The Pinewood Derby

In the Mormon faith there is no paid clergy.  All of the lessons, the activities, the talks, the service, it's all done by the members.

Last fall I was released to serve with the Activity Day girls and got called to serve at a Stake level.

Areas are broken up by region, then by stake, then by ward.  There are 5-7 wards in a Stake... general rundown there...

My calling or service is over the 8-11 year old boys in our whole stake, so all of our surrounding area.

When I first agreed to take this it was explained that we'd be doing activities that weren't necessarily scouting based.  Well, there was a new Stake Presidency put into place, and they are all about scouting... which is fine.

I'm just not into scouting... Officially my calling is now Stake Cub Scout Leader, I think?

One of my responsibilities was getting this Pinewood Derby/Dinner done.

We do it at a Stake level.  We don't have a ton of membership in each individual ward/congregation/unit, whatever you want to call it.  Hardly anyone does it at a stake level, but it's a great opportunity for these boys, of the same faith, to get together for an evening of fun.

I had a great time planning it, aside from the official scouting stuff, which I know nearly nothing about!!!

Fortunately a friend in our ward, now over the boy scouts, volunteered to run the derby with his deacons helping him.  Pheeeew!!!  That was such a big help.

Now my responsibilities were to plan and host a dinner and desert for 130ish people, with awards for the derby.  I totally got this!

Here is our invitation:

I began with the idea that each cub would get an award for all of his efforts making his car.

I bought packs of matchbox cars from the dollar store and painted them all gold.

Last year at a white elephant party I got a box of wood blocks.  I chose that box of blocks, because I use stuff like that at random... case in point!

After painting all of the cars, I put my mom to work :) painting all of these 1x1 blocks!

We then glued a car to each block.

I created some labels, then punched them out with a 1inch hole punch.  I glued them to the front with Mod Podge.  Feel free to print these off!

Here is how they turned out... on a cookie sheet for easy transportation!

Next up was the car awards.

I started these with terracotta pots I found at the dollar store.  I spray painted them all silver.

After they were dry I glued little Styrofoam cylenders inside. 

Then one more round of spray paint to get the insides silver, you may be able to skip this step, when the suckers are in there you can't see much of the inside, but to be sure I did it anyway, it doesn't take long.

My next step was to fill in the suckers.  I began on the outside edge and worked my way in, sticking them close to each other, the more suckers the better right?

I created some labels on paper and Mod Podged them on each award. 

Here is how they look all finished.

Last big award was the grand prize.

I started with a dollar store pot and sprayed it.

Here is how it looks all finished

I also offered awards for the fasted times in the categories bear, wolf and webelos.

I just glued these labels to a box of dots.

Are you overwhelmed yet?

Moving on to center pieces...

And how it all came together...

We set tables along the edges with the track down the middle.

We set up the last of the track at the end of dinner.

We created a natural barrier with the chairs and the cubs sat there as they waitied to race.

I lined the back of the chairs with yarn that had race flags attached to it.

When the race started we brought the barrier across the full length of the gym.

 Some tables had ballons, some had race flags.

All of them had a mason jar, checkered plastic, gold tinsel and a couple of participation awards.

The awards

Notes about dinner.

If you are Mormon, you know these functions usually include a buffet style dinner.

I despise them! 

You have to wait in a line forever long, kids are running wild, food gets cold, if you have kids (and let's face it, we all have lots of them) you have to juggle dishing up multiple plates, then don your waiter maneuvering past the children who should be seated skillz as you try to get back to your table... OR worse, you have to get back in the freaking line!  It's madness with this many people!

I chose to do family style dinner and IT WORKED GREAT!

Each table had bread, butter, water and a Caesar salad.  I opted for this to cut out dressing, and let's face it, at these events you only end up getting lettuce for your 'salad' anyway!  I added Parmesan cheese, croutons, dressing and called it good!

I announced that each table could send up one person to get a bowl of pasta and a jar of sauce, while everyone else ate salad and bread.

We gave out bowls of pasta and mason jars of sauce from the kitchen...

It ran smooth, we cut down on traffic and madness, and the food was hot!

I had precooked all of the pasta and stored it in scentless, clean, new garbage bags!

I put those into a giant Tupperware tote.

I chopped iceberg and romaine lettuce and stored it in bags too.  It made for easy tossing when I dressed it!

Overall it was a great night.  We had some hiccups with the track, but the boys had a great time... all except my own child!

His car is the purple one on the track... it never crossed the finish line.

G was so disappointed! 

Matt and I suck at this, needless to say!  We don't know all of the tricks to make your car run fast and smooth.  We committed that next year will be better... we made that promise last year too!

G was a good sport and cheered for everyone else.  He did want to win, what kid doesn't?

M teased that next year we'll have to get together with those that won, so they can tell us the secrets of this blasted tradition!

I'm still proud of my guy!

Special thanks to my man, who helped me get everything set up, along with Brad and Joe.  They are rock stars.  The kids were big helps too!

It was a good night, and I'm glad it's over!