Hello everyone,
My name is Addy, and I’m the Alberta Representative on the YAC for the Canadian 4-H Council.
Its that time of year again, the snow is leaving, and the mud is rising, and yes I have even heard those pesky gophers chirping to each other. That said the focus turns on getting those 4-H projects finished, ridden or halter broke. Yes, spring is definately 4-H’s season. It won’t be long and there will be achievement days nationwide, not to mention the very important Annual General Meeting in Ottawa this meeting.
Cheers
Addy
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Hey, We have been very busy in the new year with a lot of exciting stuff happing. Gerry Sullivan is back on as our Liaison for another year. The Strategic Planning Committee has been very busy looking into what we will be doing over the next few years. As part of this we will have a reporter that will write articles for provincial publications to keep everyone in the loop about what is happening . Everyone is looking forward to our presentation at AGM. We are still trying to decide on a topic so if anyone has any ideas feel free to let us know. Cheers James Grant Happy New Year to everyone and I hope you enjoyed your holidays! My name is Gillian MacDougall and I am from Ormstown, Quebec. At the moment I am attending Carleton University in Ottawa and I am working on a degree in psychology. I have been involved in Quebec 4-H for many years and this year will be my third year on the Youth Advisory Committee. With the New Year the YAC is also going to be seeing some new face. We have a new executive, Holly Eng from British Columbia as chair, myself, Gillian, as vice-chair and Victoria Blakely from New Brunswick as secretary. We will miss all of those who are leaving us, Carrie Elliott, Nikki Thiessen, James Craig and Matthew Bryson. So 2010 should be an exciting new year and I will keep you posted during the rest of the month with both YAC and QC 4-H news. Hello 4-Hers! Our YAC year is coming to an end and that means tears for our leaving members and fears about meeting the new ones (kidding!). I look forward to talking and being introduced to all of our new YAC members, and if you are interested in YAC remember to talk to a current or past YAC member so they can tell you all the fun we get to have. I just want to really thank our chair this year, Carrie Elliot who did such a great job keeping us all connected and excited about YAC. Also a big thanks to her right hand man, James C and to Nikki and of course our wonderful liasion, Gerry. Because it is December and you need to start holiday shopping (now boys, not in a few weeks!), I suggest that you take a gander at your provincial websites or the Canadian 4-H Council’s website to see what they have for 4-H gear. I was just on the staff with the National Conference and as a thank you they gave me 4-H headphones and 4-H post its! Those would make pretty fun stocking stuffers for your friends and family. Also I know that the BC 4-H Supply Service has 4-H flip flops, which when you step leave a 4-H, and that they also have stress balls shaped like various 4-H animal projects. So many cool things…I also heard a rumor that Newfoundland got some new fun 4-H items. So happy shopping! I should get back to studying now, so good luck to everyone with the end of term and have a safe and happy holiday season! Holly Hello everyone, From the Members: Today, we listened to a very knowledgeable speaker about Environmental Sustainability. His information was very interesting. Afterward, we had our beautiful group picture – we were very glad that everyone took pride in their appearance today. Next we went to John Deere, where we had a great lunch – special thanks to John Deere for that – and saw the training facilities. Looking at the tractors was pretty cool – it was a nice touch to the conference. We want to say a big thanks to John Deere for their 4-H support. Then we went to Niagara Falls, which was exhilarating. We toured the tunnels behind the Falls, watched a CRAZY 4-D movie about the history of the Falls, and toured the site around the Falls. There was great food, shopping, and some interesting museums that we toured. We had a fantastic homestyle-cooked meal – huge thanks to Puddicombes’. After our meal had a presentation by Margaret Webb, who presented us with some interesting (although perhaps a bit controversial) ideas. From the Leaders: Best practices meeting for leaders had very good sharing going on. Lots of super fundraising ideas, ideas on helping to make meetings interesting, and some practical hands on ideas for the leaders to help motivate and teach. We will be having copies of all ideas given out for leaders to take home. Everyone was commenting on how useful this meeting was – “why reinvent the wheel when we have all this knowledge in this room right here?” John Deere tour was “phenomenal” !!! The tour guide named Jennifer was just excellent: Young, intelligent, motivational for our youth, and a terrific role model. We learned about the company and its global commitments, then went with the head teacher Frank to test our farm safety skills. We are such a SMART group !!! A great time was had by all, great snacks for the leaders, and all leaders and members were given John Deere hats for free !!! We had a group leaders photo taken – some of us city folks even climbed up on the shiny green tractors. Many of the leaders, male and female, were wanting to have those beautiful green John Deere machines on their yards at home……..Santa, it’s a big wish list this year !!! The tour was well worth going to. Niagara Falls “that’s a fair bit of water eh?”