Teamming Up for Fun and Education

  Time to let the world in on a little secret.  Do you know why 4-H has so many incredible adult volunteers?  Because they have just as much fun as our youth in the program, plus they get to celebrate the youth's successes with them.  What more could you ask for?
  Well tonight volunteers from Hoke, Robeson, Cumberland, and Moore Counties came together for our Master Volunteer training series.  This training opportunity happens 4 times a year and our volunteers enjoy each and every opportunity.  Tonight's topic was team building.  Hosted by the Hoke County 4-H team the lesson was co-lead by Cumberland County 4-H Agent Jessica Drake and Robeson County 4-H Agent Shea Ann DeJarnette.  After reviewing the components of team building and why we like doing it we jumped right in and had our volunteers shed some inhibitions and do some wild and wacky things.
  Our first activity had to do with picking and animal and then lining the group up by size based on your animal.  Of course, there was a catch, folks could not use human language only the language of their animal to do it.  So fish had to make sure they weren't drowned out by the bears, and flamingos had to determine how tall they really were.  It was an education in communication, and actual animal facts that had our volunteers laughing, dropping the formality of the occasion and settling in for some fun.
  Next came a small group activity of making a symbol that represented the group with four pipe cleaners.  Our members need to learn that our volunteers can be very creative because after 5 minutes they had some unique ideas, identifiable logos, and some darn good public speakers to share their vision.
Our group also got up and wrote their name with an invisible pencil.  It had them laughing and hopefully opening their minds to a world of possibilities that was yet to come.  We introduced them to the question ball, practiced our active listening skills, and enjoyed the Hershey's personality assessment which is a small reminder of how diverse our audiences are and how we can make efforts to include everyone.
  Several of the volunteers said they would be using these new tools for 4-H, work, and even church.  We can't wait to hear back on what they have done, and how it went.  If you are interested in attending one of these trainings please contact Shea Ann DeJarnette at Shea_Ann_DeJarnette@ncsu.edu or (910) 671-3276.  The next training opportunity will take place May 15 in Robeson County the topic will be Make and Take.