New 4-H Horse Project Coordinator Hired- Kelsey Nordyke, former 4-H member from Grant county, is finishing her Masters degree at K-State this spring and will be helping with 4-H Horse activities. Kelsey will be working out of the State 4-H Office on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but can be reached via e-mail at: knordyke@oznet.ksu.edu 
Phone: 785-532-5800 or 785-532-1171 during other parts of the week. Adams

Centennial Logo Merchandise and Update - A panel including myself, Anthea Bryant from the State Fair staff, Robyn Swonger, Justin Wiebers and Nancy Peterson presented a pre-convention workshop for about 50 members of the Kansas Fairs Association at their annual meeting on January 7, 2005. Folders of handout materials were left for others to pick up, so you may be hearing about this from some of your Fair Board members who attended. Your offices have already received all of this information, either in communications from me, or on the Centennial website, except for three handouts presented by Nancy Peterson. Nancy's office was to send you electronic copies of these the week of Jan. 10.

We covered the time line for the Centennial, focusing on the events for the 2005 and 2006 State Fairs, the website where to find information, marketing helps, and ways to adapt or adopt some of these ideas into the county fairs.

Some of this same information was also presented to the State 4-H Advisory on Jan. 8, and Pat McNally will be giving a brief report on the Centennial at the Partnership meetings that are coming up.

Thanks to Andrea Addison and N Zone, we were able to have samples of the Centennial logo t-shirts there also. I want to cover the ordering process for the logo merchandise to clarify any misunderstanding. If you have checked the Centennial link on the 4-H home page in the past week, you will have seen an order form for Centennial CLOTHING ITEMS ONLY. Customers who use this form on the web site will have to pay tax and shipping. This form is there for the interested 4-H person who may not be actively connected to 4-H locally, but who might still want to celebrate the Centennial.

On January 13, N Zone will directly mail to each Extension office, a pre-order form for CLOTHING ITEMS ONLY. ORDER BY FEB. 4 TO RECEIVE MERCHANDISE THE WEEK OF FEB. 14. The purpose of this pre-order is to give you the opportunity to order display items of the logo clothing items (and maybe one for you to wear early.) This will allow you to show 4-H clubs what the items look like before they make their orders. To facilitate N Zone's production schedule, they will hold orders and print/embroider to deliver the three times listed on the order form.

Regular ordering dates for Clothing merchandise: May 15 for June 1 delivery; June 15 for June 30 delivery; August 15 for August 31 delivery.

Ordering dates for non-clothing merchandise: June 1 for July 1 delivery; August 1 to have by State Fair.

In April, N Zone will mail your office the order form and instructions that you will distribute to your clubs. They are planning to handle this order in the same way that the "Walk Kansas" items were made available. In addition to the clothing items that are available, there will be a number of other promotional items that will feature the Centennial logo, but there will be a STATE-WIDE MINIMUM NUMBER. Andrea assures me that these state minimum number orders are very reasonable, and we shouldn't have any problem meeting them with 105 counties ordering. These non-clothing items include: water bottles, lanyards, rubber bracelets, pennants, static cling window stickers, stainless steel tumblers, nylon drawstring backpacks, pens, pencils, balloons, and suckers.

I hope this information will be helpful to you as you begin your plan for promoting the Kansas 4-H Centennial logo promotional items in your county/district. Fisher

Area and State Award Applications Screening
Kansas 4-H Award Applications (KAA) Evaluation
Nominations for State KAA & Scholarship Judging

REVISED & CORRECTED LETTER OF DECEMBER 6, 2004

The original letter mailed to you hard copy in early December contained incorrect and misleading information. In particular, the letter appeared to limit opportunities for judging and applications instead of expanding them. I apologize for these errors as they were missed as we attempted to transition the document to a generic format applicable to both county and district Extension Units. In addition, an old Alumni Recognition form was attached.

The letter in its REVISED & CORRECTED version has been posted to the Intranet for Agents and Office Professionals to print off with the correct Alumni Recognition form. You can find the corrected document and two attachments in pdf. format at the following intranet url: http://intranet.oznet.ksu.edu/4-h/

Click on 4-H Recognition and Awards Judging Letter and Attachments -- Corrections.

I apologize again and look forward to seeing great participation in the state 2005 Kansas 4-H Recognition program. Gerhard

The 2004 Statistical Report for Kansas 4-H Youth Development - Is now available on the Web at:
 http://www.Kansas4-H.org/About/Statistics/

The Statistical Report includes some of the following features:

Percentage of youth in the state of Kansas enrolled in 4-H and the delivery modes used to contact them; volunteer totals; ethnicity and race of 4-H youth; residence of the youth; gender; and 4-H projects and programs that were completed this year by curriculum category.

The Statistical Report also includes graphs of some of the tables, school grade breakdowns, curriculum categories ranked by participation, and definitions used by the Department of Agriculture in the ES-237 report. Member enrollment in the five major delivery modes are broken down by Extension units within the four Extension areas.

