Make 4-H meetings more fun!

by Suzi Taylor
From the 1997-98 4-H Clover Project Selection Guide

The speaker drones on forever... officers bicker over trivial decisions... members start to yawn... and the minutes drag on for hours.

This scenario is all too familiar in meetings these days--4-H or otherwise, says Kim Hawks, who, as president of the Prairie Pals in Liberty County, has some unique insights into making 4-H meetings fun. Kim's experience and enthusiasm for 4-H earned her an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C. last spring to work with national committee members on a curriculum for strengthening 4-H clubs. The group was so impressed with one of Kim's programs, the Buddy System, that it will be incorporated into the national program.

"She's just an outstanding person," said John Maatta, Liberty County Extension agent. "I've been really impressed with Kim," said Kirk Astroth, 4-H youth curriculum development specialist, who accompanied Kim to D.C. "She's really a strong supporter of clubs."

So what are Kim's secrets for getting 4-H'ers excited and involved?

• Use the Buddy System, in which older 4-H kids "adopt" a new, younger member. "I remember being one of the younger kids and just being scared to death," said Kim. Pairing up with an older kid makes the transition easier and helps encourage involvement, she says. The program was so successful in Prairie Pals that now third- and fourth-graders at the Chester School are being matched with high-schoolers.

• Get kids involved. "It's no fun when adults run the 4-H club and donÕt let kids do anything," says Kim, who encourages the parents to stand back and let youth make the decisions.

• Have a strong executive board. A few years ago, when the Prairie Pals was a little bit larger group, Kim would call the executive board together a week before the general meeting. That way the officers could hash over difficult issues without boring the members and could establish an agenda to follow for the upcoming meeting.

• Combine business with pleasure. The Prairie Pals are big into public service--they prepared lunches at auction sales to raise money for a water fountain at the new community clinic; they create tray favors for senior citizens' meals; and they clean the ditches for an adopt-a-highway project. But always, there is the element of fun: Kim says to make the ditch project more interesting, they had competitions, such as which empty beer can seemed to be most common.

• And simply hang out and have fun: The Prairie Pals stage an annual ski trip to Rocky Mountain Hi, where a meeting in the lodge is followed by a day on the slopes. Volunteer work is often followed by sledding or a group ice-cream pig-out.

Kim, 17, will be a senior at Chester High School this fall. She has been active in the beef breeding and market beef projects. After graduation, she plans to attend MSU-Bozeman in a pre-med program.

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