--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 12 number: 10 published: 1909-08 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Mutual Work," *Improvement Era* 12, no. 10 (August 1909): 840–842.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera12010unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera12010unse start_page: 840 end_page: 842 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1909-08) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera12010unse publication_year: 1909 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1909, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Mutual Work : MUTUAL WORK. AUSTRALIAN MISSION Y. M. M. I. A. From a report sent too late for the annual conference, from C. Alvin Orme. superintendent, we learn that there are six associations in the Australian mission one of which is graded. There are 234 permanent members enrolled with an active membership of 147 out of which there has been an average attendance of 122. There were 328 meetings held, 164 manual lessons completed, with 216 miscellaneous exercises. Orson A. Daines is the secretary. ATHLETIC WORK IN THE ENSIGN STAKE. In reply to a request from the Era, through Superintendent Rodney Hillam, Jr., President Fisher and class leader George J. Cannon of the 27th ward give the following effects of athletic work among the young men in that ward during the past season In our opinion the interest in the Junior Class work has been much greater than heretofore on this account. Through this feature of the work, we have been able to get boys to attend who are not regular attendants in other organizations of the Church, both members and non-members of the Church. An estimate of the in- crease in attendance would be at least 50 per cent. The moral obligations placed upon the young men have had a geod effect, although in all cases, we have not been able to obtain absolute compliance with the requirements. The order in our class has been fair considering the number and class of members. An impression has been given out that the boys of our association were very unruly, and that the disorder was not found in the Sunday School. As a matter of fact, the Sun- day School has in no case the same number of boys in one class, asd from obser- vation, we would say they have very few of the same boys, in fact, very few boys at all in their intermediate classes. We certainly think the work is a good thing, and should be encouraged. The following report from the 20th ward junior division was given by William Service, the junior class leader: Since tha introduction of the athletic work in the Ensign stake, during the last two yea/s. there has been an increased attendance at the meeting as compared with the average attendance prior to the inauguration of the athletic work. Pre- vious to the last two seasons, the officers and teachers performed a vast amount of missionary work in order to get the attendance up to anything like a decent standard. This frequently entailed a great amount of effort and time on the part of the officers who frequently, from press of other work, scarcely had the time to spare. The athletic work had the effect of drawing nearly all of the junior boys in the ward to the meetings where we organized them into two teams; both teams MUTUAL WORK. 841 chose their own colors; namely, green and purple, each team electing their own sets of officers. The ward presidency put up a pennant for competition, between these two t^ams, based upon points to be gained for good behavior, attendance at meetings, the sale of tickets for the athletic games or contests, proficiency in preparation and rendering of lessons, the acquisition of new members. This pro- duced quite a keen and close contest, the winning team (being the green one) be- ing victois over the other only by a fraction of points. The average attendance rose from 55 per cent, 1906-7 season, to 80.5 per cent, season 1907-8, the year the athletic work wa3 started. Of course, some of the older members of the Church may object to mixing athletics with religion, but as far as our experience goes, wherever a united effort is made by the parents to support the movement for the benefit of the boys, it has undoubtedly done good. The officers of the M. I. A. in the 20th ward have not found it necessary to do any missionary work these last two seasons, the boys themselves have done it by bringing their com- panions to Mutual, first of all to the basket ball games. The development of the boys physically is something that should appeal to our parents and those interested in Church affairs, and no doubt the completion of the Deseret Gymnasium will be a great aid to the Mutuals, in and around the city, in helping to keep the interest of the boys in the M. I A. provided, membership in the M. I. A. shall have . ; an in- fluence in getting better rates for membership in the gymnasium, which we hope The 20th ward athletic club has been self-supporting. I do not will be the case. think that it has cost the ward anything except expenses for light during the time the hall was used on the Tuesday night after 9 p. m. When any of the basket ball games were played, the juniors paid a nominal sum for the use of the hall and paid for all the apparatus erected for the games. RULES AND REGULATIONS OF THE ENSIGN STAKE ATHLETIC LEAGUE. E. J. Milne, Chairman; Wm. Service, Secretary. league. Article I. This organization shall be known as the Ensign stake athletic Object:— The promotion of athletics, and the mental, moral and physi- Article II. cal development of its members. Article III. Eligibility Rules- Membership shall consist of all the wards of the Ensign stake M. I. A. Article IV. Sec. 1. Maximum age for Intermediate Juniors shall be 19 years. Sec 2. Maximum age for Juniors shall be 16 years. Sec. 3. No player shall represent any team in the two divisions of the League. . Sec. 4. A legal attendance of 75 per cent shall be necessary to make a player eligible. , ward Sec. 5. No member shall be allowed to represent any team in any who is a user of tobacco. , If for any reason a player is believed to be ineligible, a written Sec 6. before game. protest must be handed to referee and captain athletic board for final ad- Sec. 7. All protests shall be heard before the justment . 842 IMPR VEMENT ERA . Article V. These articles may be amended at any regular meeting of the board, provided said amendment is submitted to the members of the board at least 5 days before such action is taken. Following adopted Dec. 13, 1908. Article VI. In the event of any team member willfully giving misleading in- formation in regard to eligibility, such game, if won by that team of which he is a member, shall not be counted, but shall be awarded to other com- peting team. Article VII In the event of any team defaulting games, i.e. not appearing as per agreement or schedule, to play, said defaulting team shall suffer the pen- alty as prescribed in National Rules, and in addition shall pay any expense that may have been incurred, such as advertising, hall rent, etc on ac- , count of such default. Insufficiency of notice as to games being postponed shall be considered a default. Notice must be given not less than 24 hours before game sheduled. M. I. A. SUPER1NTENDENCY OF THE SEVIER STAKE. At the quarterly conference held in Richfield on the 20th of June, at which Elders A. W. Ivins of the quorum of the Twelve and Joseph W. McMurrin of the First Council of Seventy, attended, the following officers of the Y. M. M. I. A- were sustained, Elder Christian Peterson of Glenwood, who has acted as super- intendent of the Y. M. M. I. A. for many years, being honorablv released: Milton Poulson, superintendent; Chris P. Christensen and Junius F. Ogden, assistants, and Alfred J. Bird, secretary. Y. M. M- I. A. IN ENGLAND. President Charles W. Penrose of the European Mission has forwarded the annual report of the Y. M. M. I. A. of Great Britain, for the year ending April 30, which unfortunately did not reach us until the 24th of June, too late for clas- sification in the report at the annual conference. The report shows that there are 45 organizations of the Y. M. M. I. A., in England, and twelve conferences. Scotland did not report. There are 1,050 permanent members in these associations, with an active membership of 825, and there are 1,211 between the ages of four- teen and forty- five who are not enrolled in the Improvement associations. The average attendance based on the active enrollment was 613, in the 1,514 regular meetings that were held. The associations are all in working order. In Birming- ham there are 7, with L. H. Durrant, conference president; in Bristol, 3, L. A. Little; Grimsby, 3, Frank T. Bennett; Ireland, 1, Thomas J. Bennett; Leeds, 5, E. S. Horsely; Liverpool, 5, E. H. Williams; London, 4, Alvine E. Jordan; Man- chester, 3, J. C. Larson, Jr.; Newcastle, 8, W. H. Caldwell; Norwich, 1, John A.Horton; Nottingham, 3, J. H. Merrill; Sheffield, 2, Josiah Eardley; Scotland not reported, Jay Johnston. All the associations are ungraded. We congratulate the officers of the English Mission upon the number of organizations and the work done, and we trust the associations may grow and prosper abundantly in the fu- ture.