MSU Extension 4-H Volunteering & Mentoring

Welcome to our Michigan
4-H volunteer webinar for the month of
September, and we're going to look at how to
have a Beyond Ready 4 -H club. We're going
to talk about some of the things that can
help you think about bringing your 4-H club
to a place that'll help you be beyond ready for
whatever they're doing in the future. I'm
Christine Heverly. I'm an extension educator
based in Clinton County. I am the co-lead
for volunteer management, and I have Michelle
Neff as part of the team that developed it
but she can't be with us today but then I
have Janelle Stewart and I'll let her give
a quick introduction. Hi everyone um yes
I've been on before and just recognize some
of your names as well so welcome welcome back
to or welcome to the new 4-H programming year
and I am an extension educator located in
Lenawee County so. So as always MSU
Extension believes fully and creating welcoming
environments in our programs where
everyone feels like they belong feel safe,
and have a voice. We know that human
differences enrich our lives, work, and
community. We embrace our responsibility to
be a resource for all and are committed to
providing programs in all segments of
our community. It's also important to
understand the long-standing history and legacy
of colonialism that has brought us all
to reside in the land and seek to understand
our place within that history. The land
acknowledgement on the screen is one
step in that process. So this is part of our
webinar series that we have been doing for
the last three years. We have two more that
are going to be part of it this fall. We're
going to have infusing positive youth
development into your 4-H clubs and growing money
skills through 4-H. Plus, you can always
find the recordings for all of our past topics
on the website that Janelle has dropped
into the chat for you. So as we get started,
we're going to do a little icebreaker
and welcome. That is going to be
as a waterfall chat. So I'm going to ask
you a question. I want you to type your
answer, but I don't want you to press enter in
the chat until I say go. So I want you to
think about what is one word that describes
a great 4-H club. So type in the chat
what is one word that describes a great 4
-H club. So we have collaborative,
involvement, participation, communication, belonging. Yes, those are all
words that describe a great 4-H club. And
there is more than that, but it is good
for us to think about something that is.
We've engaged and connected and fun.
And every one of those words that you each
have shared are part of making a Beyond Ready
4-H club. They build into the components
that allow us to be Beyond Ready for
our 4-H participants. So in 4-H, we talk
a lot about helping youth thrive, not just
succeed today, but grow into confident,
capable adults. That's where these elements
come into making a Beyond Ready 4-H
club. It's all about having sparks, promoting
belonging, supporting relations, encouraging
engagement. That truly elevates our
4-H experience and what truly brings a
Beyond Ready 4-H club. And based on all the
words you shared on what makes a great 4
-H club, you already understand that. When
we help young people discover their spark,
that thing that lights them up inside,
we're giving them reason to grow. When
we create a sense of promoting belonging, they
feel safe and valued, like they have a place
in 4-H. Supporting developmental into
relationships provides the trusted guidance they
need to take healthy risks and build life
skills. And when youth are engaged, when they
have a voice, a choice, and ownership in their
experience, they're not just showing up.
They're developing skills for a lifetime.
These elements aren't just important for
forward success. That's what prepare youth to
be beyond ready for their future, whether
it's college, a career path, leadership in the
community. Youth who experience these
elements are more likely to be resilient,
motivated, and equipped to take on life's next
challenge. So we really want to look at how we
build these elements into the 4-H experiences
that we lead and how we build them into
having beyond ready 4 -H clubs. When we build
all these elements in, we are bringing youth
to be beyond ready. We're going to talk
about the power of the 4-H club
experience and how it's much more than
meetings and projects. Clubs create opportunities
for young people to build skills
from relationships, explore interests, and
develop their confidence. They provide a safe
environment where youth can learn from
caring adults and peers while discovering
who they are and what they are capable of,
right? One of the most important purposes
of a 4-H club is helping young people reach
their full potential, as Christine said
in the previous slide. So clubs are
intentionally designed in supporting positive
youth development through experiences.
