What Color are You?

  Tonight was our third in a series of 4-H Adult Volunteer Trainings.  This is a multi county opportunity and we travelled to Fayetteville for a training on personalities.  With a group that is so comfortable with each other, and has such a range of personalities we knew tonight would be fun.
  Once at the Cumberland County Cooperative Extension office we enjoyed dinner of BBQ and fried chicken, along with all the fixings.  There were also some awesome desserts.  A special thank you to their staff for working with us and making us so comfortable.  We really appreciate all of their assistance.
  Our training tonight centered around the True Colors personality assessment.  This is a tool that classifies your personality based on your characterization of a series of words.  The words are broken into groupings and the tester determines which groupings are most like them and which are not.  Once finished the tester scores the tool which translates into four colors; Blue, Orange, Green, and Gold.  The person using the assessment will have a primary and secondary color based on the score.  Although these are general tools it gives the user a better understanding of their personalities and others.  With this understanding we hope that our volunteers can adjust their communication methods and understanding of others and their personalities to further impact our 4-H youth and families.
  Our volunteers started by working with others in their own color group.  They were given the task of organizing a youth achievement night.  We had a lot of blues and golds, two orange and no greens in our group tonight.  The results were interesting.  Our orange group had a very flexible plan and at the end everyone would have fun.  The blue group had a group discussion with lots of input and created a plan that was fair to everyone and let the participants know how appreciated they were.  The gold group didn't get to far.  They were so busy creating the structure that they had trouble getting to the planning of the event.
  After some discussion everyone was broken into four equal groups where they did the exercise again.  This time each group had a rather unique, and complete plan.  They all found it easier to work together in a group with folks of different personalities because each brought different perspectives, insights, and skills to the table.
  Hopefully by the end of the training our adults feel like they have the ability to work with a variety of personalities and have a better understanding of the different personalities they may encounter.  Our next training will take place October 30 in Hoke County.  For more informaiton about this series of trainings please contact Shea Ann DeJarnette at Shea_Ann_DeJarnette@ncsu.edu or (910) 671-3276.