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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1988-05-03, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 1988. PAGE 5. County 4-H dubs in trouble You've got to listen to us, leaders say It was evident from a stormy meeting held in Clinton April 27 that many 4-H clubs in Huron County are in deep trouble, with problems that can only be solved if the people at the top of the organization start listening to those at the bottom. The meeting was called by the Clinton office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food to give local 4-H leaders, parents and senior club members a chance to discuss the 4-H Review Committee’s preliminary Report just out, but most of the evening was spent in blasting the inequities of the program as seen by those who deliver it. Jack Hagarty, director of OMAF’s Rural Organizations Ser­ vices (ROS) branch came under heavy fire for everything from the make-up of the Review Committee to the lack of enthusiasm of county ROS staff, and it was evident that he was shaken by the accusations. It was equally evident that nobody at the top had ever bothered to listen to those at the bottom before, an attitude which a number of the 2(5 or so Club leaders from Huron and Bruce Counties present say has led to the current level of frustration in the organiza­ tion, as well as being a contributing factor in the resignations of some of the county’s top leaders and senior members. And although a number of those present indicated that the pro­ blems with 4-H are more severe in Huron County than in most other midwestern Ontario counties, oth­ ers, like 4-H Club leader Lila Rintoulof RR2, Lucknow, said that if Mr. Hagarty goes to other counties, he’d “hear worse.” By far the major problem with the organization as it currently exists, accordingtothoseatthe Clinton meeting, is that the OMAF’s ROS staff is seen to be almost totally uninvolved with the 4-H clubs in their areas, despite the fact that close to 50 per cent of their time is to be devoted to 4-H, according to Mr. Hagarty. The problem, said several leaders, is thAttheROS positions inOMAF ar? seen as “low man on the totem pole,” stepping stones to a better job, and as a result, they say, few staffers “neither know nor care” what’s happening to the 4-H clubs in their charge. “Where do they get these people?,” Mrs. Rintoul said. “If they have no contact with 4-H kids or leaders, how can they act as the liason between us and (the mini­ stry)?” (Their attitude) really pisses me off," added Jim Hallahan of RR 3, Blyth, former leader of the Hallrice 4-H Dairy Calf Club in north Huron and one of those responsible for building the club up to be one of the largest and mostenthusiastic dairy 4-H Club leaders, past leaders, parents, senior club members and other concerned individuals had the chance to voice their frustration with the current state of 4-H Clubs in Huron County when they met with senior provincial staff in Clinton last week. Their message to the top staffer was loud and clear: you’ve got to start listening to us. From left, Glen McNeil, Bob McNeil, Bevan Shapton, Jim Hallahan, Ken Ramsey, Shirley Ramsey and Ruth Marcou, Regional Manager, Western Region Rural Organization Services. clubs in the province. “I think they could put a little more effort into their jobs by getting out and meeting the kids, by participating in all the 4-H events instead of just picking and choosing. I think maybe that’s the problem - they ’ re just not commun­ icating with the kids or the leaders,” he added. The prevalent attitude at the meeting was that there had not been a good 4-H co-ordinator in Huron County for the past five years, since former co-ordinator Len McGregor was replaced when the ROS branch was put in place by the ministry, co-inciding with the amalgamation of the Agriculture and Homemaking 4-H Clubs in 1983. Since that time, leaders say, each new rural organization spe­ cialist has not stayed long enough to get to know what is happening within the 4-H organization. And even if they did, the leaders agreed, none has had enough time nor enthusiasm to do anything to correct the cancer within. Neither Jane Muegge nor Nick Geleynse, the current ROS staffers attached to the Clinton OMAF office, were present at the meet­ ing, an indication, said resigned 4-H Sheep Club leader Harriet Boon of RR 2, Bluevale, that the OMAFstaffknew thatwas going to come out at the meeting. It was likely, she told The Citizen, thatthe Clinton office felt the leaders would be more likely to speak their minds if the local organization specialists were not in attendance. Several leaders questioned why the county 4-H co-ordinators had to be university graduates “who have never had a hand on a bale of hay, ’ ’ rather than some of the county’s own diploma students from Cen­ tralia or Ridgetown, that many felt were more likely to have come up through the ranks of 4-H them­ selves, or even some of the county’s top 4-H leaders, most of whom are passionately committed to the organization. But Mr. Hagarty said that under OMAF’s present organization this would be impossible, since the ministry could only hire personnel with degrees for ROS positions. ROS staff were also blamed for shifting more and more of the responsibilities of their jobs over on to club leaders, such as the responsibility for marking mem­ bers’ project books, ashasbeen asked of leaders in the past two years. Neither the kids nor the leaders like this method, because manykidshaveaparentastheir club leader, which could lead to marking a member’s project too hard or too easy, according to the parent. It also takes too much time out of the volunteer leader’s already crowded schedule, which is a major reason so many committed leaders have quit over the past couple of years, they say. “If I’m going to have to do the (ROS’s) work, I want part of their pay,” Jim Hallahan said. But the largest issue at stake, according to a majority of those present, who went on record with a show of hands in the matter, is the matter of member’s age in 4-H clubs, now set at 12 to 21. Most feel that the age should be lowered to accept kids as young as 11, or even 10, as full-fledged 4-H members, oratleastallow a return to the days of a few years back when a category called Pre-4-H, for 11-year-olds, was permitted. Several leaders, most notably those associated with the large Hallrice Club, said that they had regularly “operated