# 4H "Clubs"



## kccjer (Jan 27, 2012)

This is interesting to me. You all talk about being in different "clubs". We have only ONE club and many different projects. As in, my daughter belongs to the Colby Comets. (there ARE 6 different clubs out here). Then her projects are horse and market beef. There is NOT a separate "club" for those projects. Some of the projects that have "County Project Leaders" are Shooting Sports, Horse (if we get a leader this year), and Dog. The other projects just have project meeting held by a volunteer from the club if there are enough kids enrolled and/or a parent interested in teaching it. 

Last year I was the Community Leader (in charge of a club) AND Goat project leader for OUR club only. We changed clubs this year and not many do animals so there will be no project meetings for Lizzie's animals because we don't have to have leaders for projects with under 3 kids enrolled. So when you guys are talking about belonging to different 4H Clubs....are you talking project meetings or are the projects divided into "clubs" and you don't attend a regular over all club meeting?


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## J.O.Y. Farm (Jan 10, 2012)

I was a member of two completely different clubs at one point.. I was in a goat oriented club (we did and had the choice to do other projects.. But our main focus was the goats) and I was in a horse club... All they did was horse stuff... I wasn't in that one long as it wasn't the type of people I hang out with and I can't stand snobby, rich, horse kids(that a good deal of them were)...


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## Goatzrule (Feb 7, 2013)

My mom runs a goat club we have other members that show goats and other animals as well and my mom provides them books and things they need to show that other type of animals but we learn about goats as a club.


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## NubianFan (Jun 3, 2013)

When I was in 4-H as a child and teen it was like you described it Carmen, but I was in a rural area and obviously it has been a while, now my daughter is in 4-H and they have their main club, then they can join county wide interest clubs, like in our area there is a horse club, a young leaders club, and a shooting sports club. You don't have to join say the shooting sports club, to compete or have an interest in shooting sports it is just there for the kids if they want to. Also they can be considered "independents" in our county and not belong to any club, but just do projects and enter competitions on their own. They can still do market animals, still enter any competition, they just don't belong to a club and don't go to meetings. My daughter wants to switch to this as she doesn't like her club, but I told her that takes a lot of the fun out of it, why not just switch to a club that is a better fit. My daughter wants to be really active and her club rarely does anything. She needs a club with a more involved leader. I was blessed to have wonderful active leaders and a very active club as a child/teen. I want that for her.


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## HerdQueen (Oct 15, 2012)

Carmen, I'm the leader in my local club. Our club is a mixed bag of everything. I'm the goat leader, the cooking leader, the gardening leader. The other leader does more craft side of things. When I was younger I belong to a dairy cow club and that is all we focused on. Your daughter can choose to do what ever project or projects she chooses. And any 4h leader can assist her as long as they are registered leaders. Or she can do the projects on her own.


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## HerdQueen (Oct 15, 2012)

You can also be a home club with you being the leader


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## kccjer (Jan 27, 2012)

Wow. How things have changed! LOL What is a "home club"? Basically it sounds like your project oriented clubs would be about the same as our County Projects (horse, shooting sports, dog). But we do have to belong to a "main club" out here. BTW...I do know that she can be in any project she wants. We are just not doing much this year as we want to do some other things this summer....in the past she has done horse, cooking, goats, sheep, crafts, dog, and pig. There just isn't a separate "club" for all that. In the club she's in right now there are 4 kids that do animals...Lizzie will have horse and steers, a couple others will have market goats, and 1 other with horse. It's not an animal oriented club. I've been involved in 4H for a long time. I made it 10 years when I was a kid, my 2 boys were in it for a few years (their dad didn't think it was worthwhile so that kind of screwed it up for them) and Lizzie has been in it for 4 years now. I was just wondering where the separate clubs you all talk about came from.


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## BrokenArrowRanch (Jun 6, 2013)

That's interesting. My county does the seperate clubs then you join projects you want to join. There are also county wide projects too...


