WVU 4-H Blog

OMC 2009 Thus Far

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:55:00 EST

Hey all, it’s me again – Tad. You may remember me from my previous efforts as a blogger. If not, check ‘em out sometime!

Well, as a 21 year-old, it’s my last year as a camper here at WV 4-H Older Members Conference. I’m pretty saddened by the whole affair really. I’m really not sure how long that I’ve been here, but that’s not really what is
important about my relationship with this place and this camp. The important thing is the way in which I’ve been able to grow through my experiences I had here. The leadership opportunities that I have been given here have
helped me to become the person that I am today. But enough with that boring stuff, here’s what has been going on this week:

I’ve been in a cottage with a bunch of my best friends here, and it’s been pretty wild. It’s not as if we’re burning the place down, but there’s been a lot of fun this week just catching up and having a good time. Our room is a
complete disaster area, but it’s all good – I’m sure we’ll get it together when needed.

I’ll talk about the most recent and exciting thing that we did in camp here, and that’s the camp party. Tonight we had a dance and snacks and all that good stuff. The dance was HYPE. As always, I out being a dancing machine. I probably sweat at least a quart….AT LEAST. Luckily, I didn’t pass out because water was bountiful, but my legs are going to be feeling terribly sore tomorrow. I played basketball for a while today, swam, then danced
myself silly. I’m really surprised I was able to dance that well at all tonight after so much physical activity. That just goes to show ya, 4-H camp= healthy place to spend a week. I’d like to go on and on about my camp
exploits up to this point, but sleepiness is creepin’ in.

You’ll hear from me again soon. I may also be reporting from elsewhere in
the state. I do this stuff for money when I’m not being a camper myself.
-Tad

OMC '09

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:26:00 EST

Greetings all,

So, its been a while since the last time I’ve blogged on here but Big O mentioned something to me and I believe that its just about time to start it back up.

It’s Thursday night of OMC 2009 here at Jacksons Mill. I probably should have blogged some before now to keep you up to speed but I’ve been a little busy having fun with all of my friends?.what do you think I come to camp for, to sit here and blog all day? Not quite, but now that I have some time, I’d like to do a little updating for you.

So far this week has been awesome. When we first came to camp it was obvious that numbers were down again because of the lack of chairs in the assembly hall alone. This didn’t cause much stress though. My friend Chris Claudio and I soon agreed that the theme for the week would be “Numbers Down, Spirits Up!” as we were determined to have this week, once again, be the best week of our entire year.

I was assigned to stay in Marion Cottage for the week, which is a treat because not only is it my favorite cottage to stay in at the Mill, but almost all of my best friends are in the cottage with me, including my three roommates from my house in Morgantown, so it felt just as much like home as anywhere else I could be. Even with all of the activities available throughout the week, some of the most important and most memorable times you will ever have at 4H camp will be times and conversations you share with the roommates of your cottage. I guess there is just something about sleeping in a big, empty room with 12 other guys that just forms some sort of emotional bond.

Council Circles this week have been pretty extraordinary. Like always, the Mingo’s put out a couple duds in the funny stunt area and like always took some heat from the other tribes, but last night
they really pulled through with some quality material that had the whole camp cracking up. Last night’s council circle was also probably one of the hardest one’s I’ve ever sat through. I can’t even think to
tell you now what it was that had me and about eight others in a nonstop state of “the giggles,” but for some reason we could not stop laughing and never about anything in particular. Somehow a couple of my friends were able to convince to me to sit with them in the front row next to the chief and sag(who were also suffering from a nearly terminal case of the giggles themselves). Let me just say that “As The Bright Flames” has most definitely seen its more somber renditions.

Well that’s all from me for now. Its getting kind of late and I’ve been shakin’ what my momma gave me for a good two hours or so at the camp dance. (FYI: it was wicked awesome).

Talk to you soon, and probably tomorrow,
Mel ” Delaware GodChief” Johnson

OMC-"Through the Ages"

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:00:00 EST

Hey, hey, hey! This is Caroline back again for a new summer of camps! I have been here at Jackson’s Mill since Sunday at OMC (Older Members Conference) and it has been truly amazing! The theme for the week is “OMC Through the Ages”, so we have been traveling through history.

We started in prehistoric times on Sunday. We celebrated our first council circle with the new traditional ceremony, “The Journey”. Bob Richardson also informed us we had about 250 people in camp this week which is down from previous years, but I can honestly report that the spirit of OMC has not suffered at all. As I’ve been noticing each night at council circle there has been one thing that was really significant. Sunday’s best was definitely a Mingo commercial including a prehistoric man who stood up with a stick and performed a loud tribal call. It was hilarious!

