Merry Christmas! I hope you all truly have a very Merry Christmas this year.

Enjoy and cherish this time with friends and family. I challenge you to do something good for someone you

may not know very well this Christmas season and make their Christmas a Christmas to remember. I am reminded

of the 4-H motto “...hands to larger service…” and the quote from Norman Wesley Brooks “Christmas is forever,

not for just one day. It’s for loving, for sharing, for giv-ing...not to be put away like bells and lights and tin-

sel...the good you do for others is the good you do for yourself…” Let us remember and experience the joy of

giving not just during this Christmas season but through every season throughout this upcoming year.

Merry Christmas!

-Ashley Inside this issue: Calendar of Events 2 Upcoming Events 3

State Upcoming Events 4

Shooting Sports 5 December Birthdays 6 Council Minutes 7-8

Club Information 9

MSU Extension Administrative Support—-Part Time

Closes: Until filled. First review after December 8, 2017

This position will be the “face and voice” of MSU/Stillwater County Extension. Charac-teristics required will include a motivated, cordial, confident, team player who takes the initiative to learn. This position performs clerical duties, which require accuracy, timeli-ness, and attention to detail. Increasingly, much of this work is completed with the use of computer and other technology. Go to stillwatercountymt.gov/resources/jobs for more information. This position would be Tuesday & Thursday and 4 hours on one other day.

P a g e 2 S t i l l w a t e r C o u n t y 4 - H N e w s l e t t e r

January 20 18 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31

S c h e d u l e o f E v e n t s

Jan. 1st —Broadview Homesteaders @ 7

Jan. 6th—Rapeljacks & Jills @ 9 a.m.

(Rapelje School-Shop Classroom)

Jan. 7th—Rosebud Adventurers @ 5:30

p.m. every other month (Immanuel Lutheran Church)

Jan. 7th—Spring Creek Stockgrowers @ 4

p.m. (Spring Creek Com. Center)

Jan. 7th—Stillwater Sharp Shooters @

members home-potluck CALL FIRST

Jan. 8th—Johnny’s Buckaroos @ 6 p.m.

(West Annex Meeting Room)

Jan. 8th—Beartooth Ramblers meet @ 6

p.m. (Columbus Fire Hall)

Jan. 8th—Stillwater Ridge Riders @ 6:30

p.m. (Columbus Evangelical Church)

Jan. 8th—Stillwater Ranch Hands meet

@ 6:30 (Nye Fire Hall)

p.m. (Broadview Community Center)

Jan. 8th—Park City Wranglers @ 6:30

p.m. (Park City Civic Center)

Jan. 9th—Molt Happy Helpers @ 6:30

p.m. (Molt School or Molt Hall) CALL

FIRST

December 20 17 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24/31 25 26 27 28 29 30

S c h e d u l e o f E v e n t s

Dec. 2nd—Rapeljacks & Jills @ 9 a.m.

(Rapelje School-Shop Classroom)

Dec. 4th—Johnny’s Buckaroos @ 6 p.m.

(West Annex Meeting Room)

Dec. 3rd—Rosebud Adventurers @ 5:30

p.m. (Immanuel Lutheran Church-Abs.)

Dec. 3rd—Spring Creek Stockgrowers @

4 p.m. (Spring Creek Com. Center)

Dec. 4th—Beartooth Ramblers meet @

6 p.m. (Columbus Fire Hall)

Dec. 4th—Stillwater Ridge Riders @ 6:30

p.m. (Columbus Evangelical Church)

Dec. 4th—Stillwater Ranch Hands meet

@ 6:30 (Nye Fire Hall)

Dec. 5th—Broadview Homesteaders @

7 p.m. (Broadview Community Center)

Dec. 3rd—Stillwater Sharp Shooters @

members home—Potluck (CALL FIRST)

Dec. 11th—Park City Wranglers @ 6:30

p.m. (Park City Civic Center)

Dec. 12th—Molt Happy Helpers @ 6:30

p.m. (Molt School or Molt Hall) CALL

FIRST

YOUTH Upcoming Events $6—Support Your

Local County 4-H Please contact us or stop

in to get yours today!

