Katie Townsend
4-H Youth Development
Communications
March. I am thankful for the flexibility of our 4-H families due multi-county participation and congestion in the hallways. The weather also didn’t want to cooperate with us so we had a
delayed start for the day. Once again the flexibility of our 4-H volunteers and their ability to step up and fill roles they were not originally assigned was a huge help.
Events at club day range from public speaking to musical ensembles. Extemporaneous speech is an event that is specific to Montgomery County and is not offered at Regional Club Day. Youth draw a topic related to 4-H and have 20 minutes to prepare their speech. They are allowed one notecard to outline their talking points. The older youth like this contest because they don’t have to prepare in advance but they still practice good impromptu speaking skills on a subject they are familiar with. A scholarship to local camp is offered for youth who give a talk or demonstration at club day. A big thank you goes to Sycamore Sunflowers and Valley Victors for providing the cookies for the day. Results from Montgomery County Club Day can be found on our website or published in the Montgomery County Chronicle. The top youth from our club day then have the opportunity to go on to the regional contest. The Wildcat District agents are responsible for getting the judges and running the talk, demonstration, reading, and music rooms at the regional contest.
Most of February has been learning the new fair entry system and putting the finishing touches on our fair book now that the state has released their class changes for 2019. At the February fair board meeting we spent the evening walking through how the fair entry system can benefit our fair. Thus far I have completed all five trainings for the new system and am working to syncing to the state fair now that they have released their classes.
I have also been working on some new school enrichment program ideas with the local schools and I am excited to see how they turn out. Taylor, our intern, and myself have also been working on some 4-H programming ideas in the office like propagating plants, putting together entomology displays, and more new member packets.
F
ebruary’s big event is Club Day. This year Montgomery County Club Day was held at Independence High School. We try to rotate the event around the county schools in order to not burden on school too much and to allow families easier access to the event. This year was a little different because Labette County youth came over to join us for club day contests. We worked hard ahead to time to color code score sheets and take other measures to ensure the judges would be able to differentiate between counties during judging. This is because each county is allowed to send qualifiers on to the regional contest in