Monday came quickly and the theme of the day was “Et tu, Brute?” aka Roman times. We had our first speaker, Dr. Nigel Clark, who spoke on alternative fuels. We attended our classes for the first time as well. We also had our traditional camp picture, but they switched up the order this year. For the first time in my 8 years of state 4-H camping the Cherokees and Delawares were in a picture together and the Mingos and Senecas were pictured together. It looked like Christmas and Halloween and the Christmas photo even sang some carols to go along with the festive colors. Monday night council circle had to be one of the funniest I have ever attended. I got a nice seat on council rock for the evening and about all the laughing I could stand! The Delawares music mix-n’-match definitely took the gold. They took a very somber traditional song here in West Virginia 4-H and mixed it with a very funny silly song, My Home Among the Hills and The Beaver Song. They sang the tune of the first, but used the words of the second. Their male chief went on to sing in the last part of the song a very high screeching descant usually performed by sopranos in a choral group. I cried, not from sadness, but laughter.

Tuesday arrived with the theme of “Let the Games Begin”, alluding to the first Olympic Games held in Athens, Greece. We did not have a speaker because we were performing our annual service to the
Mill. Campers participated in everything from painting benches to mulching flower beads to cleaning out cluttered rooms. It turned out to be a rewarding job for not only the mill, but the campers as well. Tuesday night is always a very special night here at our summer camps because it is All-Star night. There is a ceremony performed where the new inductees are tapped out of the entire audience of campers. No Tuesday night at camp has ever been more special to me however, because last night I was tapped and inducted to be a West Virginia 4-H All-Star! It was shocking and amazing all in one. We then went to council circle with all the special guest All-Stars. It was again a hilarious night. Although council circle was a little long, we came down to the assembly hall afterward and were able to congratulate all the new All-Stars and celebrate with a little folk dancing.

Although today is not yet over, it has already been quite interesting. Our theme for the day is “Who Turned Out the Lights?”, or medieval times. We had a guest speaker this morning on Cyber Bullying. It was quite the controversial issue. It spurred great discussion of everyone in their small groups and when we came back for full camp discussion the response was so overwhelming that we had many campers unable to voice their
opinions in the allotted time. We were encouraged to share our thoughts with others over the course of the day however.

So, as camp this week has been quite fun and amazing I am sure and hope it only gets better.

Until Next Time,
Caroline Bailey

State 4-H camping season launches

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:22:00 EST

The State 4-H camping season in West Virginia launches on Sunday, June 21, 2009 with the beginning of Older 4-H Members’ Conference. This leadership development conference will be home for nearly 300 4-H’ers from throughout the state until Saturday, June 27 at Jackson’s Mill, West Virginia University’s special mission regional campus. OMC began in 1944 and it serves as the flagship of the West Virginia 4-H Camping Program.

The youth select topics to address during the week and each day a different speaker discusses a subject for that day. Our topics this year include: Alternate Fuels,Technology and it’s impact on our Futures, Taking Good Risks, and Death of Small Farms and Businesses.

This year’s theme is “Through The Ages” and the director of the camp is Robert Richardson, an attorney who practices in Lewisburg, WV. Bob is a former WVU Mountaineer and was the first Truman Scholar from WVU. He graduated for the University of Virginia College of Law. Bob will be serving his 22nd year as a volunteerfor the state 4-H camping program.

The next two opportunities for a state 4-H camping experience will be on July 12 and July 19 when Alpha I and Alpha II will begin at Jackson’s Mill. Students entering the sixth grade through age twenty-one are eligible to attend. Directors for Alpha are Craig Presar, Upshur County Extension Agent and Barbie Little, a school teacher in the Raleigh County School System. If you are still interested in attending the Alpha camps, please contact your County Extension Office or Jeffrey Orndorff, Extension Specialist-4-H at the West Virginia University Extension Service in Morgantown at 304-293-2694.

More details may be obtained by emailing jdorndorff@mail.wvu.edu

Follow Emily Evert's travels, a 4-H IFYE blogging abroad

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:12:00 EST

Emily’s blog is designed to track the weekly “happenings” of a Hampshire County 4-Her traveling throughout Germany and Austria. She thinks of it as traveler’s log, and hopes you enjoy reading and following up on her travel as much as she enjoys creating her adventure journal!