Interview Skills

The Stillwater County 4-H Ambassadors are excited to offer an interactive presentation on Interview Skills to the county clubs. They would like to attend club meetings in teams to do a 15-20 minute presentation. Your club members will have fun while expanding their interview skills. Please contact Janelle Sunvold-Palmer to schedule a visit by the Ambassadors! palm-er5@rocketmail.com or 406-281-4517l)

Cloverbud Choir

Just a Reminder! Beef Weigh-In

January 7th, 2018—1pm Midland Bull Test

Dog Class Please check the Stillwater

County 4-H Dog Project

Facebook page for the

December meeting date.

Please bring treats, crates and dog books.

Teen Leaders Stillwater County 4-H Ambassador applications are due January 3, 2018. Please contact the office if you want an application. Contact Janelle Sun-

vold-Palmer (281-4517, jsunvoldpalm-er@gmail.com) if you have any questions.

If you are interested in joining the Cloverbud choir, please contact Ashley at 322-8035 or stillwa-

ter@montana.edu. Practices will be Mondays at 4pm.

We will be starting some Christmas carols for carol-ing at nursing homes in the month of December.

4-H Camp CIT & Counselor Applications Due January 5th

Are you interested in becoming a Counselor or CIT? If you are a 4-H member that is 13 or older by June 4th, 2018 you can ap-ply to be a CIT (Counselor In Training). If you are 14 or older by June 4th, 2018 you can apply to be a Counselor. The application is on our website and is due (post marked) by Friday, January 5, 2018. All applicants will do an interview. (Those days and times will be given to you shortly.) If you are selected to be a Counselor or CIT, you MUST attend all remain-ing camp planning meeting which are held in Stillwater, Carbon or Yellowstone Counties each month. You MUST attend the training session that will be held in May. Camp will be held June 5-8, 2018. If you are selected, you will need to arrive the day before. (June 4th)

Community Garden Help Needed

Since this is a ready-made commu-nity service project, we are asking 4-H Clubs to take this on as one of your community service projects for the year. Ideally, we need a local Columbus 4-H Club (or more than one) who would be willing to oversee the weeding and watering of the garden throughout the sum-mer. We would need one leader who would be willing to be in charge of this process and have a schedule for watering/weeding that the club members could then follow. If you are interested in being that club or that club leader, please let us know as soon as possible.

Greytak Calendars

The 2018 Montana Greytak Calendars are here at our office for $15.00. If you would like to purchase one, please con-tact the office or stop on in.

State Upcoming Events MONTANA 4-H REC LAB

This event provides an opportunity for youth and adults to enhance their leadership, communication and team building skills in an action packed and interactive setting. Rec Lab programming is designed to provide participants with tips and tricks for being a better club, camp and community leader. By rotating around the state and hosted by a 4‐H district each year, this event also provides youth and volunteers an opportunity to travel and experience locations that may be very different from their home county. The camp like atmosphere and hands on activity allows for a fun and laidback weekend to create lasting memories.

Rec Lab will be hosted by

District 1 in Thompson Falls

on March 23‐25, 2018

Youth participants must be 13+ as of October 1, 2017 and Adult chaperones must be as least 21 years of age.

Important Rec Lab Dates

Workshop proposals due by Wednesday, November 15 (Contact: Missoula County) Registration due by Friday, February 23 with a $100 event fee (Contact: Flathead County) Late registration due by Friday, March 2 with a $115 event fee (Contact: Flathead County)

Leadership Washington Focus (LWF) July 15-20

This program is designed for middle school students (grades 7-9). Participants build confidence in their abilities to motivate and direct others in meaningful action, practice effective communication with others through group discussion and public speaking, work with others to create and accomplish goals, develop an understanding of their own personal leadership style, exchange ideas, practice respect, and form friendships with other 4-Hers from across the nation. Partici-pants are accompanied by an adult chaperone. Applications are due January 15 and can be found at montana4h.org/programs/events

