4-H YOUTH DEVELOPMENT ADVISORY COUNCIL
Conference Call Minutes
Thursday, June 26, 2008
University Park: Christy Bartley, Sandy Smith
Southwest Region: Joanne Stoltzfus (Somerset County)
Northwest Region: Marlene Kaltenbach (Venango County)
Central Region: Jen Fleck (Mifflin County)
Capital Region: *Ed Bender (Adams County)
Northeast Region: Jeannine Richlin (Sullivan County) & Michael McDavid (NE Reg Dir)
Southeast Region: Helaine Brown (Delaware)
*Ed Bender, Chairman, called the meeting to order at 10:05 a.m.
I. PROGRAM DIRECTION & PLANNING
A. Review Advisory Council Responsibilities Page 2-2
 Refresh committee as to responsibilities of group
 Respond to items Christy e-mails out to committee
 Bring forward: issues, concerns, new items
 Please give feed back in timely manner and participate as much as possible

Report back to your communities the issues, topics, discussions made from out
meetings.
Should you not be able to attend a meeting please feel free to add a substitute
in you place.
E-Mail will now look like:
SUBJECT: 4-H ADVISORY COUNCIL:________________________
B. Children, Youth & Families Update- Marilyn Corbin
 Up for the Challenge training offered
 Training great for EFNEP/4-H Educators to work together to combat obesity and
other challenges that our kids are facing
 Up forthe Challenge Resource book Available
 Living with less – website- Adult focused Curricula has been recommended by
Christy
C. Program Plan Update:
 March Discussion about who might chair
 Healthy Living Meeting
 Team members survey – identified 6 work area
 Nutrition, Health, Physical Activity, Safety, Clothing textiles
 Meeting today to identify information and determine how to move forward
 Cultural Competencies
 Important addition as to what we do!
 Positive Youth Involvement Group
 Meeting to talk about curricula that is currently distributed
 Essential elements of 4-H
 Tools of the Trade
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Reading Makes Cents
 SET Group
 Broken down 2 Groups:
 Animal Science – including looking at rest of science
 Engineering & Tech
 Volunteerism
 Establishing volunteer management
 Focus on education & Training of volunteers
 Moving towards master volunteers
 March in-service
 We will meet as the large Natural Work Group and then break down into
program teams
D. 4-H Strategic Plan
Doc sent to you first – before being posted on SharePoint site, consider document as a
guide and that changes can be discusses as needed
 Vision/Mission
 - No comments
 Rest of document – youth development – Program Review Report
 6 key issues: Commitment to Youth, Strong State Leadership,
1. Commitment to Youth
a. Emphasis on goals – and how we report about youth that are reached. 4-H
Youth Data Base,
Kids are documented twice b/c only way we have info 4-H reframing
process – not sure what this is going to look like – may be it will be a two
system opportunity that will place the info on the two databases
automatically
b. Goals: keep general with details being added by program team plans
2. Strong State Leadership
a. Goals to increase visibility at state level
b. Goals that state leader work with
Admin
Workgroups
c. State Leaders Office- 110 Ferguson – one place people can go to have questions
answered
d. Goal 6: State Staff Team- Christy, Phil, Mya
e. Meeting and getting work done to benefit program – Build team to have
consistent info back to educators
f. Brand identity
Staff development opportunities at in-service week
 Comments
Goal 3- Mike recommends simple change – regardless education, funding, all educators
are educators period, needs to be accepted across state.
3. Appropriate Goals and Accountability
a. Looks at quality of Program – and assures that our program is quality – and how
we can continue to grow our program
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Best way to find this is through our programs; Quality over Quantity
Enrolment benchmarks made by S.E. Region – some changes have been made
 The major focus for the Club program in year 1 is to increase
membership. School enrichment enrollment does not change because
educators need to focus on finding volunteers and bettering the club
program
 Goals broken down to initial year and 2-5 years
 Curricula used should be those that are at the State Level and approved
by program work groups, county projects approved at state level – first
need to be looked over
 Comments
Mike sensing from others as to how accessible these goals actually are
 County example – Build your own county Strategic plan hire people so educators
can actually educate
 S.E. Region chose conservative numbers because some counties will have more
success than other achieving these goals for state program.
b. Should goals be directed to just the clubs and get rid of the other goals
Frustrations:
 Club programming is the way to go, but puts most stress on
counties
 Some sort of goal needs to be set otherwise we are not striving
for anything or a bar to work towards
 No higher than 3%- too much stress on the more rural
communities, or smaller counties
 Goals must be reached to get back to the communities
 Take out club units and focus on growth in the clubs that are
already established
 Mike commented that he is always concerned about how much
stress we put on the state educators and expectations.
4. Strong Program Supports
 Leader/Volunteer- how to grow
 Try to increase capacity to address national mission mandates
 We might be ahead of game when national funding becomes available
 National 4-H may help as we link with their curricula
 Standard training for volunteers – online resource, expectations
5. Marketing Campaign – Technology
a. March in-service, Julian, Jonathan will be discussing marketing info available
through the college
6. Staffing & Professional Development
a. Hiring the best staff and train so they can give the best in their programs
b. In-service in 1 year to program teams to …
c. Biggest void State-wide – Whole process needs to be looked at to revise for state
wide training
II. PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION & MANAGEMENT
A.
B.
Grade -vs- Age
This will go back to the counties for input before a decision is made by council:
 Should PA 4-H program consider 4-H membership on (K-12) rather than age (5-18 as of
January 1)?
