This month of July was spent mostly with our State Council Team. First in the beggining of July was our trip to New Mexico. The New Mexico State Leadership Team invited us to join them for their State Conference which was a combination similar to our State Leadership Conference and our State Achievement Days. While at the the conference we presented on two workshops. One was on Public Speaking and the other on People Skills. In New Mexico we really got to see how beautiful it is and how different the climate is. As a team we brought back many different ideas that we hope to use at our State Leadership Conference. Thank You to the New Mexico Leadership Team for having us at your State Conference, it was truly an amazing learning experience that I know we will never forget.

Our next Council adventure was State Achievement Days at the Penn State University. For State Achievemnt Days we planned the opening ceremonies and announced the 4-h'ers that placed in the top 5 during closing ceremonies. Opening ceremonies got everyone "Rev'ed Up" with our first ever State Days video. In our video four of our State Council members played one of the four H's and they competed in a race across campus to try to win the "Clover Cup". I played the character Carly Carrot who was representing team "Health". Our State Council Team had a lot of fun making the video and plan to include different media and technology like that in the future for other events.

During our week we met with Ms. Christy Bartley our State 4-H Program Leader. We met for lunch and talked about some differneces we noticed between New Mexico and Pennsylvania's programs. We also went over some changes that may occur with our program.

I hope everyone had a safe trip home after closing ceremoies ended. Congratulations to all the 4-H's who came to State Achievement Days and Good Luck for next year. Please remember to save your soda tabs for our statewide sevice project collected during the State Leadership Conference to benefit the Ronald McDonald House.

Look for your State 4-H Council at Ag Progress Days.

Make the most of the rest of Summer.

Sincerely,

Jamie Forinash
State 4-H Council President