4-H Clubs in Saskatchewan are celebrating another success after conducting a recruitment and retention drive aimed at increasing 4-H membership.
“The Saskatchewan 4-H community is absolutely amazing,” said Valerie Pearson, executive director with the Saskatchewan 4-H council.
“Give our clubs a challenge and they not only step up to the plate, but raise the bar and accomplish more than ever anticipated.”
In total, 969 new participants joined 4-H this fall. On the retention side, clubs now have 13,371 combined years of participation within the 4-H program.
Read Also
Going beyond “Resistant” on crop seed labels
Variety resistance is getting more specific on crop disease pathogens, but that information must be conveyed in a way that actually helps producers make rotation decisions.
“I wasn’t surprised at all. Pretty much any program we put out there, they’re just hungry for something to do, more information,” she said.
This was the first year that individual clubs were asked to take part in the recruitment and retention drives.
“We thought what better way than to have the people out there retain their members and recruit new ones and put a bit of a challenge and some of them really went after it,” said Pearson.
There were four categories in the recruitment and retention competition, which ran Sept.1 to Nov.15:
- The largest overall increase in new members and leaders.
- The largest overall percentage increase in new members and leaders.
- The largest overall sum of member and leader years in 4-H.
- The largest overall sum of average years in 4-H based on club size.
- The top 4-H club in each of the four provincial regions with the overall best recruitment and retention efforts won a club fun day for its members.
Other winning clubs from each region won 4-H promotional items.
Saskatchewan 4-H is in the top three organizations in Canada for resources, staff, and member leadership.