 Seniors too old to be 4-Her’s – May be held back a grade, don’t qualify for scholarships
because they aren’t currently enrolled
o S.E.- Many kids involved as freshmen in college – go on to be leaders or camp
counselors
 They don’t want to lose the freshmen in college
 Extend eligibility 1 year past senior year
 S.E. does not support grade eligibility
o Capital – Insurance Affected? – NO
 Should this be a county by county decision?
o State Requirements and why this decision cannot be a county by county decision
 5-18, Enrollment in county, working on county project – all for insurance
reasons
 Kids over 18 can be participants but cannot go to shows, they can gain knowledge and
do projects
o No Exhibit in Fairs, shows, competitions
E-Data Systems- Deb Burrows
Deb:
Pilot E-Data Jan 30 and came about on recommendation made by
1. Volunteer 4-H, staff members concerned about time to process paperwork
2. Communication break-down
3. Held better volunteer development
It’s also a communication tool. E-data allows educators to pick and choose recipients
(club or county affiliation) to email. 4-Her’s can see the activities upcoming for them
based on interest. No forms because 4-Her is a user in the system and their information
is only stored once. The data system helps to streamline information. For example:
Clinton county homepage has a link to the e-data system and you can take a tour.
 Questions:
o Cost?
 The cost is nothing – The Central region has put up the money for the
Pilot
 Phase 5 will allow for online payments for registrations – will work for
counties who will not allow credit card payment
 There is no hard copy of the phase developments because development
is going fast, and phase development is not going in order.
 Cost seniors- cost structure- ball park figure?
 This system will be as cost effective as possible
 Actual cost is still in development phase
o Phase 1- Enrollment Registration: Done
o Phase 2- Everybody other than 4-H: Done
3- Online payment phase
4- Livestock Program
5- Horse Program
Phase 3-5 not in any final order, next phase to be completed will be
chosen after phases 1 and 2 to are complete
Goal is to have E-date fully working by December 31, 2009
Deb Burrows, 25 years developing education data software systems for Pennsylvania
Education
Medical information only piece of form 4-Her cannot fill out due to server security at UPworking toward expectation
What resources are we saving county staff and what responsibilities can be reallocated
o EDAP system being built to show all databases- info can be pulled on demand –
over annual reports
o Eliminate repetitious work from extension staff and save time for the staff
o Also no more YDAR report if system works
o Huge savings in paperwork reduction
For more information Deb’s email is: dcb3@psu.edu
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Phase
Phase
Phase
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C. Curriculum
 Storage space reduced by 40% and all college publications are being asked to downsize
 Curriculum
o Non-movers- publications on shelf since 1977 – never been reprinted
 4-years – no one has requested more than 10 copies
o Phil will be contacting faculty to let them know of the non-mover status, and
alert faculty of next steps, then alert counties that curriculum is now available in
hard copy and will be online
o Slow-movers: order form sent to counties and orders will be placed once a year
– distributed directly to counties so these would be ordered each year by
counties no extra copies will be housed by distribution center for on demand
access.
III. EVALUATION AND TROUBLESHOOTING
A. Funding available for reasonable accommodations
The University Access Committee (UCA) has limited funds available to assist Penn State
departments for costs associated with requests for reasonable accommodations that
enable people with disabilities to participate in Penn State Programs and events. The
funds are intended to be used for reasonable accommodations that do not involve
classroom or work-related accommodations, although exceptions in either of those cases
will be considered in situations that involve unusual expense or unique accommodation
needs.
 Accommodations difficult for counties to fund: contact ADA office at PSU for support
 Specifically dealing with new ADA requirements
o Sending a kid to Capital days who is hearing impaired who needs an interpreter
that costs the county $500 a day
IV. OTHER ITEMS
A. 2009 Meeting Dates- June 18, October 8
B. Ag Progress Days
a. S.E. Traditional Ag, not a S.E. Audience
i. Spend the $ when this isn’t their audience?
ii. Difficult for S.E. to continue to support Ag. Progress
A large audience from across the state attends and each region is asked to provide this
service once every four years.
Centre region should not be tasked with Ag Progress Days every year simply because of
location; they have other responsibilities asked by state office. Recruiting for across the
state occurs at these events.
Could college students cover? At least 2 people for 3 days is needed to cover booth for
Ag Progress days. Since the semester has not yet started, college students are not
available.
C.
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E.
Lodging and food expenses are covered
Issue Regional Event happening at same time as Ag Progress but volunteers can be
recruited for this event. Many are already attending horse or other events at APD.
Capital Days
Lack of info- in order to register kids, wanted specific information
Meet and attract new members
Fair funds
PDA- lot of things happening that could affect the 4-H program
Budget is tentative, not a lot going on until July 1, 2009
Ag & Rural youth funding zeroed out
o You may be getting contacted for stories on how you have used these funds
o Fair Funds – significantly lower, and PDA is not thinking about how the money
will be distributed until budget is approved
If this is your only method for funding you should begin looking for other ways to
support programming
Everything is in negotiation at the moment
Jackie’s Position
Every vacant position goes back to the Dean; Christy is creating a document agenda to
show strategically why this position is important to the program. Christy is also working
with Tracy to write Jackie’s position in to the Department Strategic Plan to assure and
show how vital her position is to the 4-H Program. Jackie is also writing.
Currently we cannot cover everything
o If we do, we will prove we don’t need this position and it will not get refilled by
the Dean