August/September 2021 Calhoun County 4 H and Clover Kids News

Calhoun County 4-H and Clover Kids News ISU Extension and Outreach

Calhoun County

Tiffany Blair-County Youth

Coordinator

325 Court St.

PO Box 233

Rockwell City, IA 50579

712-297-8611

[email protected]

Upcoming Dates to Remember: • September 6— New and

returning enrollment begins • September 15— Record

books and county applications are due

• October 1— Enrollment is

due for 2021-2022 • October 1 —4-H Youth

Council applications due • January 8— Market Beef

weigh in • March 19—Swine weigh in • April 23—Sheep and Goat

weigh in • July 5-10— Calhoun

County Expo

Wow! What a great year we had for the 2021 Calhoun County

Expo! I am so proud of all of your hard work and dedication to the

Calhoun County 4-H program. Thank you to all of the 4-H

members, club leaders, and parents who volunteered in any way

during the Expo. We couldn't make it happen without your help

and support. Also, please help me in giving a BIG thank you to

the Calhoun County Fairboard for their countless hours of

volunteering and hard work during the Expo. Please be sure to

send your trophy sponsors their thank you card if you have not

done so yet. I have extra blank thank you cards in my office if you

need one.

With the start of schools next week, it is time to wrap up our

2020-2021 4-H year and get ready for the next year together.

Before we begin our new year, we need to wrap up things from

last 4-H year. Record books for 4-H’ers are due to your club

leaders by September 15, or sooner if they request it. Leaders

will have your ribbon premium checks and will give them to you

once your turn in your record book. Along with record books,

county award applications are due at that time as well. Please

refer to the instructions later in this newsletter, ask your club

leader, or call the Extension office if you have any questions

about either record books or county awards. Reminder, you

MUST have been signed up in 4HOnline for the project area by

May 15 in order to apply for a county award in that area.

Please let me know if you have any questions about anything in

this newsletter or any other 4-H or Clover Kids concerns.

Sincerely, Tiffany Blair Past Newsletters: https://www.extension.iastate.edu/calhoun/4h

From the Desk of Tiffany Blair

August/September 2021

New and Re-Enrollment

New and returning enrollments for Calhoun County Clover Kids and 4-H’ers will begin September

6, 2021. Your current account will go “inactive” starting August 27 and you will be unable to

access your account. Starting September 6, you will need to re-enroll if you wish to participate for

the new school year. It is very important that you use your same account from this program year

and do not create a new one. Instructions for re-enrolling are below. Enrollments for Clover Kids

and 4-H’ers will be due October 1, 2021 in order to participate and be covered by our insurance

policy for the 2021-2022 year. Clover Kids will need to mail or drop off a check for $15 per

member (max of $30 per family) to the Extension Office to complete your enrollment. 4-H

members, please contact your club leader at your first meeting for enrollment fee information.

Please plan to have all enrollment dues paid by November 1, 2021. Your account will remain

‘pending’ and you will not be able to access it until your enrollment dues have been paid. Once

they have been paid, your account will be switched to an approved status. If you would like schol-

arship information for Calhoun County 4-H, please contact Tiffany at 712-297-8611.

*For the full enrollment instructions, please go

to the Calhoun County Extension and Outreach

website at: www.extension.iastate.edu/calhoun

Iowa State University Extension and Outreach does not discriminate on the basis of age, disability, ethnicity, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, national origin, pregnancy, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, or status as a U.S. veteran. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Inquiries regarding non-discrimination policies may be directed to Ross Wilburn, Diversity Officer, 2150 Beardshear Hall, 515 Morrill Road, Ames, Iowa 50011, 515-294-1482, [email protected]. EOADV.15.04W November 2016

Starting immediately for the 2021-2022 program year, all

youth, both Clover Kids and 4-H’ers will be required to

attend a minimum of 3 meetings and/or events in order to

exhibit at the Calhoun County Expo. Leaders will be

tracking youth attendance and turning a report into me by

June 1,2022. Participating in club meetings and events is

very important to the success of your 4-H experience! 4-H

is so much more than exhibiting at the Fair, and it is my

hope for all youth to get the full experience. If you have

questions or concerns about meeting this new requirement,

please reach out to me and I would be happy to discuss

further.

Club Meeting Requirements

Club Leader Volunteers Needed!

The Calhoun County 4-H and Clover Kids program is seeking

additional adults to volunteer as Club Leaders for the upcoming

4-H year.

If you or anyone you know would like additional information, please

contact Tiffany at the Extension office at 712-297-8611 or by email at

[email protected].

Iowa State Fair 2021

Congratulations to all youth who participated in the Iowa State Fair this year. Whether it was in

livestock, clothing, communications, and/or your static exhibit advanced, I am so proud of you all

and happy to have you represent Calhoun County! It has been so fun seeing your pictures pop

up on Facebook or getting your results back from the State Office. Official results for Static,

Clothing, and Communication events can be viewed online here: https://fairentry.com/Fair/

Results/15728; be sure to sort by County. And Livestock results can be viewed here: https://

fairentry.com/Fair/Results/15526. Reminder to be patient as they work to get those results

updated as soon as possible.

