I am my 4-H club’s president. My club has 52 people in it with most of them being under the age of ten.

Sometimes I regret running for president, but then at other times I feel it is a great leadership experience. The duties of a president are not only running the meetings and showing animals. It is about helping out the community, helping the younger members with their projects and teaching them how to be a better person and also teach them responsibility with taking care of their animals.

Now on to my projects; I show market rabbits, I am doing a fishing project book, a rabbit project book and a grill master project book. This is only my first year of 4-H so this is a lot of responsibility to take on but I feel that I can get it done and I will get it done.

I am going to explain to you each one of my projects starting off with the fishing one. In the fishing project book You learn about natural resources, the anatomy of certain species of fish and of course you learn how to fish and take care of them. The book also has a cool little section in it where you can track what kind of fish you caught, the weight of the fish, the length of the fish and what kind of bait you caught it on.

Second off I will explain to you my rabbit project. This is definitely my most important project because you have take care of another living thing and this is the project that most people associate with 4-H. I have two market rabbits(That means I am going to sell them).  When you show two rabbits at 4-H you sell one for packer bid and the other one you take into the show ring to sell. You make most of the money by selling in the ring. The way you sell in the ring is by walking around the arena with your rabbit cradled in your arms while an auctioneer shouts out dollar amounts and people will raise their card with their number on it if they would like to bid on your animal.

While showing rabbits you can also do this thing called showmanship which is where you stand at a table with a bunch of other people and the judge walks along the line and feels your rabbits build. Some other parts of showmanship are having to wear jeans with a long sleeve white button up shirt. The reason for your shirt having to be long sleeved is because your rabbit will sometimes scratch you while flipping them. The reason you have to flip your rabbit is so the judge can make sure it’s undercarriages are not stained or split. To me this is the most fun part because I like to look nice and I enjoy flipping my rabbit.

The last book project I am doing is called grill master. In the grill master book you cook different types of meat like steak, burgers, chicken and kabobs. Some other things you have to make in your grill master book is different sauces and marinades you never would have thought of trying. I thought this would be a good project for me because I like to fish and I also like to cook so I thought what could be better than being able to learn how to cook the fish that you catch.

I have learned a lot in 4-H over the year I have done it and we have done tons of fun activities. For example this year we have done an Easter egg hunt for the local kids in our community, we have hosted breakfast at the township building and we have done multiple volunteering gigs.

Overall 4-H is a great thing to get into because it teaches you responsibility, how to take care of things and how to show in front of a bunch of people. While in 4-H you will make tons of new friends that are really nice and most of them are interested in animals and the outdoors. This may only be my first year of 4-H but I have learned tons of important skills that I will learn all throughout my lifetime.