So not just your club meetings, but also
through opportunities, experiences, activities,
and things like that, that combine
learning, relationships, leadership, and a lot
of fun into it. Just FYI, as we go through
this, you'll learn that fun is my favorite
word. Leadership is close behind and
I want both of them to occur simultaneously
in that. So in the chat, again, we'll
go back to that. What is one positive
thing youth gain from participating in your
club? Not in what we're saying, but look
and think about your club setting and what
is one thing that youth gain from
participating in your club? Confidence coming
back through new friendships new skills
friendships leadership mentorship yeah public
speaking love that sense of belonging
into your community so right a lot of the
things that you guys are doing naturally
are all the things that we just talked
about in the last two slides and the importance
of that 4-H club experience and what
we do know about the 4-H club experience
is that let me just There's a lot of avenues
to belong to 4-H. Some are long-term,
some are short-term, some are intentional
one-time programs where we need to have that
whole smorgasbord of opportunities to bring
young people in. But what we know is the
work that you do in the club and in a long
-term setting is where we're really seeing
those young people to be beyond ready. And so
we appreciate very much everything you do and
know as we continue to build and strengthen
our clubs, we are going to continue to
build and strengthen our young people for
leadership or for actually being ready today
in society, as well as being beyond ready
in their society too. So I see watching kids
blossom and become confident. I love that
in a sense of, I think a really sense of
belonging in the community is an awesome thing
because it's right. We're taking these
young people and making them go beyond. So
we're going to start and look at the core
requirements of a beyond ready club so we're
going to get into some of those sparks here in
a minute but this is the core requirements
of what we feel and believe and know from
research that says our clubs are beyond ready
so we're going to look at the fact that we're
asking that we have at least five youth from
two or more families right it's that
friendship it's that that community it's all
these things that you guys talked about comes
from a minimum of five kids and two or more
families so if you're meeting that give
yourself a thumbs up pat on the back because
your first step is done the second one is two
or more gold level screen volunteers so we
we've worked this past year to make sure
all of our clubs have two or more gold level
screen volunteers it's important for us as
always to make sure our young people are safe
um have build our building and in relationships
with people that we know are going to
help them be beyond ready in the future. So
two or more gold level volunteers in your club,
you've got yourself another pat on the
back there you can give yourself. We're
also looking at shared youth responsibility
and decision making. So bringing those young
people to the table in order to make sure
that they are having a say in what they want
their 4-H experience to be. They have a say in
what are the policies and procedures that
we are establishing? What is happening
in their club? What activities are they
doing? All those decision -making skills that
young people have the ability to do. I
always kind of just joke about the fact
that there's not a decision a young person
can't make in 4-H, that adults think they
are the ones making it, young people can
also make those same ones. I draw the line
if you're going to pull bankrupt the organization,
put me on the front page of the
newspaper or the news in a negative way. Other
than that, let's just guide these young
people into making good decisions and learning
about decision making. If you're doing that,
bringing those youth to the table, you are
already keep going around this circle
with me here. So we also have educational
and fun programming. If you look at the
4-H wheel that we presented before, it
talks about the importance of a business meeting,
education, and fun. I am one that
will bring fun into the education, but just
know maybe this month we're just doing
team building as our educational fun thing
and we combine them. But three components
that we talk about importance of a club wheel
for 4-H is the business aspect, the learning
aspect, and the fun aspect. And as we look
back at the things that you guys talked
about that you're doing well, you can get all
of those by having education and fun
programming with your clubs. We are looking
at having six or more gatherings
per year. Some of you are
probably at 12 plus, and that's awesome.
Some of you may be at the six, and
that's good too, because we know
that when we bring young people together
six or more times per year, we can start
having these outcomes that we talked about
here. So we used to say six or more club
meetings a year. We've shifted it to gatherings
because many of our outcomes can be successful.