Citizen Washington Focus (CWF) Trip dates June 9-16, 2018

Go to Washington, D.C. for a week in June to experience our nation's capital, meet your legislators, and meet 4-Hers from around the country. During this week-long trip, delegates have the opportunity to tour the Smithsonian and the National monuments as well as visit with Montana Senators and Representatives. Mon-tana delegates travel as a group with two adult chaperones. County agents should recommend delegates for participation. Delegates travel as a group with chaperones to the National 4-H Conference Center. The week is comprised of workshops related to the congressional process, meetings with your legislators, a cul-tural evening, and visits to monuments and museums on the mall. Applications are due January 15th and can be found at mon-tana4h.org/programs/events

Shooting Sports Events

You will find attached the Shooting Sports Schedule for 2017-2018. I also want to direct you to the State 4-H Website for additional information. The web address is www.montana4h.org. Go to Pro-grams and then you may select Montana 4-H Shooting Sports Events or Montana 4-H Shooting Sports Trainings. Registration forms for trainings and matches will be included. There will also be ad-ditional information provided as it becomes available.

MONTANA 4-H SHOOTING SPORTS LEADER TRAINING January 5

th and 6

th, 2018

Fairfield, Montana

Please return registration by December 27, 2017.

Registrations can be found on the county or state websites.

Let’s get started with shooting sports! We have not received all of the enrollments yet so club leaders please let anyone know in your clubs that might be interested. Over the next few weeks, we will decide on a shooting time and day. Until we decide different show up at the pa-vilion at 2 pm Sunday December 10th and 17th, 2017. We will get organized and shoot Archery, Air Rifle, and Air Pistol.. For new folks we will try and shoot every week, depending on schedules, holidays and new leaders we re-cruit. You are not required to make every meeting, however if you want to compete and get better, it is highly encouraged to attend as many as you can.

Bring a friend!

Wyatt Schatz

Alexis Schatz

Grace Moore

Rafe Brastrup

Wyatt Downs

Waylon Yorke

Caleb Emmett

Ben Strobel

Eli Zachary

Cooper Fry

Cadence Pintler

McKenna Robertus

The 2017-2018 Executive Officers have been elected. We would like to welcome our new and

continuing Council Officers and wish them a fun and successful 4-H year!

President - Melissa Kramer, Vice President - Brian Young, Secretary - Suzi Smith, and Treasurer - Meredith Feddes

Highlights from the Council Meeting… (these have not been voted on and are not final minutes, please review final minutes on our website)

Schedule Change: Each club leader was asked if their club had an opinion or vote one way or the other on a pro-posed fair schedule change. This change would involve doing all Showmanship one day, and all Market the next day. Melissa tallied all opinions, most leaned towards keeping the schedule the same. Wendy explained that she had an example schedule set up to show times can be juggled with things and sheep show can have more of a specific time. Time allotment and scheduled times would work best actually so kids aren’t waiting for several hours to show. Brian suggested we table the schedule change, until we have a specific schedule in front of us. Brian moved we table the schedule change topic until we had a more concrete schedule shown to us(we do not have a schedule change proposed). Mike Baker seconded. Melissa called for vote. Motion passed. The Schedule Change was put to committee: Meredith, Wendy, & Brian. It was also asked if we can get this proposed schedule change to the clubs, so they have an opportunity to look it over and weigh in on the matter. Meredith explained how she came up with the example proposed schedule with all showmanship on Thursday and all Market on Fri-day. Melissa asked if we are drawing up this schedule based on the previous schedule or a new schedule? Mike wanted more explanation of why change to all one day each…Brian explained that visitors would be able to view all species in one day, rather than several different days. He also stated that showing market first day takes edge off for next day of showmanship. Melissa wants us to manage the time so that the fun activity at the end of the day isn’t rushing kids, or taking away from their schedule, and causing too much pressure. This puts us with not enough time, and then it’s no fun for kids at end the of the day. A new schedule will be presented, with times included and vote at the next meeting.

