Right before the Time Out for Women event in Cincinnati, Julie Williamson was busy.
She was coordinating rides for presenters, encouraging more than a thousand women to carpool and making sure everything was ready when the team from Salt Lake City arrived to set up.
Williamson headed up the local committee to help lay the groundwork for the May 15 and 16 event. In every city from Orlando to Edmonton, there is a local committee of women that spreads the word about the event that includes LDS musicians, authors and speakers.
"It took so much orchestrating, and it was so worth it," said Shauna Hostetler, local team leader for the Orlando Time Out for Women event March 20 and 21.
Once a "team lead" is chosen, a committee of women called captains oversees several stakes and a group of women from each stake.
For Williamson, of Cincinnati, the target area stretched across 18 stakes into Indiana and West Virginia as they tried to reach women within a two-hour driving distance. In Florida, Hostetler's group targeted all of Florida and parts of Georgia and Alabama.
"Most of the work the team lead does is prior to the event," Hostetler said.
Their biggest challenge is letting women know about the event without using official church channels and identifying anyone who might need a scholarship ticket.
Every year there is someone who says they heard about "a big women's conference this weekend and 'why didn't I hear about it,' " Hostetler said. The Florida event was canceled one year because of an active hurricane season, and another year it was moved to a different city.
"It was a fight to get it back on the radar and under their noses," Hostetler said.
Women, by nature, usually take care of those around them before they take care of themselves, and "we don't put ourselves on the list," Hostetler said. "Time Out for Women helps put them on the list and put them in a room with like-minded women."
Team members e-mail and have conference calls regularly. Some groups have set up Facebook pages and used other social networking tools.
"The number one reason for our local team is to help promote the event to all the women locally," said Chrislyn Woolston, coordinator for Time Out for Women. "We have found that no direct marketing can do what a personal invitation to attend the event can do. The team members also help us at the event with tasks such as door greeters, seat ushers and hall greeters. They help make the day run smoothly and help to create a great experience for every attendee that comes."
Williamson had volunteered with a Time Out for Women team when she lived in Florida.
"It was so much fun," Williamson said. When she moved to Ohio, the closest event was in Indianapolis. When she saw that an event was going to be in Cincinnati in 2009, she e-mailed Deseret Book, which sponsors the event, to volunteer.
When they called her up, Williamson couldn't say no.
"It's exactly what we need," Williamson said of the event. "I'm so motivated and inspired by them. … I come away a better woman every time."
The local "team lead" is usually someone who has attended Time Out for Women and generally has contacted event coordinators or has been referred to event coordinators, Woolston said. The team lead is asked to help about six to eight months before the event.
Because Williamson was relatively new to her stake, her biggest challenge was identifying the stakes and the women who would help.
"I found some women who were just fantastic," Williamson said, adding that she didn't meet many of her committee members face to face until the event.
Hostetler found that she had mutual friends with several on her committee.
"It's so easy (to talk about it)," Williamson said. "It's something that you love."
Then, once the event starts, they just got to sit back and enjoy.
"My favorite thing as team lead, being there around the presenters and having one-on-one time with them," Williamson said. "They are just really neat people. They are just regular people. Those are experiences I will never forget."
e-mail: crappleye@desnews.com
There are Time Out for Women events planned this fall starting Sept. 11 and 12 in Boise. Other cities include Salt Lake City, Logan and St. George; Phoenix; Pleasanton and Riverside, Calif.; Richmond, Va.; Kansas City, Mo.; and Minneapolis. A schedule with registration costs and information is online at deseretbook.com/tofw