. All leaders had a great time – so glad we went !!!! Most of the leaders took in the Falls, some even braving the under-the-falls experience. There were a group of 7 that piled onto a 4 passenger carriage ride and had a fantastic time! They are very thankful to the driver for giving them a half price deal too!!! We all had coupon books given to us too, which were very well used and appreciated. Many of us went souvenir shopping and were sooooooo surprised that the prices were very reasonable – even “cheap” for great things !!! Those who dared go wayyyy up high in the sky took a ride on the HUGE ferris wheel to have the grandest view of the Falls. Highlight of the day for one leader was to watch the faces of the members who had never been to Niagara before – they were bedazzled and sooooo excited !! The wax museum of criminals was incredible – the haunted house was great (there are three of them but we were actually too scared after the first one to go in another one !!!) – and Ripley’s Believe it or Not is unbelievably interesting! There is a tonne of stuff to see and do at Niagara, we could have easily spent 2 – 3 days there just to take it all in. A very family friendly place and many of us plan on heading back in the future with our families ! I can’t wait to take mine ! From ages 3 to 103, Niagara Falls has many things for everyone. We had a great tour on the way back to Toronto – seeing the Christmas lighted pictures and the Wellington Canal. We also had a tourist video of Toronto while on the bus which gave us a better glimpse of this terrific city. The night lights went on for what seemed like forever when we arrived back in Toronto. “Whole lot different view from the farm!” At leaders’ Mingles tonight we build the CN towers out of mini-marshmallows and toothpicks. Judging was a lot of fun, with humourous input all around. We had one tall tower, many that even had a revolving restaurant, and others that looked like……..well, they looked like space aliens frankly! Lots of fun times ! Why is it we don’t do these silly things at home? Thanks to all the people who have worked so hard to make arrangements for this National Conference. For so many of us, the experience has been all inspiring, all new, and all enjoyable. We have two more days of bliss and already most of us have had the time of our lives. Today was a fantastic day! Reminiscing more about yesterday: We all learned to do a pizza dance, how to count in Chinese, met some terrific people, charged up our energy levels and we all still think Mark the speaker is great. Adults had a great time making chickens at Mingles, and falling off chairs playing spoons and shuffle bums. Today the members woke up to a hearty breakfast – great hash-browns at the Marriot !! After breakfast, they had Mark the speaker again, topic: future in the agri business. In a provincial sharing session, everyone really liked the banana split program! You get points for attending meetings and you get more toppings on your b-split. Really neat! Really Sweet!! We also went to the TD Bank learned exchange and currency, thanks to TD for the tour and the snacks ! You ARE a great sponsor!!! Awesome cheese! Then to CN Tower “it’s tall, some of us were scared of the height, some lay on the floor (adults too). “The glass put a little edge to it” Awesome elevator!! After tower went to Dinner theatre! Tim didn’t do it!! They had a great play – the actors were amazing a very good dinner theater. Loved that they included the audience. Leaders had “the best sleep ever last night”. Great breakfast – so nice not to cook! Thanks Marriot! Our presenters had lots of great quick team building activities for us. They were very encouraging and had us doing some great discussions of the different generations and how we can relate to them in 4-H. One of our silly moments included driving a tractor with a mirror and a pencil. You just had to be here! Our trip to the CN tower gave us a tour of the city; our bus driver was very informative. The CN tower was “TALL.” Apparently it took 7 hours to carry a piano up the stairs to the top. Leaders took lots of pictures and some bravely lay on the glass, crawling on and off! Dinner theatre after the CN Tower was a super experience. Many hugs from Tracy kept Mike Holmes happy!! November 4 was Show Your 4-H Colours day across Canada, and there were a lot of people doing just that. Green was the colour of the day! There’s still plenty of time to enter the Show Your 4-H Colours contest as well; just visit www.4-h-canada.ca/colours today! – Speaking of 4-H spirit, more than 120 4-H members and leaders arrived in Toronto yesterday for the annual National 4-H Conferences. They’ve already come up with a few highlights of the conference so far, with more on their way! #5- Broadening our horizons! That’s the theme of this year’s conference, and we’re already starting to think outside the box! #4- Finally learning what a blog is. A few on the blogging committee had never heard of one before. Learn to Do by Doing, right! #3- Great food, awesome dessert, and the hotel served MILK! #2- Meeting 4-Hers from across Canada- getting to know a tonne of new people, learn where they’re from, and making friends for years to come! AND drumroll…. #1- Mark Essay- Mark’s speech was tonnes of fun as he taught us to think outside the box, take control, and live to our potential. His Chinese numbers game was amazing (just wait until we teach you when we get home), and his Pizza Hut dance that we learned was awesome! He is speaking again today on the future of Canadian Agriculture, and as one delegate said: “THAT IS GOING TO BE AWESOME!” – Stay tuned to the blog, as we will have more updates and photos each day! GO 4-H! Good Evening Everyone! |
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