See that by just having gatherings
where they're coming together. If you have a
formal business meeting, great. If you don't,
that's okay. Bring them together so that
they can do these relationship building,
develop friendships, get mentored, all of
those types of things. And that, well, you
know, as we keep, we have these
core requirements, opportunities to be on
the local club is moving those kids to have
those experiences in the county, at
the state, nationally and internationally
is also a component of moving them to
be beyond ready. So when we look at
this, Michigan 4-H has identified five
key elements that contribute to strong
Beyond Ready clubs. These elements are
fostering sparks, promoting
belonging, support developmental
relationships, encouraging engagement, and promoting awareness. Think of these as
puzzle pieces to the successful club experience.
When all five are present, youth are
more likely to remain involved, develop life
skills, and have positive outcomes. We're
going to spend some time looking at each
element and discussing practical ways that
you can use them to support within your own
clubs or how you can build them to be stronger
within your club. So a spark is an
interest, passion, scalar activity that excites
a young person and gives them a sense
of purpose. This is what brings youth to
4-H. They're excited about something,
they're interested about something, and this
is where they want to learn about it. As
leaders, we play a critical role in helping
youth discover and develop their sparks.
This may happen through traditional projects,
community service, leadership
experiences, public speaking, STEAM
activities, animal science
projects, or something entirely
differently. Strong clubs expose
youth to a variety of experiences and projects
because not every youth knows what their
spark is when they join us. And when we
expose them to a lot of different things,
they have the opportunity to see a variety of
different things. Youth are being asked
to be actively involved in their learning
through encouraging our hands-on learning. You
should have an opportunity to make choices and
explore topics that interest them. Through
all of this, they're building connection to
positive, connecting to passionate adults.
When young people discover a spark, they
often become motivated, engaged, and committed
to learning. They also develop a
confidence and stronger sense of identity.
The success indicators around this include
youth actively participating in the
learning. So they're making decisions
about their projects. As Janelle already
said, there's no decision that youth
can't make, so let them make decisions about
their projects. They're sharing their
learning through exhibits, demonstrations,
presentations, or community activities.
They're taking what they're learning in 4-H and
sharing it someplace else or within their own
4-H club. Maybe they're teaching other members
about something. Maybe they're presenting
at a county commissioner meeting. Maybe
they're presenting at the track TSC days and
just having a booth for your club and
sharing that information. Maybe they're in their
school setting. They have to teach their
class something, and this is what they're choosing
to teach about it. So let's take a moment
to think about this. What opportunity does
your club provide youth to discover new
interests? So thinking on your club, what are
you already doing that helps youth discover
their new interests? Field trips, yeah, having field trips
for your clubs. Another one is having
like doing project workshop days in your
club so youth can see something.
Offering workshops or different topics they
select to explore. Guest speakers, doing a taste of
different things, having a taste of
different things so that they can maybe
see if they like it, and then if they
like it, they can go deeper in it, but
you've given that like little bit of
a taster for them. So belonging is one
of the most powerful experiences we can
create for youth. Every young person
wants to feel accepted, valued, and
connected. A positive sense of belonging
can increase participation,
confidence, and retention. Promoting
belonging starts with some really
simple steps. Learn and use
members' names. Welcome your new members intentionally
into your club. Encourage every
voice to be heard. Create opportunities
for members and families to
connect socially. Strong clubs recognize
accomplishments in ways that are meaningful
and inclusive. Recognition can
be formal or informal, but
every youth should feel noticed
and appreciated. When belonging is
present, youth feel connected to their
club community and are more willing
to participate and take risks and
lists and learning. What are some ways
that in your club you help new members
feel welcome? So how we can build
belonging to new members is pairing younger
members up with an older youth. Yes, that
is such an important piece. We're building
that belonging. We're giving that youth
voice. We're giving youth a role by
pairing them up with a younger member. You
could do a new family orientation where you
kind of walk through the year of what the
expectations are. Being in 4-H, there's
a lot of new things and, you know, every
organization has its own lingo and jargon
they use so new families don't always
know what that is so take the time to kind
of walk through and then make sure you're
there as someone who can answer their
questions and that allow them to have
leadership experiences yes when we give those
families leader new members leadership
experiences they feel welcome create name
tags then give them and then give them a
wrong name and they need to go find the
person and learn one cool thing about them
oh I like that idea. Yeah, is pass out name
tags and they have to find people. That
builds belonging and connection and helps
people learn each other's name. Great idea.