Dress code: Inspection: Mike explained that its helpful to inspect kids just before they go into the ring to show.

Mike moved to have inspection time before shows, Tammi seconded. Andee inquired as to if the inspections also pertained to the horse events? Eve said yes. Motion passed.

Dropping black and whites: Mike proposed to drop black and whites in the dress code. Clubs were asked votes

on the matter. Only one club wanted to keep black and whites. Mike moved we drop black and whites for all classes and adopt. Wendy seconded. Valerie wanted to know how the fair book reads. Long sleeves button up, black or blue jeans, hard toe or boots. Andee asked if we could include polos, that was no. Brian is strongly against dropping black and whites, as it makes the kids stand out and sets them apart, they are a team and the black and whites unify them. It levels the playing field at showing and sale. He would prefer they stay black and whites for showmanship and the sale. Meredith agreed about leveling the playing field, takes the aspect of socio-economic issue out. And what happens when someone pushes the dress code? Eve contributed that we also need to let the kids opinions matter, regardless of the adults opinion. Valerie stated that we as leaders need to step up in that case to be more strict with them. Brian added that when a kid has marks on their black and whites, it shows that the kids were doing their own work. Motion carries.

Awards: Leaders stated the input from clubs as to whether they like achievement night and award points or to

instead do it before sale. Most clubs really like the Achievement Night. No motion had been made. Buckles sounded important in kids input. Silversmiths does give us a big discount, but it would require us to do signifi-cant fundraising. Lee said it would easily double our award budget, from around $3000 to closer to $8000. Mer-edith pointed out that the kids are awarded with premiums and that is always a bonus. Unless a proposal comes forward, we will stick with the same system.

Nothing new on show clerk incentive to provide. Lisa contributed that they won’t be getting intern as they were-

n’t selected, but we could consider paying a past 4H member that has graduated to come for the summer (through the county) and also double as clerk for sale. Mike asked how much the selected interns are paid, $10 an hour or roughly $4000 for two months, that goes towards the interns schooling.

Ambassadors and Teen Leaders decided that since Ambassadors already have two seats on the council, they are

not proposing more teen leaders. No other unfinished business. Melissa proposed moving fair book change deadlines. It would work best to try to vote on everything by January

so we can have fair books out by February. Brian moved to have a February 1 deadline for fair book changes. Mike seconded. Motion Passed.

P a g e 7 S t i l l w a t e r C o u n t y 4 - H N e w s l e t t e r

Stillwater County 4-H Leaders Council

The 2017-2018 Executive Officers have been elected. We would like to welcome our new and

continuing Council Officers and wish them a fun and successful 4-H year!

President - Melissa Kramer, Vice President - Brian Young, Secretary - Suzi Smith, and Treasurer - Meredith Feddes

Highlights from the Council Meeting… (these have not been voted on and are not final minutes, please review final minutes on our website)

CONTINUED Lee and Ashley provided 8 options on a program used to pick sale orders. None are how we currently set up the

sale order, but a few options are close. There are many options as to how to do the sale order, but the biggest issue is that we couldn’t address if someone could sell second animal before some others sell their first. If we could have a sale order set by computer it would be more efficient. It takes a lot of manipulation with how the fair book states we do it. Mike asked if we could do two different “files”, one for first animal sold and one for second animal sold. Brian asked do we do grand and reserve first, then placing, species, weight….. Melissa said is it even valid to fight over order of sale? Selling early vs selling late? Two questions: the first and second animal, and if there is a method to make it simpler. Janelle said it would be an issue if its fair that someone sell two pigs because of ribbon color but another kid hasn’t sold his one yet. Lee said we can do by ribbon, but not ribbon and weight. Ashley stated they want to help streamline and make things easier and run smoother, as well as time man-agement. It was asked how do other fairs do it? Grand, reserve, then random by species and continue to alter-nate. Lee would like clubs to discuss, #5 or 6 are best choices to look at. Please get input and feedback and bring to next council meeting.

