Nice write up, Bruce. My daughter is 7 in about 2 weeks and has asked about 4H a couple times. How indepth do they get with the meetings, or is 4H more a home project type of thing?
Very cool Bruce. I've been telling my wife lately that I want to sell this house in the next couple/few years and move further into the country. Mostly for the kids sake. I want to have some animals that we raise ourselves and get them involved with it.
You will never regret it, Dan. It gives children so much confidence and teaches them many, many life lessons much better than being on a sports team.
I grew up in the outdoors and living on a lake. Gave me the chance to be outside anytime I wanted. Grandparents lived next to some farms and I spent a lot of time around them. Like you say, the life lessons it teaches kids is priceless and I'm also not big into sports. Here's a quote from an article in the local paper last weekend.
I'm a freshman in college, so this is actually my last year in 4h. I've been involved in it since I was in 3rd grade I think. For the meetings, it all really depends on which club you join. For our club we have one meeting a month that lasts a half hour to 45 minutes about. Then at the same time it actually is more of a at home thing, because that is where all the projects get done. It really is a great organization to be involved with, whether you're into showing animals or not. Projects include anything from fashion review to quilting to model rockets to shop projects to any animal you could possibly think about showing. If you have any other questions about 4h don't be afraid to PM me!
Sorry, I didn't see this until I saw PCOutfitters reply. What he says about covers it but there can be more meetings if the child is competing against other 4H'r or doing more than just what their club offers. My daughter competed in the Horsebowl competition last year and they met once a week to cover information about horses, extremely in-depth, and questions that would be asked at the staewide comp. Winners went to the National comp. although the gains in knowledge really make everyone a winner as cliche as that sounds. She is currently in the Skill-a-thon which covers info on a variety animals, cows, goats, pigs, chickens. Then there are the judging skills where they can go and learn to judge animals at 4H competitions. The bulk of it, as PCOutfitters says, really occurs at home so it is also a lot of opportunity for parents and child to do things together and for us parents to share a lot of our life lessons and knowledge. The nice thing about it is it can be as much or as little as your child can handle and can change to suit your child as she/he grows.
^^^ forgot to add that part about the horses. Should have known better too because everyone in my family is involved in our County's horse project too except for me haha. Another thing I forgot to add was that every now and then the clubs will have little parties or get togethers like a club bowling night, going to amusement parks, going skiing/snowboarding together, etc. It can really be a blast!
Thanks for the info. If OK may try to contact a couple of you for a bit more indepth info. (IE Bruce and PC)
sounds good. You should also have a state and county 4H website and they may be able to help you also.
I tried saying that too, but more often than not, I still ended up taking care of them somehow! Good luck!