outside the law’ ’ by permittingyounger kids to take part in all Club activities, and that the younger kids had in most cases done as well as the older “legal” members, and in many cases had gone on to become the top members of their own clubs and to do well at county and regional competitions. In response, Mr. Hagarty said that since experience had shown that most members stay in their 4-H clubs for just under three years, with the average member’s age at just over 14, OMAF felt that the ages 12-21 were the most productive years for a younger person to be in the organization. But several leaders violently disagreed, pointing out that if the average tenure is less than three years, there must be something wrong with the organization’s image in the first place, something that would have to be changed. “Kidsain’tstupidany more, like we were,” said Jim Hallahan, whose family has been associated with the movement in Huron County for more than 50 years. One of the major reasons that kids leave 4-H now, said 4-H Swine Club leader Ron Shelley of RR 2, Gorrie, is that the Club work is no longer any fun for kids - much of it is too complicated for the age levels to which it is directed, and the projects are now so involved that in order to cover the material within thespecified time, there is noroom left in meetings for fun or social times, and this is very wrong. His daughter, Sandra Shelley, a seniorClub memberand Huron County’s 1987 Champion All­ round Showman, agrees. “I’maRidgetowngraduate, and even lean’t understand some of the stuff that’s in there. The material is just too heavy for lots of kids, especially first-year kids. If some of the leaders can’t understand it, how are the kids supposed to?” Leaders from the dairy, beef, sheep and poultry club agreed: 4-H has to be fun, they said, not just an extension of school. Going over the 56-page draft of the 4-H Review Committee’s Interim Report item by item, the leaders were constantly diverted as they expressed further frustra­ tion with such things as the choice ofpeople surveyed to provide input into the report and the inequalities which exist between the current agricultural (or “competitive”) 4-H programs and the new “life­ style” programs. However, the thing that caused almost as much Continued on page 20 The International Scene Peace is not likely to break out in Afghanistan BY RAYMOND CANON Afghanistan is one of those countries that most of us have read about but have never visited. 1 must confess that lama member of that group; much as I would like to have a look at the place, I have had to restrict my interest to reading about it and trying to understand what is going on. At times it is not easy and even the Russians must wonder just what it was that made them get mixed up in the place. A little bit of background material is in order. Afghanistan is one of those countries which border on anarchy. When the British were there in the 19th century, they found it extremely hard to keep under control. They never really did; it was easier to cut one’s losses and get out which they proceeded to do. Since that time there has been very little in the way of law and order. Kabul might be the capital but frequently what went on outside of Kabul had very little to do with the direction any government wanted to take. The country is quite mountain­ ous and even getting there, short of flying in, is something of a chore. The population is for the most part Moslem but not Arab, a character­ istic that it shares with Pakistan and Indonesia. Of late the same fundamentalism which has hit Iran also made its presence felt in Afghanistan and it was this fact as much as anything that made the Kremlin decide it was a good time to step in and make sure that, whatever the religious proclivities of the Afghan government was, it was friendly to Moscow. There are, after all, a goodly number of Moslems living right across the border in the Soviet Union and Moscow did not want this funda­ mentalism flowing into the Soviet Union and making things even more difficult than they currently are. Hence the invasion of Afghani­ stan by the Soviet Union in 1976 and the installation of a commun­ ist-oriented government in Kabul. Doing that was one thing, getting the rest of the country to follow suit was another and in no time at all, the Russian forces, numbering well over 100,000 found them­ selves in somewhat the same situation as did the Americans in Vietnam. There was simply noway thata limited engagementcould be turned into a victory. The Ameri­ cans eventually learned that there was a great deal of wisdom in cutting their losses in Vietnam and going home, regardless ofwhat the rest of the world thought of it. Now it is the turn of the Russians. They have been no more successful than the Americans and the negotia­ tions which have just been held were concentrated as much as anything on the ways in which Moscow could withdraw with as little a loss of face as possible. I wish that I could saythatthe departure of the Russians which will start to take place this spring will result in peace and friendship in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, as I have indicated above, anarchy seems to be a way of life at times in thatcountry and there is, there­ fore, the distinct possibility that the various factions which have been carrying on against the invading Russians, will now find it next to impossible to work together for the good of the country. We should be under no illusions about that since we experienced some­ what the same thing at the close of World War II. During the way we were taught to believe that the Russians were loyal allies of the Canadians in the fight against Hitler and so they were. However, the war was hardly over when it became quite obvious that, what­ ever had united us during the war, was patently absent from 1945 on. We started being suspicious of the Russians’ intentions and they of us until one would never know that we had been so close only a few years ago. Stalin became almost as big a menace as Hitler and it is only now that we are seeing what appears to be a real thaw in relations between the Russian and the Western World. Soitis with Afghanistan. The Russians have agreed to leave; they will by no stretch of the imagination want to see a govern­ ment which is hostile to them. What we may, unfortunately, see is an Afghan government that cannot maintain any degree of unity because of its own inherent hostility.