All right, so we're going to look at
relationships with caring adults and how much
they matter. So research consistently shows
us that caring adult relationships are among
the most important influences in positive
youth development. Developmental
relationships occur when adults
encourage youth, challenge them
appropriately, listen to them, and
support their growth. As 4-H volunteers,
we often become trusted adults in a
young person's life. Sometimes a simple
conversation, words of encouragement, or
genuine interest can have a lasting impact.
I will say this. I reflect back all
the time. I am a I'm alumni of the Michigan
4-H program in some of the mentors
that I remember most in my life came from
my 4-H experience. And so if you can
think about that, I'm not going to ask
you, but if you were if you're alumni
also of the 4-H program, think about
those adults who were caring, who
provided words of encouragement, genuine
interest in your life when you were going
through the 4-H. dare say if you have
your camera and I would see a lot of smiles
come through at this very moment because
I think that most of us could share that.
So strong clubs intentionally create
positive interactions between youth and adults.
They also help youth connect with additional
mentors, volunteers, parents, and community
members. So as you're bringing in those
guest speakers, right, they're having an
opportunity to connect with a community member
who can support their growth. And maybe it's
a one-time interaction, but it's an interaction
that they have now seen another role
model. They have seen success. They have seen
people who are giving back to their community
and opportunity to make a connection down
the road. So success indicators include youth
having trusted adult relationships, receiving
encouragement from multiple adults, and
having opportunities to discuss goals in
progress. All of these make for a caring adult
relationship that we know is very important.
And I'm going to end this slide. We're
not going to ask you to share it this one,
but I'm going to share with you a quote and
I've typed it in already. I've just drafted in
there, but I'm going to read it. Young
people do not need more adults who manage them.
They need adults who know them, care about
them, and help them grow. So I'm just going
to let that sit there for just a second as
you read over it in your own mind and think
about how that is and how our 4-H plays out
in that for them. All right, so now we're
going to talk about engagement, right?
So we have had those relationships, specifically
looking at the adult relationships. We know
that the relationships for young people with
their peers is huge. It's also very
important for them to be engaged in their
activities and what they're doing. So engagement
means youth are not simply attending
activities. They're actively participating in them.
And that goes all the way from the
planning to the decision -making to the, what
do I want to say, implementing it, and then
reflecting back on what it was and how it
went and what we could do differently, if
anything, or how we can duplicate it in the
future so that is that a positive experience.
So in strong clubs, youth are involved in
all of those levels that I just said,
planning, organized, leading, and evaluating
that experience. They take that ownership
rather of being passive participants. One
way to think about engagement is to ask,
are we doing things for youth or are we doing
things with youth? So provide opportunities
for youth. So again, for or two is just
the flip of one simple word. It can look
like serving as officers. Do you have
an officer format? Are they the
youth? Are they up there running a
meeting? What are we doing to make
sure that they are successful in those
officer roles? Are they leading
activities? Are they the ones coming
up with those team building? Are they the
ones explaining how we do it? Are we
participating as adults that goes back to
the other side in their activities so
that we keep that engagement along with
the caring adults? Are they heading up and facilitating
the discussions? Are they an
active part in planning our
service projects? Can they call the
local soup kitchen and say, what's the
list of items that we need as we're
going to collect food items for you? Very
simple, phone calls, things like that,
that we often think, well, we'll just do
as an adult, it'll be faster, but it's
a very simple thing that a young person
can do as well. Do they help evaluate
club experiences? Are we open as
adults for the young people to tell us,
you know what, that activity that we
did was really cool or how we did this
was very awesome. Are we open for
them to say that hit like a brick wall,
you know, that tanked? And that's OK,
right, because we're all trying new things
and trying to to to learn it. So so
youth who are engaged to develop
leadership, teamwork, decision making and
responsibility skills. So success indicators
include youth serving in leadership roles,
as we talked about, helping plan activities, participating in
the service, and contributing ideas for
the future of the club. All of those things
will make us a strong Beyond Ready club.