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## kccjer (Jan 27, 2012)

BrokenArrowRanch said:


> That's interesting. My county does the seperate clubs then you join projects you want to join. There are also county wide projects too...
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Goat Forum


See, that's what ours is like. We have 5 county clubs (Brewster Prairie Gem, Colby Comets, Solomon Valley, Abilene Hustlers, and Gem) and then you sign up for projects. Most projects are handled thru your club. We have a few county wide projects such as Dog, Shooting sports and horse (not sure we'll still have horse as the county wide leaders quit this last year....not that they did anything other than the spring show and they didn't even involve the project members in that) If you have more than 3 kids in your club enrolled in a project you're suppose to have a club project leader if you can....so 3 kids in crafts, find a leader; 2 kids in goat, you're on your own.

So those of you that are in a "goat club", etc....do you still have a "home club" too? I know...i'm being dense here but this is hard for me to wrap my mind around. Or do you have separate clubs for every single project that kids in your county are enrolled in?


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## Dani-1995 (Mar 11, 2011)

We have over 14 clubs in our county. We have homeschool, after school, STEM based, robotics, horse, three livestock clubs in different parts of the county and different focuses, two or three shooting clubs, one for just community service, one for under privileged youth, a couple for younger kids... you name it we have it!

Our club is a horse and livestock club. We do mostly goat and lamb projects, although a handful of us are show jersey calves this year and pigs this spring. We do a lot of community service projects, we go on state leadership trips and do project books. We like to think that we are a very well rounded club with something for everyone. 

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## goatygirl (Feb 16, 2013)

New Hampshire has the most 4-hers in the country


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## kccjer (Jan 27, 2012)

Dani-1995 said:


> We have over 14 clubs in our county. We have homeschool, after school, STEM based, robotics, horse, three livestock clubs in different parts of the county and different focuses, two or three shooting clubs, one for just community service, one for under privileged youth, a couple for younger kids... you name it we have it!
> 
> Our club is a horse and livestock club. We do mostly goat and lamb projects, although a handful of us are show jersey calves this year and pigs this spring. We do a lot of community service projects, we go on state leadership trips and do project books. We like to think that we are a very well rounded club with something for everyone.
> 
> Sent from my SCH-R970 using Goat Forum mobile app


See, this is what's confusing me. Does your club only do livestock? So if my child wants to do both livestock and robotics, she has to join 2 different clubs? Or 3 or 4 or more different clubs depending on what PROJECTS she wants to do? Or are you just saying that the majority of kids in your club do livestock but you have other projects within our club too?

Are the "clubs" most of you talking about actually county wide project meetings? So if you belong to the Meat Goat Club...it's actually just a project meeting?

For us, we do all of those things you are talking about. BUT....we only belong to ONE club with MEMBERS doing different projects. Some clubs have more members who are involved in livestock and some have more members involved in craft stuff. But they are only member of ONE club.... and you can have whatever PROJECTS you want...you still only belong to ONE club. Does that make sense?

So, my daughter is a member of Colby Comets. The majority of members in this club are in shooting sports, cooking, arts and crafts. There are 4 members out of 30 who are involved in livestock. My daughter is taking Horse and Market Steer, nothing else (2 others are in goats and one other in horse). She is still a member of Colby Comets and no other "club". She won't have a project leader because there aren't enough kids enrolled in those projects within her club. IF we still had a county wide horse leader, there should be project meetings for everyone in the county involved in the horse project. There is NO county wide leader for beef so she's basically on her own unless she can find someone to help her from a different club.


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## loggyacreslivestock (Mar 5, 2013)

It is dependent upon your state and local preferences. I am a livestock leader in a club that is both livestock and horse. Prior to 3 years ago, it was a horse only club. However, some of the members who showed horses also wanted to show livestock and not have to join and attend another 4H club and their meetings. So the club became a livestock club as well as horse. We do not have anyone doing shooting or cooking/ sewing/ photography. However, the kids can participate in those projects through our club, they just won't have a leader to help them. If they want specialized help, they will need to join and attend another club's meetings.
These things are all dependent on where you live and what the local rules are. Some people want to belong to a club that has a lot of experienced leaders in their project to help them with things. Some don't care or have enough experience themselves and just go wherever it is convenient or with their friends.