Questions about the Statistical Report should be directed to Cheryl Thomas, cthomas@oznet.ksu.edu, 785-532-5800.  Thomas

Entries for the 4-H Horticulture and Photography Events - At the Wichita Garden Show are due February 11. Information on the events and the entry forms are available at the Wichita Garden Show website: http://www.wichitagardenshow.com/fourh.html.

Eric Otte is the contact person for the Photography Events eotte@oznet.ksu.edu or 316-722-7721. Evelyn Neier is the contact person for the Horticulture Events eneier@oznet.ksu.edu or
316-722-0932. Neier

"How 4-H Benefits America" - National 4-H Supply Service wants to know how you think 4-H benefits America and your story could be used in the 2007 National 4-H Calendar.

Sending in a submission may even get you a free gift certificate towards your next purchase of merchandise from the 4-H Source Book!

The 2007 calendar theme is "How 4-H Benefits America". It will be up to 4-H members, volunteers, parents, staff and partners to furnish the stories that will be featured. These personal testaments must tell the what, when, where, why, and how, so everyone can understand how 4-H benefits America.

One story for each month will be featured in the calendar and the author will receive one $10 gift certificate towards a future purchase in the 4-H Source Book. Please limit your entry to 125 words due to the space restrictions of the calendar.

Please e-mail, fax or mail (submission date is April 30th) your stories to:

Maria Cascioli
National 4-H Supply Service
7100 Connecticut Avenue
Chevy Chase, MD 20815
Phone: 301 961 2948
Fax: 301 961 2937

mcascioli@fourhcouncil.edu
mailto: mcascioli@fourhcouncil.edu
http://www.4-hmall.org
McNally

Youth Exchange Programs - If your 4-H program is interested in involvement in a youth exchange with another state, a great place to find the resources you will need is this website:
http://www.4-h.org/resources/  McNally

Kansas 4-H Citizenship in Action - Information about the legislative visit to Topeka on February 20-21 has been posted on the web.  This event is being planned and conducted by the State 4-H Youth Council who gave it the name “Citizenship in Action” at their January meeting.  Registration forms are due in local Extension Offices Monday, February 7 and need to be immediately sent on to the State 4-H Office.  For more information, please visit the Citizenship in Action web page or contact Justin Wiebers.
Wiebers

State Fair Building - Progress is being made on the 4-H building at the State Fairgrounds.  To see pictures of the progress, please visit the Kansas State Fair page at the link above or from the Events menu on the Kansas 4-H web site. Wiebers

Basic 4-H Operations I training begins at 1 p.m. on Monday, April 18 and goes through 5 p.m. on Tuesday, April 19. All sessions will be held in Throckmorton Hall, Room 2002 on the K-State campus. This training is now part of the New Agent Training Cycle, but anyone in the system that would like a refresher course is welcome.

Topics to be addressed include:

4-H Financial Management, VIP, Accountability to the 4-H mission, Learning through Events, Risk Management, Program Planning, Program Management and more.

Diane Mack, Extension Specialist, 4-H Youth Development, NE and Beth Hinshaw, Extension Specialist, 4-H Youth Development, SE are co-presenters for this training.

If you have questions, please contact Diane or Beth. Cost to attend is $20 payable to the Kansas 4-H Foundation. Please contact Diane Mack at: dmack@oznet.ksu.edu by April 1 if you plan to attend. Hope to see you there! Mack/Hinshaw

Teens’ Expectations of Adults - The State 4-H Youth Council met in January to get to know one another and prepare for the coming year of programs and activities.  During this process, they outlined their goals and expectations of each other and of their advisors.  The items listed below were intended for their advisors, but might be useful reminders for all adults who works with teens:

1.         Guide us, but don’t do it for us.
2.         Be open-minded to everything we say.
3.         Make the best better.
4.         Be accessible to us.
5.         Help us find resources. Don’t give us answers.
6.         Understand we’re still kids.
7.         We’ll make mistakes. Deal with it.
8.         Don’t tell us we can’t unless our concept isn’t at all feasible.
9.         Let us fail to a certain extent.
10.       Learn from us.
11.       Be a part of evaluation process.  Critique our actions for future
           years. Wiebers

If you were unable to attend and are interested in the information that was presented, contact your area 4-H Youth Development specialist. Mack

Scholarship Application is Form-Fill-able - The Kansas 4-H Scholarship Application has been made into an Adobe Acrobat fill-able form.  This form may be completed on computers with Adobe Acrobat Reader and printed.  It will not yet be able to be saved unless the computer has the full version of Adobe Acrobat.

Discovery Days - The 4-H Discovery Days Action Team is excited about the changes coming up this summer!  The schedule starts Tuesday evening May 31 with several adventures across the K-State Campus and ends Friday morning at 11:00am.  There had been discussion about making Tuesday evening optional, but the State 4-H Advisory Committee has determined that it is in the best interest of the event and delegates to participate in the full program this year.  The Action Team will evaluate this change and make adjustments as necessary for 2006. 

The registration fee this year will be $150.  The extra night only added about $12.  The other $13 of the increase is necessary to cover overhead for conducting the event.  (Discovery Days lost money last year).

