Year: 2024

This spring the State 4-H Office and CCE Admin Organizational Development Unit partnered to pilot “The 4-H Thriving Vision Project”, a cohort initiative aiming to elevate the reach and impact of extension programs by leveraging the insights and perspectives of an Extension Program Advisory Committee (PAC) and building understanding about how the 4-H Thriving Model can help set the tone for 4-H work.

The five month cohort project intended to build understanding of Extension PACs, considering how the committees can identify gaps in participation, suggest improvements, and explore new audience opportunities. The involvement of external stakeholders, such as potential program participants not currently engaged, was explored as a method that could be particularly valuable. These “fresh eyes” can reveal opportunities that may be overlooked by those closely affiliated with the program.

Ten counties participated.  An initial survey of participants indicated that staff were most interested in the following:

• Update the advisory board and set new goals for 4-H.
• Improve connections and interactions with advisory committee members.
• Learn from other counties about how they meet community needs.
• Add more advisory members and get their feedback and suggestions.
• Find ways to involve youth, volunteers, and other community members in addressing local issues.
• Respond effectively to community needs and build confidence in CCE – 4-H as a partner.
• Support the growth of the committee and staff.
• Find ways to connect with Cornell Campus.

To get at these issues, the cohort explored topics through monthly meetings where the agenda included content presentations and group activities.  Resources and content shared was also offered in an online course that featured introductory material to the 4-H Thriving Model and the Program Advisory Committee Handbook.

Topics covered in the meetings and course from January to May included:

• Exploring Youth Thriving – designed to create awareness and familiarity with the mission, vision and values of the 4-H youth development and our positive youth development framework (The 4-H Thriving Model)
• Snapshot of Today – an exploration of available data (collected through the local Plans of Work and data collection) to understand where your program is currently.
• Opportunity for All – Building on teams learned from their data and considering how Associations can contributing to closing the opportunity gap for youth.
• A Vision for Tomorrow – applying info learned as a process of creating a strategic vision for the county 4-H program. The process and supporting tools allow counties to create a vision statement that describes the ideal future for 4-H in your County (5-7 years from now) and identify priority focus areas for moving the process ahead.
• Charting your Course – implementation plan – this session was all about writing strategies to get from the goals to results.

The pilot was offered to help county staff to effectively harness the power of diverse perspectives, driving the extension programs towards greater reach and impact.

As with any pilot, we learned a few things in the implementation of this effort.  In the beginning, the thought was to open the cohort to volunteers serving on Advisory committees as well as staff.  What we learned is that with so much staff turnover, there are many iterations of PACs across the state, and different understandings and expectations of staff members.  So staff plus volunteers in the same space didn’t always feel congruent.  While some counties might be able to apply the process to staff and volunteers together in a PAC setting, not all were ready to do that.  Additionally, there were some that came to learn more about the 4-H Thriving Model, and others that were there to learn about enriching their PAC.

That said, participating staff indicated that they appreciated the time together to learn collectively and collaboratively.  They gained tools and skills that could be helpful, and noted that the experience was especially helpful for new 4-H staff who were still learning about the concept of “thriving” and how 4-H can help youth to build confidence and competence in a way that helps them thrive.

The next steps are to optimize the online content for use by staff independently and for professional development trainings.  It was suggested that parallel printable content could also strengthen the utility of the resources, particularly for audiences not likely to take the online course.  There is also an interest in generalizing the content with specific audience resources to be useful for staff beyond 4-H Youth Development staff.

Interested in learning more?  Have suggestions or questions?  Please do contact cce-orgdev@cornell.edu.

In a recent staff survey about “superpowers of educators” staff shared reasonable confidence for convening interesting meetings.  That is good news – as we end up hosting lots of meetings in Extension!   Thoughtful practices for running meetings include – be considerate of the those in attendance, treat others with kindness and respect, and think of the outcomes that you want to achieve when planning the agenda. Below are a few practices to observe and put into place regularly.  Some of these items have been covered in the Program Advisory Committee Handbook.

Tips for transforming meetings from mundane to engaging include intentional planning and perhaps a few predictable strategies:

• Curate a Thoughtful Agenda.  An agenda is more than a list of topics; it’s a roadmap for the meeting. Prioritize the most important items and allocate time slots for each. Include a mix of presentations, discussions, and interactive activities to maintain interest. Sharing the agenda ahead of time allows attendees to prepare and contribute meaningfully – and offer suggestions for additional agenda items.
• Meeting time/place.  Meet at a time and place appropriate for your committee – it’s worth the time to Doodle, poll, ask (yes, I realize that can be painful).
• Foster an Inclusive Environment. Encourage participation from all attendees by creating an inclusive environment. Start with icebreakers or small talk to ease participants into the meeting. Use techniques like round-robin or small group discussions to ensure everyone’s voice is heard. An inclusive meeting not only garners diverse perspectives but also keeps participants engaged and connected to one another and the meeting convener.
• Understand member motivation.  People have reasons for being on committees. Identify these reasons and try to make their time personally rewarding. Also, letting them know that you appreciate them goes a long way. A simple email saying thanks makes a difference.
•  Meetings do not have to be boring.  Plan something fun for your committee once a year – sharing a meal, a field visit to a program, or visiting other local programs could build relationships and program or evaluation strategies.  Invest your time and your member’s time in experiences that will members to work as a team with you.
• Navigating meetings.  Not everything will go smooth.  Expect there to be hoops and hurdles. Learn about team dynamics and how to navigate differences, utilize strengths and work to neutralize perceived power differences with strategies for collecting ideas and making decisions.  Below are a few more tips for helping to navigate meetings:

• • • Provide Social Interaction. Informal social interaction, usually in the form of refreshments, allows the committee members time to continue conversations from the meeting, meet with sub-committee members, or build informal networks.

• • • Moving action items forward.  Change your meetings to “doings” – Always treat meetings as an opportunity to create a plan, strategy, report, outline, idea etc.  Have a specific purpose and desired outcomes distributed with the agenda.

• • • Assign Tasks to People. Specific action steps should always be assigned to specific individuals.  If there are large tasks, make an individual a sub-committee chair to facilitate a smaller group.

• • • Assign Deadlines. Give individuals a definite time for completion of the task.  A common deadline is by the next meeting.

• • • End with Action Items. Conclude the meeting by summarizing key points and outlining actionable next steps. Assign responsibilities and set deadlines to ensure follow-through. This reinforces the meeting’s purpose and keeps momentum going.

• • • End on Time. Participants tend to get disenchanted when meetings are too long or go over their time limit.  Be extremely time conscious and end on time.

• • • Be Prompt with Follow-Up. Send all committee members a recap of the action steps and assignments within a few days following the meeting. This serves as a reminder and also as an update to absent members.

• • • Evaluate the Meeting. Distribute a short survey that asks what the participants thought about the meeting and how future meetings can be more useful.

• • • End on a Positive Note. Affirmations are very popular and provide a source of motivation to the group.  Use inspirational quotes, motivational poems, or uplifting short stories.

• • • Announce the Next Meeting, Time and Location 

• Have additional tips for running meetings that matter?  Please send to Celeste Carmichael, cjc17@cornell.edu.

Based on content from Extension Advisory Handbook:  https://cornell.box.com/s/id39taiuthbby6qy4jz37b9ly9shk6hz