Proposed changes in deadlines was explained by Lisa and Ashley. They are striving for more consistency so

deadlines are more around May1. This will help to streamline things and simplify so everyone is better aware of the deadline and fewer are missed. A few that won’t change will be Teen leader project plans due Jan 1, and Congress deadline. Some can’t be changed, but for most there is no reason not to.

Ashley redid project journals, and posted only the state forms. Both types are valid still, but soon the old forms

will be phased out of. Plan to keep the small animal form from the old forms, as it is better tailored for those animal projects.

Ashley proposed we do a basketball game recruitment with our 354 water bottles. Tags would be attached to

each water bottle with statistics about our county 4H. On the back of the tag it would give details about how to get involved as a project leader. She proposed to donate 20 bottles per school to hand out during throws or games, that would be 100 total donated. Leaving us 254 bottles to sell. Janelle moved to donate 20 bottles per school to our 5 county schools. Valerie seconded. Motion passed.

Wendy inquired as to adding market goat carcass to the carcass contest, per request of a 4H member. It would

be about $150 in donations to do the carcass show for goats. Melissa stated she would just need to find a donor, which for carcass is typically Farm Credit. Tammi made motion to add market goat carcass at fair, Andee second-ed. Motion passed.

Council members were provided with a handful of possible fair book covers. Two cover pages were picked. In other business, Mike stated he would like to go look for donors for about $2000 for the swine barn. There

was no contest. Janelle added that someone told her about an incentive program that Wyoming does for their kids to get more involved in 4H. They get a dollar for doing well at fair project, for fair cleanup, for going to 4h camp, etc, and the particular kids balance grows and is saved for secondary education. Something to consider.

Everyone is encouraged to attend the Council Meetings. You are welcome to become a leader and be part of the voting process. De-

cisions are made by those who regularly attend meetings. Every club gets two votes.

Next council meeting is December 6, 2017.

P a g e 8 S t i l l w a t e r C o u n t y 4 - H N e w s l e t t e r

Stillwater County 4-H Leaders Council

Stillwater County 4-H Clubs Club Name

Organizational

Leader

Phone

Number

Meeting

Date & Time

Location of

Meeting

Beartooth

Ramblers Tammi Kirch 855-3839

1st Monday at 6

pm

Columbus Fire

Hall

Broadview

Homesteaders

Shelley Erickson

Sarah Karpstein

667-2390 907-394-2451

1st Tuesday at 7

pm

Broadview

Community

Center

Johnny’s

Buckaroos Melissa Kramer 322-5688

1st Monday at 6

pm (Call First)

West Annex

Meeting Room

Molt Happy

Helpers Kris Krieger 670-8985

Call First-2nd Tuesday

every other month at

6:30pm

Molt School or

Molt Hall

Park City

Wranglers

Reita Reiter

Cathy Tebay

860-9754

633-2398

2nd Monday at

6:30 pm

Park City

Civic Center

Rapeljacks

and Jills

Eve Brubaker Nikki Markle

322-8618 855-3386

1st Saturday at 9

am

Rapelje School-

Shop Classroom

Rosebud

Adventurers

Jolene Degele

328-6536

1st Sunday at

5:30 pm (Every other Month)

Immanuel

Lutheran Church-

Absarokee

Spring Creek

Stockgrowers

Meredith Feddes

Johna Zumbrun

547-4025

328-7299 1st Sunday at 4

pm

Spring Creek

Community

Center

Stillwater

Ranch Hands Finis Sandlin 328-6277

1st Monday at

6:30 pm Nye Fire Hall

Stillwater

Ridge Riders

Wendy Reed

Kira Pintler

321-1369 1-509-389-9694

1st Monday at

6:30 pm

Columbus

Evangelical

Church

Stillwater

Sharp

Shooters

Bobbi Schatz 322-8583 1st Sunday

Rotating at club mem-

bers homes with pot-

luck each month. Call

for location each

month.