So quickly drop in, if youth were to
plan your next club meeting, what might
that look like? What is one thing
that you will do to make sure that
the youth are part of planning your
next club activity? if you're already doing
it great if you're not what is one thing
that you would change I would start I will
say this as we're getting ready to close
out our previous year my small animal board
is going to do a community service
project with donation of processed animals and
all of that and we supplement it with with
canned goods and things like that and off and
on I've been the one who've called and other
times I've had the kids call. And just
doing this right here, I'm going to make sure
that the kids call our local Salvation Army
place and say, what food items do you need?
Let them be responsible. So I'm going to practice
my own talk here and do that. And if
you have something, you can drop it in as well
as you're thinking about it. And if not,
we'll go on and look at the next slide about
connecting youth to the bigger 4-H story.
In my club that I specifically laid, we
always look, we've added because of youth more
time for them to just connect with one
another. They enjoy that connection time. So
trying to make sure that's built into every club
meeting. Another one is we have a great group
of active officers. They pick our community
service projects, fundraisers, and
activities each month. Yes. Very cool, Tracy. Thank
you for sharing that. So promoting awareness
helps youth understand they're part of something
larger than their local 4-H club. 4-H is
a statewide, national, and global youth
development organization, which has a rich
history and tradition. Simple actions really can help build
that awareness. We need to be using the 4-H name and symbols. We need to have
the 4-H flag and say the 4-H pledge
at a meeting. We need to be displaying
that 4-H clover through whatever ways
we can think about it. We need to be discussing
and sharing county and state and national
opportunities. We need to incorporate
community involvement through community
service, through different things. We need to be
saying our club name very often and helping
kids and volunteers in our club know what
our club is more than just I'm in 4-H, but I'm
in the Charlie's Gang 4-H club so that they
can share what they're in. When youth, you
should understand how their club contributes
to the community, how they connect to a
broader 4-H program. And when you see
themselves as part of a larger movement,
they often develop a stronger pride,
commitment, and purpose. We really want to
just make sure that they know that
they're in your club. So how does your
club make sure youth understand they're
involved in 4-H? So drop into chat some
ways that your club makes sure youth
understand they're involved in 4-H. So
at the start of last year's 4-H year, we
printed a pull-up banner that has the 4-H
pledge on it so that it was front and
center to help everyone learn the 4-H pledge
and having it. It was always part of our
meeting, but this made it more than just
part of it. They got to see it as it was
part of our meeting. I was thinking about
this. I want to just share a story when, oh,
making t-shirts love it. Yes, 4-H swag if
possible or have them make their own. absolutely
tie-dye t-shirts has been popular over
the last few years so oh yeah our pledges
on the agenda meeting sheet so the younger
ones can read the pledge awesome love that
chris that you include your club name that
was one of the things I was just gonna say
is that I did this with my 4-h community
club leaders that's what we call them in
lunaway and one of the things that was an
aha moment for us is I described to them that
young people come up to get their wristbands
at the fair and they're like what club are
you in and they don't know and I'm always
like oh I'm okay with that when they're clover
buns I'm not as okay with it when they're
17 years old and they've been in a club
for five years no um right so it was dawned
on all of us as we were sitting there having
this discussion that everyone talks about
going to the 4-H meeting yeah it's 4-H day
it's 4-H club meeting day things like that
we seldom say it's the Palmyra Future Leaders
4-H club meeting tonight you know using
our actual full name of the club that the
child belongs to um and so yeah they know
they belong to 4-h but watch club so I'd love
some of the suggestions having your club name
on that agenda as chris said we talked
about this already that pull-up thing that they
have with the pledge on it maybe they could
add their club name to it so it starts it
that way So, Vanessa, asking what your H
is as an icebreaker. Yeah, I like that. You
