DWARF and MINI Feb 2015 | Page 20

YOUTH REPORT:     2014 ADGA Youth Convention  Joseph Redmond Sycamore Springs Farm, KY sycamorespringsfarm.com   In this article, I am going to discuss the 2014 American Dairy Goat Association (ADGA) Youth Convention in Portland, Maine. Also, I will be talking about the activities, things that I learned, and how excellent the people were that put it together. This helped the convention run smoothly. Let me start by saying the convention was overall one of the greatest things I have been fortunate enough to attend. Every day was full of excitement and joy. We started off the convention by getting to know each other and playing some games that taught us a little bit about the other person. After that we made some name tags to wear in the shape of all the different breed of goats. We all got to be creative and have fun at the same time. Even though we were not judged on them, everyone that was attending had great amusement seeing and laughing at our finished goat name tags. After that we were scheduled to have a youth meeting on what ideas the youth reps and youth had and could use as fundraisers for the ADGA youth program . Once we completed that task we went on to eat our lunch, which was included in the price of the convention fee. When lunch was over we went back to the convention room and had a lesson on how to take great pictures of your goats, and the many mistakes that others make when choosing from the background options. We learned why choosing the proper background is a must when trying to succeed and take professional pictures of your goat. We learned that the best background is not too light and not too dark, but somewhere in the middle. If you choose a background that’s too light colored, the picture will most likely result in overexposure. On the other hand, if it’s too dark the picture with be underexposed. When you choose a background for your pictures, you want to use something that complements the animal and shows the best color of the goat to the full extent. After completing the photography class, we had a science lesson on cells and how they function. 20       DWARF and MINI