If you had Static exhibits advance, reminder those will be back in the office and ready for pick up

starting Tuesday, August 24. Please make time to pick them up by Friday, August 27. At that

time, you will also get your ribbons and comment sheets from the judges.

Clover Kids Welcome Event

Please join us for a Welcome to Clover Kids Family Event on Sunday, September 19, at 3:00pm

at the Calhoun County Expo Center in Rockwell City. All Calhoun County Clover Kids members,

new and returning, and their families are invited to join together for an informational event about

the upcoming program year, meet your leaders, and more! If you know someone who is interested

in joining our program, please invite them to join in the fun!

Monthly Meetings for 2021-2022

Monthly Clover Kids meetings will begin in October 2021 and run through May 2022. Again for

this program year, we will offer multiple meeting locations around the County. Specific meeting

towns will be announced before the September enrollment date opens. We are working on

setting the final logistics for the year. Yearly plans will be provided to each enrolling family in

September as well so you know when and where your group will meet. More to come soon!

Best of LUCK to our 2021 Graduated Seniors!

I want to wish each of our graduated 2021 Seniors the best of luck this year with your upcoming

endeavors! We will sure miss you in Calhoun County 4-H, but know that you are going to do

great things this coming year. Be sure to stop in and visit every once in while!


Youth that will be in high school this year are invited to join the Calhoun County 4-H Youth

Council. As a 4-H Youth Council member, you will have the opportunity to work directly with

Tiffany to plan special events and workshops for other 4-H members in Calhoun. Specifically for

this program year, a Jr. Lock-In event! You will also take charge of the ongoing pop tab collections

from around the county and more. The 4-H Youth Council meets once a month during the program

year to plan these events and brainstorm ways to improve the 4-H program and recruit new

members. To join the 4-H Youth Council, youth must fill out an application and submit it to the

Extension office by Friday, October 1.

Applications can be found on our website at https://www.extension.iastate.edu/calhoun/4h. They

will also be mailed to all eligible members. Please let Tiffany know if you have any questions about

joining 4-H Youth Council!

4-H Youth County Council

Record Book Instructions

Your record book is very important. It is where you document all the things you have learned in 4-H

over the past year and your entire 4-H career. It will come in handy when filling out applications for

awards and scholarships and when applying for college. That may not seem important now, but ask

anyone who recently graduated how easy it was to go to their record book and get the details of

how many hours of service they gave to their school or a community organization, and they will tell

you their record book was invaluable. You forget a lot, but the record book keeps those details for

you. It also helps you compare the cost of a new feeding program you tried for your livestock pro-

jects, or how much money you made selling your eggs or produce. Again, this may not seem im-

portant right now, but it will at some point, and you will be grateful you took the time to do it.

Your record book is a record of facts, not a scrap book. Any pictures and comments should be

used for historical value and should support your work and things you learned. Ribbons, and other

keepsake items should be kept in another location, not your record book.

Your record book should include a cover page which should have a picture of you, the 4-H year,

your club, and a sentence or two about you. Remember, this is a record of the year you are just fin-

ishing so the year would be 2020-2021, and your grade is the grade you just completed not the one

you are going into.

After your cover sheet, you should have the Yearly Summary. This form and other recordkeeping

forms can be found at: www.extension.iastate.edu/calhoun/4h . Scroll down to the 4-H Record

Book Forms link.

(Continued)


Please remember this is your 4-H record and should focus on your 4-H experience. When it asks

for offices held and committees, please list only your 4-H related offices and committees. If you

were class president or on student council, you can include that later when it asks about your

school involvement.

After the Yearly Summary, you will include each of your project records. I recommend the

Experienced record for anyone who is in grades 4-8. The Basic Record is nice, but it does not

include a spot for income and expenses. One of the requirements for county awards is that you

show income and expenses for the project area, and the Experienced form has that built in.

Remember, the project record is a record of your experience in an area for the whole year, not just

a record for one exhibit. For example, if I signed up for food and nutrition, I would want to list

several goals for that area which may have included shopping for healthy choices, learning how to

distinguish between dry and liquid measuring cups, and making banana bread. I would explain

what I did while shopping and how I learned if an item was a healthy choice or not; I might include

researching the internet for the food pyramid and talking to my parents about those choices. I

would also explain how my grandma talked to me about the different types of measuring cups, and

I may include learning how to level dry ingredients as well. Then I would talk about selecting my

recipe for banana bread and my experiences as I practiced making it. I would include the mistakes

I made and how I would correct those mistakes when I make banana bread again. And I would

include that I took a loaf of banana bread to the county fair.

On the project record it asks about citizenship and leadership. This is where you document that

you helped your club at a food stand, or made cookies and gave to the coop for National 4-H

Week. And if you taught someone else a skill you learned, maybe taught a friend the difference

between measuring cups, you would include that here. For Junior members, this is really hard

because you are just learning and may not be confident in your skills yet, but try. Intermediate and

Senior members are at a level they should be helping others besides family members.

