Our Volunteers are Cream of the Crop

  They are more than the cream, they are the whipped cream of our 4-H program!  In case you can't tell by the title of this post, 4-H Volunteers are special people.  They come from all walks of life and have a variety of skills and experiences they are willing to share with our youth.  As part of being an active 4-H volunteer our adults agree to take part in at least two hours of training a year and many take part in more.  We also offer volunteers the opportunity to take part in the ACE Master Volunteer Program.  Volunteers work to achieve different benchmarks in training and application to receive different levels of certification.  To encourage more volunteers to do this we offered as part of our 4 County 4-H Volunteer Revolution an opportunity for our volunteers to work toward their bronze certification this year.
  Tonight marked the third in a series of four trainings (and a fifth meeting to assemble notebooks) designed to let volunteers reach their bronze certification. The topic of the training?  Etiquette for Today's 4-H Volunteer.  Unlike other etiquette trainings we had done this one had nothing to do with table manners and more to do with looking at the 4-H Volunteer Standards of Behavior.  It is a code that guides our adult volunteers while they serve in our program.  After a brief presentation we put our knowledge to work talking about scenarios that have and might come up and how they as volunteers would handle them and how 4-H Agents would need to handle them.

This training was hosted by Robeson County 4-H thanks to a grant from the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Development Fund.  Participants enjoyed dinner (and just desserts) prepared by the 4-H staff and volunteers.  According to evaluations they walked away with greater knowledge, feeling better prepared to handle conflicts among their peers, and better prepared to serve in their roles.  The next workshop will be held in Hoke County on August 20, starting at 6;30 pm.  If you would like more information about this training opportunity or becoming a 4-H volunteer please call the Robeson County 4-H staff at (910) 671-3276.