A pre-written 4-H newsletter article and newspaper press release will be available soon on the Discovery Days web page.  Additional registration information will be available and posted in February.  Agents will be notified via list-serve and Tuesday Letters.  Wiebers

Blue Ribbon Trainings

Several Blue Ribbon Youth Enrollment Software training sessions are planned around the state.  These sessions are designed to help participants become familiar with the many capabilities and practical uses of the Blue Ribbon Youth Enrollment Program.   Plenty of time to answer questions and address problems is also built into the schedule. Office professionals, agents, and, when appropriate, volunteers are encouraged to attend these sessions together so all can see the potential uses of this database software.  Space is limited at each training, so please contact Cheryl Thomas cthomas@oznet.ksu.edu or 785-532-5800 as soon as possible to make your reservation.  At lease one additional training will be offered in the south central area of the state, but has not been confirmed yet.

All sessions are from 10:00am to 3:00pm with a one hour break for lunch.

Thursday, February 24 – 4-H Building, Kelly Park, Burlington, KS
Friday, February 25 - Lawrence
Friday, March 4 – Manhattan
Wednesday, March 23 – Colby
Wiebers/Thomas

Spirit Leader Applications - Spirit Leader applicants are still needed!   The deadline has been extended to February 15.  A spirit leader is our Discovery Days Cheerleader!  If you are motivated, friendly, and fun, we want your application!  All interested guys and girls should apply now! Only 35 will be chosen.  Applications are on the Kansas 4-H website under "What's Hot" and on the Discovery Days page.  Applications should be mailed to:
Al Davis, 4-H CEA
Johnson County Extension Office
13480 S Arapaho Dr
Olathe, KS 66062
Davis

4-H Livestock Ear Tags -  Will continue to be used as in the past for 2005. Julie Voge will continue to administer the nomination process for market animals, etc. Watch for details on her website. Adams

Check Out This Fantastic Product Catalog - If you are searching for new training or teaching "tools" that can be used in a wide variety of situations and programs, check out FlagHouse at www.FlagHouse.com or call 800-793-7900 and order one of their catalogs. For those who are offering healthy lifestyles, physical movement, teambuilding, initiatives and similar programs, the products in this catalog are absolutely fantastically wonderful. McNally

National Volunteer Week - Celebrate National Volunteer Week, April 17-23, by recognizing your Extension volunteers!!!! Check out these websites and companies that offer a variety of recognition information and products which might be of interest to you!

http://www.nc4h.org/volunteers/recognition/
http://www.energizeinc.com/
http://www.unitedwaycc.org/volrec.htm
http://www..positivepromotions.com
http://www.voluncheer.com
http://www.energizeinc.com
McNally

4-H Venturers Headed to the Boundary Waters in 2005 - Details are being finalized for the 2005 Venturers Program, which offers a unique high adventure challenge to teens and adults who thrive on the "fear factor" and seek a wilderness experience.

The 2005 adventure will take place June 22-July 2 and will be offered to 27 teens and adults. The adventure include 6 days and 5 nights canoeing in the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area in northern Minnesota plus fun road trip adventures to the International Wolf Center in Ely, MN, as well as the Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior.

A promotional flyer and registration materials will be sent to your office by late January. These materials will also be available on the 4-H Venturers webpage: www.kansas4-h.org/Venturers  Registrations will be due April 1st in the State 4-H Office. McNally

Make checks payable to "Riley County Kennel Club" and mail, along with registration and proof of vaccinations to : Dan Rogers, 2909 Nevada, Manhattan, KS 66502.  If you have any questions please call (785-532-5813) daytime or (539-6340 evenings) or email drogers@ksu.edu

Check-in will begin at 8:30 AM.  An approximately one and one-half hour workshop will begin at 9:00 AM. The contest will begin approximately one half hour after the workshop.

You are required to clean up after your dog inside and out, and remove all trash when the match is over.  Dogs must be kept on leash or kenneled at all times when they are not in the ring.  Any individuals exhibiting unsportsmanlike behavior, any dog that attacks another dog, and any person found abusing dogs anywhere on the site, will be asked to leave.

The workshop and match will be conducted by Dr. Charles (Bud) Kramer, who will lead the workshop and discuss contest procedures and rules.  Dr Kramer conceived the basic concepts of Rally Style Obedience which were first published in an article on dog agility. 

Food stand available for continental breakfast and lunch.  Visit: http://www.www.Kansas4-H.org/ and :  What's Hot" for registration information.
Adams

Moving Ahead: Preparing the Youth Development Professional Training - We invite you to attend the "Moving Ahead: Preparing the Youth Development Professional" training set for April 26 - 28, 2005 at Rock Spring 4-H Center.

Moving Ahead is designed to provide the basic principles and practices of youth development as well as the language needed to advocate for youth and their families, and for programs you offer that support them. It is structured to take advantage of the opportunity to network with one another; to gain from the commonality, as well as diversity of your experiences; and to strategize an integrated approach to working with youth in your community.

The course will start at 9:15 a.m. on Tuesday, April 26 and end at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 28. Registration cost is $275 and will include all materials, meals, breaks and lodging. Deadline to register is April 1.

Registration brochures will be available soon on the state 4-H web site. Contact Diane Mack at: dmack@oznet.ksu.edu for more information. Mack/Hinshaw