November 30, 2011

State 4-H Award Apps Due January 4

State 4-H Award Applications are due to the State 4-H Office in January and must be postmarked by Wednesday, January 4 to be accepted. This includes applications for the 4-H LCP Award, sponsored by the Illinois Farm Bureau. The Illinois 4-H Award Applications are being submitted for selection to National 4-H Congress and National 4-H Dairy Conference. The 4-H LCP Applications are being submitted for selection to the IFB Premier 20 Leadership Conference and Illinois 4-H LCP (Leadership, Citizenship, & Professionalism) Award.

The Transmittal for these awards has been posted to the 4-H Contacts portal: Awards, Scholarships & Recognition.

New staff will want to review the 4-H Award Procedures and Policies in the Recognition for Excellence Illinois 4-H Awards Program Guide for Units that was sent to all county offices in early August. Depending upon your county award procedures, nominees for State 4-H Awards may already have been selected from your county/unit. Those youth have from now until the January 4th deadline (or earlier if you so choose) to update and revise their award applications before submitting them to the state process.

If you have questions on how to help your members complete these forms, please contact me and I will be glad to walk you through the process so that they can prepare the applications to their best advantage.

I am also seeking volunteers to help with the State 4-H Award Selection process on Saturday, January 28 in Champaign. Judges cannot have ANY personal ties to ANY of the applicants submitted....this includes parents, siblings, grandparents, 4-H leaders, and/or Extension staff who have helped members with their applications. Extension staff may assist if they have the permission of their county director. We will furnish hotel rooms for judges who are traveling more than 1-1/2 hours from Champaign. (Extension staff will need to initially pay for their room, then we will provide reimbursement.) I will be contacting past judges in early December about this process, but if you are interested (or have volunteers interested), please let me know.

Posted by Debra Stocker at 1:30 PM | Permalink |
Categories: Awards, Scholarships & Recognition, Teens, Volunteers

November 30, 2011

December 12 Is Deadline for National 4-H Conference Applications

We are looking for two additional Illinois 4-H Youth who would be interested in attending the 2012 National 4-H Conference in Washington, D.C. in March. Members must be 15-18 years of age by January 1, 2012 and willing to fulfill a year-long commitment to a special project following the 2012 Conference. The Illinois delegation for this event should represent all aspects of the Illinois 4-H program, so we are especially looking for 4-H representatives from the northern 1/3 of Illinois. (The other 4 youth representatives for this event are members of the Illinois State 4-H Youth Leadership Team.)

National 4-H Conference is a working conference that involves young people discussing various youth-related issues with teens from around the country and preparing an action plan for 4-H members on the local, state, and national level. Action plan briefs are then presented to various agencies, legislators, and/or national organizations as part of the Conference experience. The 2011 issues revolved around topics such as bullying, distracted driving, retention of older 4-H members, obesity, hanger, science & technology, and social media. Delegates will also spend time in workshops, visiting federal legislators and sharing ideas with other teens.

Our Illinois travel dates for this conference are Saturday, March 24 through Friday, March 30. Delegate costs for the trip include a $350 participant fee (of which $150 is returned following their one-year commitment), a few meals, transportation in Washington D.C., and their own incidentials. The State 4-H Office and Illinois 4-H Foundation pick up the delegate registration costs (approximately $800), airline ticket, most meals, and room at the National 4-H Center. Some financial assistance may be available to help cover part of the participant fee (contact Deb Stocker for more information).

The 2012 Conference Fact Sheet and Application are posted on the 4-H Contacts portal, Events/Statewide/National 4-H Conference: 2012 National 4-H Conference Fact Sheet & Application. Applications are due December 12; the deadline may be extended if enough applications are not received.

Posted by Debra Stocker at 1:25 PM | Permalink |
Categories: National Events, Teens

November 21, 2011

Jr. Leadership Conference Registration OPEN!

Registration is OPEN for the 2012 Illinois 4-H Jr. Leadership Conference! The Illinois State 4-H Youth Leadership Team provides this event for junior high (7th and 8th grade) 4-H members. This year's conference is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, February 25-27 at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Conference Center in Urbana.

The 2012 theme is Find the Clue to the Leader in U. All youth attend all workshops - 2012 topics will include Animal Science, Community Service, Forensics Science, Leadership Development, and Theatre Arts. In addition, delegates will have a great time with all of the mixers and team-building activities planned to keep them active and involved.

The registration cost has increased to $125 for the 2012 conference and includes the hotel room, 3 meals, programming materials, special insurance, and conference t-shirt. 2012 Illinois 4-H Junior Leadership Conference Registration. Members attending are permitted to bring along one non-4-H friend. Registration is currently open and will close Monday, January 30. Final payments and paperwork must be postmarked by February 1 or the registration will be cancelled.

A limited number of scholarships are available for first-time 4-H members. The application is available on the 4-H contacts portal and the Illinois 4-H website and is due by Monday, January 9. Illinois 4-H JLC Scholarship

Adult chaperones are also needed for this event. Chaperones are placed in charge of up to 10 youth of the same gender. All chaperones must be screened by the University of Illinois Extension Volunteer Screening process and must pay the $125 registration fee. If they wish to have a single hotel room, an additional fee is required.

Various promotional pieces are located on the 4-H Contacts portal under Events/Statewide/Illinois 4-H Junior Leadership Conference. Please contact any YLT member or Deb Stocker (dstocker@illinois.edu) if you have any questions.

Posted by Debra Stocker at 4:05 PM | Permalink |
Categories: JLC, YLT

November 17, 2011

Expanded Club Secretary's Handbook Now Available

We have had a couple of requests for additional pages in the writeable PDF Secretary's Handbook for clubs with over 35 members. We have added those - and you'll find the updated PDF on the Portal under Curriculum Support/Handbooks for Officers.


Posted by Madonna Weese at 3:32 PM | Permalink |
Categories: Clubs

November 17, 2011

Welcome to our new blog!

Hi - and welcome to The Leaflet, the new blog created just for U of I Extension staff who work with the Illinois 4-H program.

The goal of the blog is to provide you with current, easy-to-read, searchable information to help you manage your local 4-H program.

We'll post the information in bite-sized chunks, with links to the Portal or publicly available websites where appropriate. As we add more and more content to the blog, the tag cloud to the right should allow you to find exactly the item you're looking for when you have an "I know I read that somewhere" moment.

As with most new things, The Leaflet will be a work-in-progress. We hope to add a "comments" feature soon, to allow you to ask questions relating to the blog posts. Let us know what you like, and what you'd like to see us work on. We want to be sure it meets your needs.

And before you get back to what you were doing before you opened the link to this page, please bookmark this site or add it to your Favorites ... and put a reminder in your calendar to check the blog again in a few days. If it does what blogs are supposed to do, you'll see some fresh, new content!



Posted by Kathy Reiser at 3:09 PM | Permalink |