The 2020 California 4-H State Leadership Conference, also known as SLC, was virtual on Zoom due to the pandemic. Planning had started well before California's Shelter in Place orders went into effect in March. The SLC Planning Committee had to do a major switch to transition the 4-day annual conference to a virtual experience. What was it like for the attendees?
My 4-H SLC Experience, as a First Year Attendee
By Oliver Bartlett Popejoy, Imperial County Young Ambassador
Day 1
For the first day, we started off with a PA (Program Assistant) meeting. I was placed in the Sunglasses PA group. We played a game of online Pictionary and Hangman once all of the icebreakers and talking was done. My favorite icebreaker was a game of 4-H Jeopardy. Hangman didn't go as planned because of rogue spamming in the chat room and other people drawing on the screen when they were not supposed to. This experience was valuable though because everyone learned early on important Zoom Meeting rules and etiquette.
After that, we joined the State Conference Kick-Off meeting. We met the 2020 State Ambassadors and chatted with them about food, a lot, our day, our tea or coffee preferences, etc. Then, we went to the Branding Yourself Workshop and we learned a lot about branding yourself (obviously) and how to make an elevator pitch of the sorts. They gave us a basic template to personalize. At 4:00 pm we started moved on to the State Ambassadors' Team Communication Workshop, that ended at 6. I was assigned to Group F and my job was to ignore Group C and tell everyone that Godzilla was the answer to the following task… Create a Toy Product. We just needed to repeat Godzilla over and over again and be generally very annoying. It showed us that if we don't work correctly as a team, how bad the outcome could become. We finished up with a Q & A session about what the do for us - their role.
Day 2
The first presentation was given by a motion graphics designer, David Dodd. In his presentation he talked about his job, the work he does, and what steps he took along the way to become a successful person in his field of work. He hosted a Q & A session to answer any questions we had for him. I asked him, “Have you ever done any jobs just to promoted yourself (not for hire)?” He said, “Yes, and he gave me a few examples.” After an hour break I joined Workshop A. It was about food waste and was hosted by the Riverside County All Stars. I learned a lot about food waste and how it makes up most of the world's green house gas emissions. After all the learning, we completed a Quizizz form - an online test.
Afterwards we took a break before attending our next chosen workshop. My Workshop B was hosted by Eleanor “Ellie” Moiola and it was about eating what's healthy and how to make a really nice beef and broccoli recipe. It was fun and interactive. I also found it cool that someone as young as her was able to become a State presenter and that she's from the Valley. After another 15 minute break we got back into our PA groups and talked about what we learned from the day's sessions.
Day 3
We joined our PA groups at 11am and discussed the “Brand of You” topic. A group about how we would brand ourselves, hypothetically, if we were business owners. We took a break and then continued our discussion. I found the part about how you would structure a business to fit with the way you planned to brand it the most interesting. We finished up with some small talk, played another game of custom 4-H jeopardy and were asked to take a survey about our Conference experience.
We were given a long lunch break before we signed into Facebook Live to watch the prerecorded Closing Assembly. The 2019-2020 State Ambassadors passed their “pins” to the new 2020-2021 State Ambassadors. For Imperial, Juanita retired (and graduated from high school - congratulations) and Phillip is staying-on for another year. Overall, I found it fun, but I look forward to attending in person. I totally recommend this Conference for anyone interested leadership.
My 4-H SLC Experience, as a Second Year Attendee
By Thacker Everett Popejoy, Imperial County Young Ambassador
This year, due to California's Shelter in Place public safety guidelines, we participated online for our California 4-H State Leadership (Virtual) Conference. It was a shorter version of our normal, University-based camp, but they made it just as fun as last year.
Because of my age, I was assigned to the Night Vision Goggles PA group. The first thing we did was talk about our future. Then, we created a fun little chant for our group. Then, we participated in a 30 minute workshop about social networking. I learned lots about creating an online business profile for the work place. When that was over, we participated in the State Ambassador workshop. We did little activities about how to communicate and work together in a group. It was chaos, I had no idea that everyone's role was to ignore me during the session. I was assigned to role C. I kept sharing my part, but no one was listening to me. It was totally crazy! Then, we talked about our group exercise and watched a preprepared presentation about how we can improve our communication skills in a group (the solution for the breakdown that happened earlier). When the day was over, they scheduled a social hour for us, so we could talk and have fun each other (the other 4-hers attending the Conference). I made many new friends from across the State.
On the second day, we started off with a presentation from a famous artist and well-known motion graphic designer David Dobbs. He told us all about his job and showed us the presentations and videos that he has created (his portfolio). One thing that I thought was pretty cool was that he did work for the Avengers movies. Pretty awesome! The next event was our workshop A. I choose the Food Waste workshop. We talked about what we can do to avoid food waste and how to decrease the amount good food that we throw out on a daily basis. My workshop B was about coding with Python. We learned its basic language skills. I enjoyed that they made a dry subject interesting to learn about. Lastly, we gathered together in our PA groups and talked about our future plans. I shared my college interests - about wanting to go to UC Davis and becoming an agricultural attorney.
For the final day, we talked with our PA groups about our Conference experience which was really fun. We exchanged contact info so we are able to communicate beyond the conference. I got a lot out of it and I am proud of all that I did. I appreciate the time and effort that it took for Leadership to pivot to a virtual format, but I'm really hoping we can make it back to the UC Davis campus next year!
2021 State Leadership Conference
We don't know yet if the 2021 State Leadership Conference will be live or virtual, but you can still support creating a meaningful leadership growth opportunity for our youth. Purchase a Paper Clover at Tractor Supply Stores or at checkout online at tractorsupply.com. Your purchase supports 4-H leadership and 4-H camp experiences.