You will also be asked about communication opportunities, and you should list any that relate to

this project area. If you gave a club demonstration about measuring cups, or a Working Exhibit

about fruit kabobs, that would be related to the food and nutrition project. A presentation about

your dog would not go on your Food and Nutrition record, but would go on your Pets record.

The thing about 4-H is that you are learning life skills and you will share those skills in other areas

of your life as well. On the record where it asks about other things related to this area, you would

include those things like making tacos for your class’s Cinco de Mayo celebration, or working in

the food stand for your soccer team. It’s great that you are taking your 4-H experience and

expanding it into your life, so please share that.

Record Book Instructions Cont.


When it comes to the expense and income chart, you will want to include livestock premiums and

ribbon premiums as income. Blue ribbons are worth $9.51, red and participation ribbons are worth

$6.34, and white are $3.17. Livestock project areas have worksheets to help you document

expenses. Those are found at the link listed above too. Just remember you only need one project

form for your entire project, beef for example, even if you use both the breeding and market animal

worksheets.

Project awards can be applied for and received once as a Junior (4th-6th grade), once as an

Intermediate (7th-8th grade), and once as a Senior (9th-12th grade) 4-H member. To receive an

award you must fill out one Project Award Application form per award you are applying for. Please

do not put multiple awards on one form.

The requirements for project awards are found in the first document, “Project Award

Requirements”. Please notice that there are different requirements depending on your 4-H level.

Also remember this is an award for work completed this past year, so if you are going into 7th

grade, you will be filling the application out for your 6th grade experience and will follow Junior

requirements, not Intermediate.

Completely fill information into the “Project Award Application” to help leaders. For example, fill in

the blanks with the number of meetings you attended along with the number of meetings held, list

club activities, communication, and leadership, etc. All of this information should be included in

your record book on your Yearly Summary or Project Record form for your leader to verify. For

example, if you listed the Calhoun County Expo as a county event you attended, your leader

should be able to go to your yearly summary and check under the section labeled “4-H

Participation” and see the Expo listed.

Special Awards include Top Junior, Intermediate, and Senior 4-H member, Ak-Sar-Ben,

Achievement, Merit, and I Dare You awards. Please refer to the Special Award Requirements for

these awards, and fill out one Special Award Application per award. When you look at the award

application, you will notice there is not much room to document the information. Please feel free to

attach additional pages if needed. Each award may be received only one time.

The Reading Award is something all 4-H members should qualify for and can be received each

year. The only requirement is that you have read 6 books over the past year. You will need to

document the title, author, where you got the book, and a few sentences about the book.

All award applications need to be submitted along with your record book to your leader by

September 15, unless they have requested them earlier.

Record Book Instructions Cont.

County Awards Instructions

This is the time of year when Iowa 4-H volunteers and 4-H club members begin to plan out their

program year and look to the fall. As you consider goals for the year as well as programming that

the youth want to accomplish, it’s important to also consider how the club meetings will be

structured. 4-H club meetings aim to be a time where youth have fun, make friends, discover one’s

voice, and learn to work with others, all while developing the four youth needs of belonging, mas-

tery, independence, and generosity. There are resources to support volunteers in meeting club

goals while maintaining a vibrant 4-H club. One of these resources that can assist 4-H club lead-

ers as they work with 4-H youth to plan the program year is the “Building A Vibrant Club”

resource. The “Building A Vibrant Club” resource helps leaders to consider the four parts of a club

meeting and how much time should ideally be spent on each section of the meeting, from the

welcome and education components, to the recreation and the business meeting. All four parts of

the meeting are critical to the success of creating a vibrant club! Check out the “Building A Vibrant

Club” resource and supporting resources in this series and gain new ideas to assist in the

planning of 4-H club meetings.

From the Volunteer Resources webpage https://www.extension.iastate.edu/4h/

volunteerresources, under “Leader Resources” you will find the “Building a Vibrant Club”

resource. Utilize this resource as you plan for the program year and club meetings. Remember

to always include youth voice in your planning.

You can also find the “Building A Vibrant Club” resource on the extension store https://

store.extension.iastate.edu/ by clicking on the 4-H tab on the top menu bar and then choose

“Volunteer Resources”. You can find additional supporting documents in the Vibrant Club

series resources on the extension store, under Volunteer Resources, on the left click on

Vibrant Club Series. Each of the resources

follows the “Building A Vibrant Club” out-

line and focuses on one of the four areas

of a 4-H club meeting. Volunteers and

youth are encouraged to utilize the re-

sources in the Vibrant Club series and

incorporate into club meetings!

https://www.extension.iastate.edu/4h/volunteerresources

https://www.extension.iastate.edu/4h/volunteerresources

https://store.extension.iastate.edu/

https://store.extension.iastate.edu/

August/September 2021 Calhoun County 4 H and Clover Kids News

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