can pick any H, right? What is your H? And
then challenge them to learn the pledge and
demonstrate it. And then having t-shirt
design contests and having them vote and they
print new ones every year. Another thing
that I have found really successful in our 4-H
club is we usually start one of the meetings
out in the fall about just going through all
the H's and having them see how each of those
H's connects. So they really understand
what the 4-H pledge is and all of the H's. This
is helpful, especially to new families that
are new to the program. But then it reminds
our older families and older members what
each H is and then how they can think about
and being intentional with that H throughout
the entire 4-H year. Participating in
a Christmas parade with a large banner
with our name on it. Everything we can do
to help share our name helps the youth make
that identity, helps the community make that
identity, and it really promotes that awareness
piece and so that kids have that stronger
sense of identity to it and pride and
commitment and purpose. So we're going to,
Janelle's going to drop a handout in the chat,
and we're also going to kind of talk through
it on the screen. So we're going to have
a minute to have us think about your club,
and we're going to really walk through each of
the elements. So I want you to think about
if where you're at in each of these
elements. So think back to sparks. How do you help
youth? Are you doing a good job of helping
youth develop their sparks, their interests,
their passions? What's getting them
exciting? And you just kind of want to think in
your head, am I already strong in that? Am I
growing? Or is that an area I might want
to try something on? Then think about
belonging, relationships, engagement, and awareness.
So what we're going to do is I'm really
going to pause for the next three to five
minutes. So I'm going to turn our audio off.
We're going to have you think for the next
three to five minutes about where are you
at with each of these elements. It's okay to
be strong in some of them and growing in some
and needs attention. You really want you
to think about it. If you're strong in an
area, I want you to think about how am
I strong and kind of jot that down because
we're going to do some report out in a minute
and I'm going to have you share what
you're strong in because then you might
give some ideas for some areas of people
that want to grow in. Okay, so I think it's
important to remember there is no perfect
club. Every club has strengths and areas
improvement. The goal of this exercise was
reflection, not evaluation. To identify the
opportunities for growth to help us to continue
getting better and experiences for youth.
So I'm hoping that would someone be willing
to share one of the areas that you were
strong in? And what do you do to make yourself
strong in that area? So I will say one area
that I think the club that I happen to
be a community club leader for is engagement
we're strong in we are a very young club
like 12 and under and we have club officers
that we have re -implemented this last
program year and they were eight nine and ten
year olds who were our club officers our older
youth weren't weren't interested in that
anymore they weren't interested in coming
anymore but our eight nine and ten year olds
were the club officers and that engagement
meant that we had to really support them
and being club officers because they really
they hadn't seen it experienced it so
walking them through those pieces was really
key um yeah so I think that's one of the
things like we're strong in that area and we
plan to continue it they've already asked
are we doing elections this year again can
new people be officers and we're very much
for them so another Chris shared that an
area that she feels her club is strong is
awareness. Our club has a Facebook page,
website, and newsletters that are emailed out
monthly that highlight local, state, and
potentially national 4 -H opportunities. I
believe everyone in the club knows what's going
on and knows where to get information
about the club and 4-H. Yeah, that's a
key way area to be sharing things
for. Yeah, awesome. Anyone else feel
like they're... I'm willing to
do it. Can you hear me? Yep. Go
ahead, Brenda. I think we're good
with relationships and kind of the
belonging aspect. When we have meetings,
the older, my club's just now starting
to pick up teenage, you know, they're
getting to the teenager age and we still
have many young kids. And I see those older
kids being leaders to the younger kids
in our meetings and helping them there.
They're great at fair when we get there
because, you know, helping with
wrangled goats or get rabbits out or whatever.