We don't have "county clubs" or projects. All projects are run through the club you belong to.


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## kccjer (Jan 27, 2012)

Wow! So some of the kids here who do 15 or more projects would have to belong to at least 15 different clubs! That's interesting. Wonder if it's different in extreme rural areas compared to more metropolitan? County population is about 8,000 with a little over half living in the town that is our county seat...so not a lot of people in just over a thousand square miles.


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## loggyacreslivestock (Mar 5, 2013)

Well, it would depend on what is offered in the club. In ours you could have: market goats, sheep, beef, rabbits, chickens, cavies, horses-both standard and mini, pigs, and breeding goats, sheep, and beef...


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## Dani-1995 (Mar 11, 2011)

In our club we do whatever projects the members want to do.

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## justspry (Feb 5, 2014)

Well the club we joined is aweful we didn't know you pick and choose your club  So we signed up to show our dairy goats but because our club didn't have leaders for that now we have to wait for next year for that  So now next year I have to be leader unless I wanted to drive another hr for the dairy goat meeting  SO I will be our club leader and my son will be the only one in our group for that club ....... Crazy lol


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## kccjer (Jan 27, 2012)

Unless it's too late to change projects, he should still be able to show his dairy goats regardless of having a leader. We won't have a beef leader, but daughter can still show her steers. She just has to figure it out on her own (which CAN be daunting if you've never done it before). I showed years ago and she has done Round Robin Showmanship so has "shown" a market steer for all of 5 minutes in that. LOL


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## sweetgoats (Oct 18, 2007)

We have 19 clubs in out county (last I heard). Every club has their own projects. There is only like 1 or 2 clubs that are just table tops the rest have about anything you can imagine. 

Inside those clubs we have leaders for all the different projects, so there can be 14 Beef leaders one from every club if that is what they have. 

When I was the leader of the Fiber Goats, i was the County wide leader because there were only like 9-12 kids and we all had out "club meetings" then we had our Project meetings as well. 

I am sure all counties are different from state to state and county to county.


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## kccjer (Jan 27, 2012)

I know they differ. I'm just curious because I keep seeing things posted about "clubs" and was wondering. I really thought it was more regulated than that tho since 4H is a National entity and has a National council, etc. It has changed a LOT from when I was kid for sure!


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

Our county has a 'Livestock club.' They have a dog club, horse club, shooting sports club, then the various arts/crafts/cooking/woodmaking clubs.
There are at least a handful of kids that show beef, lambs, then my kids and another family that show goats. Most of the kids in the Livestock club do the country ham project. 

Nobody shows pigs/hogs, chickens/poultry, or rabbits. In fact, our fair has no shows for those animals. 

It's nice though, all the kids can come together, they learn about different animals, not just the ones they are raising or showing. Then there is the country ham project, one of the biggest projects for kids in the state, and it's quite interesting since the country ham can only be cured in certain parts of the world.


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## kccjer (Jan 27, 2012)

What is the "country ham" project? I'm guessing since I never heard of it, we don't do it out here. LOL 

I think it's kind of interesting the way 4H is run in different areas. We had an exchange student out here a couple years ago (thru the 4H program) that talked about 4H in....in....oh heavens...my memory is AWFUL...I think it was Germany. The program is soooo different over there! I never dreamed it would be this different even from State to State....


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## nigies4ever (Sep 19, 2012)

We have about 6 different clubs in our county, named by town/area. I belong to one of those clubs and within the club we have about 35 different projects. It seems like it's pretty similar to yours.


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## OakHollowRanch (Jun 6, 2013)

We have one big 4-H club with a head leader. Then, kids can choose to sign up for one of the numerous projects offered. Our club offers dairy goats, horse, shooting sports, cake decorating, swine, steer, lambs, sewing, and more. The entire Bowman 4-h club has a meeting for all members every first Tuesday of the month and then kids can go to meetings regarding their separate projects whenever the leader for that project schedules one.


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