Emily recently wrote:

Hi and greetings from Austria. I have so much information to relay and many new stories to tell. I would love for you to visit my IFYE blog: Travels of the Advanced 4-Her!
– Emily Evert

Please take a few moments to read about this West Virginia 4-Her traveling abroad and send her a note with your own thoughts and comments. You can visit Emily’s blog at: http://wvifye2008.blogspot.com/

4-H Corn Roast at the Stonewall Jackson Jubilee

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:49:00 EST

It will soon be time for us to do the Corn Roast at the Stonewall Jackson Jubilee. The Jubilee will begin on Friday, August 29 and end on Monday, September 1. The Jubilee is a giant craft fair with a theme of history and authentic homemade crafts and food. There are many activities. The State 4-H Camps and the 4-H Agents Association sponsor a corn roast. Besides corn, we have sweet potatoes and baked potatoes roasted on an open pit and it is all very tasty and delicious. The real flavors come out of the food from cooking on the open pit.

We are looking for 4-H folks to volunteer to give us a five hour shift on one of those days. If you are interested, our shifts are as
follows:

10-2 12-5 3-8

If you are interested, please let me know at jeffrey.orndorff@mail.wvu.edu and let me know the day and shift you would like to work. We will add you to the list and they will have the list at the picnic pavilion once your
cross over the bridge to the airfield. We will also have lodging available to those that work for us and if you need that, I would need to know that as well. Our booth is located next to the pool in the upper end of camp.

We also need help on Thursday to do the setup and we will begin work
that day at 12:00 until we finish.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

Jeff

Stop by and visit the youth building at the State Fair

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:17:00 EST

The West Virginia State Fair is now open and the grounds are full of people enjoying the sights and sounds of the country life in the Mountain State. 4-H is stepping up their involvement with the fair this year. We now have a council circle on the grounds and we will be having camp fire activities three times a day during the run of the fair.

The Youth Building is also open and we have the second largest number of exhibits ever. We have 3,670 exhibits from 50 of our 55 counties. We have taken digital pictures of all the posters and it is easier to read the posters and all the great information they have. We are open everyday from 10:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night, so if you are traveling to the fair, stop in the Cecil Underwood Youth Building for a great 4-H fix. The projects are varied and we have selected 12 Best of Show exhibits. We have folks from the Greenbrier County 911 with us along with Greenbrier Communications. Germ City is helping teach folks the correct way to wash their hands and as always it is a very popular attraction

We will be adding the Mobile Technology Lab by tomorrow morning and this will give us 11 computers in the building where folks can read email, look up items on the internet and play games.

We are enjoying the beginning of the new fair and our thanks go out to all the folks that were a part of the Department O team and the agents and volunteers around the state that delivered exhibits to us.

State camp planning begins tonight, August 8 and OMC will be working tonight and tomorrow with our Alpha planning coming in on Saturday and out on Sunday. Hopefully many great ideas will come about for State Camps for the summer of 2009.

An incredible week at Alpha II

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:13:00 EST

Hey everyone! It’s Meredith. I hope everyone has been enjoying reading all the blogs people have written about their incredible 4-H experiences. Sadly summer is quickly coming to an end, but I’m writing today to tell you all a little about one more of our state 4-H camps, Alpha II.

Alpha II is held at Jackson’s Mill in Lewis County and is for 4-Hers going into 5th grade up to the age of 21. The theme of Alpha this year was medieval so every day was planned to fit to the theme and our song even talked about ruling the kingdom.

There are many traditions that are unique to Alpha that are the highlight of many people’s week there. One of these activities is LEOs. LEOs stand for Leisure Educational Opportunities. They are your chance to choose from a long list of activities that fit every kind of personality. In other words, those of you who love sports can show your skills on the field, on the court, or in the sand. Those of you creative crafty styles can create anything you set your mind to. We are lucky enough to have a creativity lab a.k.a. “craft heaven”. You can find almost anything in order to make anything from a cute ankle bracelet to a tie dye t-shirt.

Another favorite of Alpha II are “grow groups.” At the beginning of the week, they separate the entire camp into all the different age groups and then those groups split into even smaller groups of about 10 to 15 people. You spend a good amount of your time with this group, learning about each other, playing games, and having discussion. This is a great place to make lifelong friends and also many peoples’ motivation to come back to camp year, for those few special people in their grow groups. I mean who else is going to understand you or relate to you any better than boys and girls your own age? You are going through the same times and you simply just get each other.

Alpha II is a chance to discover who you are, to step outside of your comfort zone, and live your life. Don’t ever pass up a chance to be you. I encourage all of you who do go to camp to keep coming back until you age out and then send in your information to be on staff. Those of you who are yet to experience 4-H camp, it’s never too late. Send in your registration next summer and I’ll see you there. I promise it will be the best week of your life.

Our new 4-H friends from up North

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:20:00 EST

Catching fireflies, biking, and making semores-I know it sounds like I have drifted back to my childhood. The truth is last week, five Canandians from Alberta spent the week in Morgantown, WV with our family and two other 4-H families and so we spent some time catching fireflies, biking and eating the usually forbidden semores. Nine exchange students and two chaperones arrived from Canada last Monday. On their first night here, they discovered fireflies and finally they said that they understood the Huck Finn concept of the glowing jar with a stick.