I see them also. They go together in
a big group to eat, get a snack, and go
ride rides together. So I think working
with each other that way, they're
pretty good at. That's awesome. And
that's what we want to see happen in 4-H
is building those relationships and
belonging. and them doing it kind of naturally on
their own by helping each other. Thank you
for sharing, Brenda. Yeah, I think,
am I still muted? Nope, you're
perfect, Tracy. Okay, awesome. I think, I agree
with Chris. Our club is really
strong with awareness. We still, we do the same thing. We have
a Facebook page. We do the newsletter. We put everything on
our agenda, like fun things that are coming
up is the section we have on our agenda
and Megan who is our representative for the
MSU extension office they put out 4-H blasts
they do a newsletter all these different
things that is always there for all the kids
so and we have constantly new workshops
constantly all the time like two or three a
month that the kids can participate in and then
the rest of the area like the sparks belonging
relationships and engagement I put
growing our club is huge I have 61 kiddos in
our club and we meet monthly and it's a lot
and we have a lot of help thank goodness
and we create a lot of stations that the kids
can go through and do because we have uh
from youth the youngest all the way to the
branch buds all the way up to seniors so we
try to find something that is good for all of
them because you know the older kids of course
go through everything really fast then
the little ones are going really really slow
so um but I think in all areas like that
we can always there's always room for
improvement thank you for sharing Tracy I will
share if you didn't want what you shared like
verbally to share in the recording just drop
me a note and I can cut that out of the
recording for you all so thank you for
sharing I think it's important to think why I
wanted us to share what we're strong on
because not always does everyone feel comfortable
sharing on the areas they're growing
or needs improvement but when you share what
you're strong at you help other people
think about areas they can grow in and we
all as I think Tracy kind of summarizes as
well there's always areas for us to continue
growing out in our 4-H clubs and the
more we grow on those things the more we take
action in them and they help improve the
4-H experience and continue to make youth
beyond ready so with that what is um you
know as a leader it can be tempting to leave
a training with a long list of ideas right
we do it all the time when we go to
professional development conferences too. It's
also easy to put that new, that little piece
of paper and all that into my folder and
forget it. I just did that the other day.
I'll be totally honest. I pulled something
out. I was like, Ooh, okay. That, that would
have been good to remember before. So
now it's now into next year for remembering
that. But so instead of focusing on one
realistic action, you can implement
during the next month. So instead of taking
all this smorgasbord, everything, what is
one realistic action that you can implement
during the next month so think about
that we'll give you just a few seconds
moment to think about it you know maybe
your action is giving youth a larger role
in a meeting the next meeting recognizing
members in a new way a monthly newsletter
on your Facebook page Brenda you like that
awesome something that you can get to
this next month if you can that's awesome you
know so what are some other things that
realistically that you think you will implement
during the next month that we've talked
about today maybe you can introduce a
new project area at a meeting so help expose
youth to something different maybe you
can create additional opportunities for
that social connection in your club maybe you
can think about we're in a new 4-h year
this is the perfect time to really encourage
youth leadership. How can you really have
more youth leadership in your club in the
next year? Could be simple things about
leading club, your committees, or making
the phone calls for your community service
projects. Really, how do you give more youth
leadership roles? Small improvements
really lead to meaningful change over time. So
write this step down, because if you don't
write it down, you might not make it happen.
I'm just going to ask for you to back on
with that, making sure that every youth feels
seen and heard. And I think that probably if
you've been around 4 -H long enough that
you've heard this in your life, in your volunteer
role, but I'm always, I'm always, it's
moved by the fact when a young person says
that 4-H is their, is their jam, is their thing
because they are heard or because they felt
part of it. And we know that young people,
school is important, other activities, all
of these things are very important. And
we always try to work within all of the
other youth development components or education
system and all that. But I've heard
repeatedly over the time I've worked here
for 4-H, as well as experienced it as a
young person myself, is that 4-H is the
place where they really truly fit. And I can't
imagine going my entire life not fitting into
something. And if we can be that one place
where they fit in where they feel seen and
heard um we're really truly moving that young
person um and and I have a young person
right now running for my small animal board
who his whole write-up is about he doesn't fit
into a school at all he's the different
child at school because he likes these things
um and the one place that he feels like he
can be himself is at 4 -h and I'm like wow
that's that's tough to be feel that way but
I'm sure all of you've heard those things too
so thank you for sharing that that's going to
be a a movement there too so so strong
clubs don't happen by accident um you guys
all know this and we appreciate what you do to
make your club as strong as it is but they are
intentionally designed to help youth
discover their sparks experience belongings
build meaningful
relationships engage in leadership
and connect to the larger 4-H community.
