight curve.
Nobody ever "corrected" my set-ups or made changes. I liked the freedom and figgered that as long as it served the purpose, it was okay.