Santa Clara County 4-H Council
Executive Board Meeting
August 14, 2001

Attendees: Vicky Bosworth, Dan Chitwood, Colleen Haggerty, John Haggerty, Kevin Wentzel, Ronne Senick, Hans Toensfeldt, Lonnie Toensfeldt, Carol Jaques, Ronda Rastler, Gary Lang

An Executive Board (plus spouses) Retreat is being planned for Sep 8 at Rio del Mar, near Aptos. Plans are being worked out and will be communicated as soon as finalized. This will be at a beach house provided by Vicky.

Key Leader - Lonnie Toensfeldt
September 15 CCL training meeting - still need to identify a location. One person from each club must attend this meeting.

This year ALL LEADERS must fill out an enrollment form, which is being renamed an application. New leaders must be fingerprinted and attend a live training session before their application will be accepted. Note that fingerprinting is free at any sheriff's office that has the electronic scanner.

All members and leaders must fill out and sign the lavender waiver form.

Sibby Coxhead, the 4-H Secretary, will be taking over the Timely Topics. Dan Chitwood will be working with her to coordinate the calendar.

Date for 2002 SCC Fair was to be finalized at Board of Supervisors meeting. It may require moving SCC 4-H Camp dates.

Share the Fun date will be moving from September 14th. Christina Baldwin has an overriding commitment. New date will be selected soon.

Judging Contest Day will be scheduled for sometime in January, 2002.

Colleen Haggerty reported that the Medalist Testing field day August 4th went well. It was moderately attended. Discussion followed about the timing of the event: a lot of people are on vacation at that time. Further discussion deferred to the Awards Committee meeting.

Dan Chitwood has been working hard at collecting dates for the county-wide calendar. We all appreciate his continuing effort.

Camp Wrap-up report - Kevin Wentzel and Dan Chitwood
Kevin reported that all things considered, it was one of the better camps that he has seen. Clover Day went well, with good participation from Camp Staff, and even some non-staff campers. The Clovers seemed to enjoy it.
Pellet Poppers came, and that went well.
Discussion continued about "Table Games" and other issues.
Dan reported that, as far as he knows, Fe has not received any negative comments since camp has been over.
Vicky suggested that staffers and campers write or email Fe about their positive experiences.
Lonnie indicated that Carole MacNeil is trying to empower the county level within 4-H in California to resolve problems as much as possible.
Vicky closed the discussion with thanks to Kevin and Dan for being so committed to the camp program, and for their leadership with camp.

Lonnie has received back about 75% of the evaluation forms from Exchange participants. She said there were many good comments and constructive ideas for how to make the program better in the future.
Kevin suggested that the Exchange participants might consider visiting the county club community meetings to describe their activities, and to promote the program, since many of the members will be "aging out" soon.

Lonnie is one of the only two volunteers to be selected for the State 4-H Standing Policy Committee. She reported on some of the work that the committee will be looking into soon. The timetable for changes in policy state-wide is being considered in light of what is reasonable, and also as to the communication of policy changes, with more discussion being disseminated from Carol McNeal's office before policy changes become effective.

Much of the discussion revolved around the financial audit policies and procedures. Generally, the committee felt that the policies and procedures in place now were good, but that there needed to be more incentive for all 4-H Units to adhere to them. We discussed a Club Treasurer's training at the county level, separate from the other Club Officer's training.

New Business:
Awards Night was tentatively set as September 29th. Kevin offered to check with Evergreen Community College to see if their auditorium would be available for the ceremony. Mission and West Valley campuses were also suggested.

County All-Star orientation date is to be determined by John, Carol and Vicky.

Club Officer Training date and Club Treasurer Training date are as yet to be determined.

Final discussion of the evening centered about the experiential learning experience offered by Exchange. Comments were made in support of the handling of how Exchange members were assigned to host families.

Meeting was adjourned at 9:15 pm.

Respectfully submitted,
Gary R. Lang
Secretary, Santa Clara 4-H Council