So as we kind of wrap up to, you know, today,
it's pulling that all together. So as
you leave, think about how you can help youth
discover their spark, experience that
belonging, build that relationship with you as
a caring adult or another person in the club
that's a caring adult, or connect them to the
office where the caring adults can be their
4-H staff even um so how how is that happening
um engage them as leaders um connect
them to the larger 4-h community and connect
them to their larger community as well and
those experiences are what is going to make all
of our clubs be a beyond ready 4-h club
so so kind of going back what while I will say
this we kind of did it before is there
any other ideas that you're going to take
back to your club from today's session that
you plan to use or share we want to give you
the opportunity if you're thinking of you
know you can unmute too don't have to type
you can unmute Vanessa shared I'll be more
intentional about helping kids feel their
green and be proud of being in 4-H. I think
that's super key. That's that awareness
piece. So as we move into the last bit of
this, we're going to share some resources
and a few other things. I really want to have
you reflect on this. You don't have to
share about, but think of a young person whose
life was positively impacted by your
club. What made that experience meaningful
for them? Think about that. Sometimes we get
so busy in our roles as 4-H volunteers that
we don't think about the little things
that might have made a positive experience
for a youth. So think about that and reflect
on that because that needs to be like your
meaningful why I keep doing this piece.
So we have a variety of different resources
and support for you. We have a resource
called Characteristics of Beyond Ready 4-H
Clubs. It's a lot of the things we walked through
today, but it's a handout for you. There
is this Beyond Ready in 5 video series.
These are short five minute-ish videos about
different components of helping youth
become beyond ready and they're geared for
volunteers our michigan 4-h club development
website and then there's two news articles 10
benefits for being a michigan 4-h member 10
reasons michigan 4-h matters and then we also
have the beyond ready 4-h club reflection
which is the tool we kind of walked you
through that you can look at more intentionally
if you want later um it's really key like
use these resources to help you out. I will
share on the Beyond Ready in 5 video series.
There will be new videos dropped on there
at different points in time as we get
additional videos created for that. So as we wrap
up quickly today, we just want to share
that about the Michigan 4-H Alumni and Friends,
which is a statewide network of alumni,
friends, supporters, parents, and friends who
believe in the impact of 4-H. It's an
organization that's open to anyone who's over
the age of 18 and wants to stay connected
to our Michigan 4-H program, whether your
connection comes from being a member, volunteering,
or supporting a young person, or simply
believing in the value and our mission,
you're welcome to join. To just do this, you
just kind of fill out a quick little survey,
and you join, and then there is a secondary
survey to get a little bit more information
from you, but we believe that this is
an opportunity for you to learn about it so
there is a qr code on the screen or in the
follow up email I will have the link for you
to join please join both christine and I
we are alumni um we are we are alumni as
well as friends um of michigan 4-h because I
don't want to exclude anybody if you weren't
alumni our friend we have a colleague who
did not is not alumni and we're always um
joking and having fun with her about it and
she's like I'm a friend and you know so we're
both but um please join us um in in
continuing to build this um database that will
hopefully grow all of our opportunities in 4-h
as we connect people who are passionate
with um local programs and that so we really
want to thank you for being part of today
um this concludes the recording we're going to
open up for discussion I will be sharing
out the recording, there will be an
evaluation link that, nope, there is no evaluation.
I forgot to put it in the Zoom room today.
So there's no evaluation today. I will include
the evaluation in the follow-up email
if you wouldn't mind complaining it that
way. So thank you. And it's okay if you're not
a 4-H because you're a friend, we're not
an alumni, because you're a friend and
you're making huge impacts on the lives of our
Michigan 4-Hers or other places by being
connected to us, right?