Being a 4-H club officer: President
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EmailLearn the role of being a 4-H club president and how a leader can provide support and encouragement.
Michigan 4-H Youth Development encourages youth to take on leadership roles in their 4-H clubs by serving as club officers. Club officers play an important role in assuring club activities are driven by youth, and serving as an officer provides opportunities for leadership development. Adult volunteers play an important role in assisting the president and officer team to be successful.
The president of a 4-H club is responsible for conducting the 4-H club’s meetings. Before each meeting, the president should meet with all of the officers and adult club leader. The president should review the agenda for the upcoming meeting, make sure the meeting room is ready and that all members with a role in the meeting are prepared.
The president calls the meeting to order, conducts the meeting and closes the meeting in a timely matter. Here is an outline of an agenda on how a business meeting should run:
- Call to order
- Pledges: Pledge of Allegiance followed by the 4-H Pledge
- Roll call and introduction of visitors
- Secretary’s report and approval of minutes
- Treasurer’s report and motion to place report on file
- Committee reports
- Old business
- New business
- Announcements, leader’s report
- Adjournment
Adult club leaders play an important role in assisting the officers to learn, grow and experience success. Leaders may do this by offering support to the president in helping them in the following ways:
- Meet with the president prior to the meeting in order to make sure they are comfortable with the agenda and to discuss any topics that need to be addressed.
- Sit near or in the vicinity of the president during the meeting to offer words of encouragement or step in if the president seeks assistance.
- Meet with the president after the meeting to go over what occurred, what needs to be done and to generally reflect on the overall goals. Having a wrap-up meeting is a great opportunity to practice the Experiential Learning model of do, reflect and apply.
In order to set your president and officer team up for success, the Michigan State University Extension bulletin, “Helping You Help Officers and Committees,” will assist adults in working with officer teams. MSU Extension’s Leadership and Civic Engagement Work team is also available to assist groups in training officer teams to be successful. Contact the team at 4-hleadership@anr.msu.edu.
To learn about the positive impact of Michigan 4-H youth leadership, citizenship and service and global and cultural education programs read our 2016 Impact Report: “Developing Civically Engaged Leaders." Additional impact reports, highlighting even more ways Michigan State University Extension and Michigan 4-H have positively impacted individuals and communities in 2016 can be downloaded from the MSU Extension website.