We had such fun with these folks from up North exploring our town and state. Five of them stayed in Morgantown for the week and six visited in Morgan, Roane, Preston and Doddridge counties. This is all part of an exchange that was suppose to be somewhere else for both groups. The West Virginia 4-H’ers were planning to go to Russia and the Canadians had planned a trip to Quebec but there were complications with both of those plans so Gayle Plante, one of the Canadian chaperones and a 4-H leader searched on the Internet and read about Jeff Orndorff (aka-my husband) who had taken 4-H’ers on exchanges before to Russia and other states. In the meantime, Meredith(our daughter), had attended National 4-H Conference in Washington, DC in April and had met some other Canadian students. When she came home, she shared how much she loved the Canadians with their spontaneity and enthusiasm. So when Jeff got the call and he mentioned it to Meredith, she really gave her Dad a push. Even though he already had a very tight schedule with his Extension job of running 3 state camps, Operation Military kids and the State Fair, the exchange was a go. So what has happened?

Meredith was right…what a great group of people and we are so lucky they are a neighboring country! We have shared ideas, recipes, games and revisited our state and neighboring states. Some activities included touring Blackwater Falls, Cooper’s Rock, downtown Morgantown, biking at Ohiopyle; swimming in 2 friend’s pools, a round of golf, playing spoons, listening to their own Garth Brooks sing and play guitar,-Ian Brousseau, and laughing almost all of the time.

What have we discovered? We are more alike than different and the differences make life much more interesting. One of the kids told a story, that we call a knitted winter cap a tobaggan, while of course a tobaggan to the Canadians is a special sled. There weren’t too many words that we didn’t understand but we liked they way that they said, “Ay” at the end of many sentences. It sure beats, “Huh.”

The Canadians, this week are Alpha II at Jackson’s Mill. When I returned home from camp last night (some of us must go to real work), my house was too quiet.

Gail Plante and Shelley Tymofichuk, the chaperones from Canada are the Big Foot’s tribe, Chief and Sag this week. If you are a 4-H’er you know that unlike the regular tribes, the honor of being Chief and Sag in the Big Foot tribe always goes to the newest adults in camp because they will definitely have the most fun with it. I heard that they have something very special planned for tonight’s Council Circle.

So next year, the West Virginian’s will travel to Alberta to visit for about 10 days. I’m sure they will learn even more. If you are interested in 4-H, contact your local Extension Service in your county and if you are interested in learning more about 4-H exchanges and need advice, write to Jeffrey Orndorff

The Canadians particpating are: Ian Brousseau, Clayton Poulin, Marc Lamontague, Gabrile Corbiere, Darren Tymofichuk, Laura Plante, Amanda Meger, Martine Chamberland, Jennifer Brousseau and chaperones Gail Plante and Shelley Tymofichuk.

Hosts and their families included:
Doddridge County – Chelsea Welch and family ,Mandy Yeater and Shane Yeater and family
Monongalia County – Ashley Sydney Lavengood, Sydney Lavengood and parents Mike and Sheri Lavengood; Meredith Orndorff, Joel Orndorrff and parents Jeff and Cathy Orndorff; and chaperone, Connie Williams
Morgan County – Ronald Fifield and family
Preston County – Charles Brown and family
Roane County – Kati Hildreth and family

How, how-to a super bunch of folks from up North!.

Not too late to attend Alpha Camps!

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:46:00 EST

It is not too late to attend Alpha I or II. Alpha 1 begins on Sunday, July 6, 2008 and registration is from 2 -4 p.m. Alpha II begins on Sunday, July 13 and again registration is from 2-4 p.m. At this point the state scholarship is no longer available, but we will provide anyone registering now to get a $40.00 staff scholarship provided by our Alpha staff members. Alpha I numbers are up and Alpha II is about the same size as last year, so we are looking for two wonderful weeks. If you would like to attend I or II, the easiest way to do this is to register online at the following address:

http://www.peopleware.net/2633a

This will allow you to pay via credit card or to make payment when you arrive. You will be able to get the $40.00 scholarship even if you walk in on Sunday. Letting us know in advance makes your trip through the registration process faster, so get to your computer and sign up. Remember to bring your own towels, but Jackson’s Mill has linens. You might want to bring a light blanket if it remains cool. Oh, btw the theme is “The Kingdom of Alpha-A Noble Journey.” It’s a medieval theme-in case you don’t recognize the word-it was the time around the middle ages. See you at camp!