Annual 4-H Activities in Inyo and Mono Counties
Every year, the Inyo and Mono counties 4-H Youth Development Program hosts several events for our 4-H members.
Achievement Night
Achievement Night is our annual recognition event for our 4-H members. It usually takes place in fall.
4-H Members who are Record Keepers (complete a Record Book) that win seals, receive county or project awards, advance from Mini-Member to Regular Member, or complete achievements as 4-H members are recognized for their accomplishments. This usually takes place on a weeknight.
In recent years, this has been an awards ceremony followed by an ice cream party. We usually hold a main event in Bishop, but often we arrange a special event for clubs that are too distant to travel on a school night.
Presentation Day
Presentation Day is a Spring activity where youth get to practice their public speaking and judging skills. Members are able to give presentations in many different categories. Traditionally members usually gave a presentation related to one of their projects, but there are many other avenues to develop public speaking skills in 4-H.
The event usually starts by an activity where we do some judging. "What's Judging?" you ask. This is a skill that helps youth make good choices. It is system of placing 4 things in order of best to worst. Here is a really brief slide set on what it's about. Intro to 4-H Judging (PDF) We practice this skill at presentation day and Livestock Field Day (below). At Presentation Day, we judge scenarios created by our 4-H clubs that teach something about making good choices in categories of livestock equipment, healthy living, gardening, safety, and recreation. (And more!)
After the judging activities finish, we move into presentations. There youth can practice public speaking in various categories. The State 4-H Presentation Manual has a wealth of information about 4-H talks and presentations. We maintain a resource locally with everything you need to know about Presentation Day. It gets updated annually.
If you do a science fair or history day project at school, this is a great way to turn that into a presentation!
Presentations are judged by members of the community, with feedback given using a rubric that's appropriate for youth.
At the conclusion of the day, we hand out awards for participants. All members of any age can participate!
Livestock Field Day
Livestock Field Day is held in spring each year before livestock show entries are due. The location alternates between Bishop and Lone Pine. The purpose of the Livestock Field Day is to teach members the basics of livestock judging so they better understand how to select good animals, and to understand what a livestock judge is looking for at a show.
This is a mandatory event for those 4-H members, ages 9-19, who are planning to show an animal at the Junior Livestock Show in Bishop. This event is designed to help you learn how to judge different livestock species.
Animals are judged as a class of a single species. The species change each year but may include goats, sheep, steers, rabbits, swine, horses, poultry, and more!
In each class, 4 animals will be presented. A guide will explain what to look for in a good animal. The participants will then rank them from best to worst using a judging card where they mark their choice for the ranks.
A perfectly "placed" class is worth 50 points. The judge who creates the class creates an Official Placing along with the cuts. Cuts are a measure of how close two animals are to each other in quality. A pair of animals with a cut of 2 might be hard to tell apart, but a pair with a cut of 5 should be fairly easy to get right. When a participant flips the order so they are not correct, the out of place cuts get added together and subtracted from 50.
Don't forget to bring a pencil or pen!
For historical reasons, our program places classes with the letters A, B, C, and D, and doesn't use numbers. The example above would be B-C-A-D here. You can see an example judging card below.
We usually follow this event with the training requirement for YQCA necessary for entering our local livestock show.
Fun Day
Every year the local clubs join together to host a Fun Day at the Tri-County Fairgrounds in December. This event usually serves as the December club meeting (check with your leader). Fun Day is usually on a weekend afternoon, approximately 2 hours in duration.
At Fun Day kids members get to do craft projects, enter a cookie contest, have some yummy snacks, and play games.
It's a lot of fun!