Well the longest thing ago was probably my 4-H meeting. Remember way back when, I was going to get a 4-H club started in town? Well I had the meeting....and nobody showed up. This tells me one of two things. 1) No one is interested in having a 4-H club in town, 2) no one knew about it because the school district no longer sends flyers home, instead they post them on the E-Flyer website. I did, however, get a call about a week later from a mother who was looking through some old school stuff and found the flyer, she was interested, but I gave her some contact information for some other clubs that she should join. I did that because in order to show in this year's fair, members have to be enrolled by March 1st, and at this point it would be too late once we got the club started. I would have also needed a third family. I had one already, but she didn't come to the meeting because she was looking for a new club since her club had disbanded. So maybe this summer or this fall I will try again.
I had mentioned before that I was writing columns for the paper about 4-H. My second one was in the paper on Tuesday. There is a link to it here. I don't know how long it will be there. I looked for the first one online, and it has already been archived, which means paying for the whole column. I think it turned out pretty well. And it gets the word out about 4-H, so there is no downside there at all. My next one will be in about six weeks, so I've got some time to think about it, and decide what clubs I will focus on then.
I've sent out some emails to my contacts about the Spanish Reading Program. Now that the semester has had some time to get going, and the students have had some time to settle into their schedules, I am hoping something comes out of this. Keeps your fingers crossed!
I haven't forgotten about the JDC. I actually contacted them about getting a new volunteer approved. I sent the paperwork to her today, and then we can work on scheduling a time for her orientation. I'm hoping this works out. That will be at least one success.
In YAC news, they have some big projects ahead of them. At the January meeting they planned out their calendar for the year. They will be doing one community service project and one fun activity roughly every month. Some months do not have a fun project, and some do not have a community service project. They will tweak the calendar as the go, of course. Nothing is set in stone, except for the FUN RUN, that we are going to try to make an annual thing. At the February meeting they started their community service projects for the year out by making instant soup kits to donate to a local church food pantry. Here are some pictures from the event:
In March YAC will also host a bowling event. This will be open to the entire county, and everyone who wants to come can, and there will be door prizes and it will be lots of fun! You can read more about it here. One thing that I suggested YAC might think about doing next year is participating in Bowl For Kids Sake. This event is something that the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Wisconsin put on as their annual fund raiser. Since I have a little, I did it this last weekend. It was really a lot of fun and I think the youth in YAC would have a good time with it. It also goes along with that community partner collaboration piece. It is a great way to show how a community has to work together to work at all.
For awhile now, we have been working on getting ready for Summer and the Summer clubs that we have in collaboration with the school district summer school and Community Connection grant. Although I'm not part of the summer clubs this year, I'm acting as a representative because both of our interns are at school and usually can't make the meetings. So I go for them, and since I understand the way the program works its pretty easy for me. I feel like I'm in charge, but I know once the interns start, I will pass the project off to them.
One thing that I've been trying to do is build connections with different community partners. When I was younger I always felt like Girl Scouts and 4-H should be rivals, but really that is not true. Right now I'm trying to organize a Day Camp that we put on in collaboration with Girl Scouts. So far it sounds like its going to work out. That still leaves three more for the interns to do whatever they want to. They could even hold five Day Camps if they wanted. I have high hopes that this working together will be successful and will work toward everyone's benefit! I'm pretty excited about it.
Prefair Music and Drama is also coming up. I'm not doing much for that. I will really just be an extra set of hands.
The weekend after next is Quilt Camp. Quilt Camp is designed for 4-Hers who want to learn quilting. I never did it as a member, but I'm going to do it as a leader. We are learning how to do Half Square Triangles this year. So hopefully that goes well for me. I've kind of been wanting to take up quilting so we'll see how it goes. I have also been helping out a little bit with it on the office end. I don't really have much to do to prepare for it, except get my own stuff ready, but I may do more as it gets closer.
Last night we had our first Camp Planning meeting. I am not doing camp in my capacity as a VISTA, but rather as a county resource leader. I've been going to camp as an adult ever since I graduated from 4-H. So this summer will be my fourth summer going as an adult. I love it very much. I wouldn't give it up for anything in the world. Our next meeting will be in May as camp gets closer.
And now for my curriculum. This has been a slow process, but I'm finally beginning to wrap my head around it. This weekend I'm going to be spending quite a bit of time working on it since I will be in Illinois with my sister watching Miles while Anne is in class. I'm pretty excited about that! :)
I think we need another picture here....
How about some sheared alpaca?
Until then!
