The following is a look at one of the many 4-H clubs found in the Taber area. Come drop by the Taber Times and pick up a copy of our special supplement commemerating 100 years of 4-H in Canada.
Bon Ayr originated in 1961 after the Big Bend club had gotten too big. This year we are celebrating 52 years as a club.
We have 26 members in our 4-H Beef Club, ages ranging from nine to 19. We have leaders: Jack Rop, Lorelei Turcato, Benj Anderson, Robyn Anderson, Jamie Jensen and Tracy Iwan.
We weighed in our projects on Nov. 12, 2012 at Barnwell Feeders. We have 26 steer projects and nine heifer projects. We are very excited for our club to have so many female projects this year. Bon Ayr will be a contender for top heifer and steer at our District Show and Sale May 31 and June 1 at the Taber Agri-Plex.
Our meetings are scheduled the first Wednesday of each month. We use these meetings to practice our speeches, learn about how to feed our animals, what different cuts of meat and where the cuts are from on our animals. We also learn about tolerance and acceptance of all people.
We also discuss and vote on club purchases and activities we want to do. Our club meetings are chaired by our president and we use parliamentary procedure to run our club.
We keep busy each month with group activities. The activities we have done in the past are skating, bowling and skiing. As a district we have also gone swimming. When we get closer to show and sale we organize a mini show.
This is so we can bring out our calves and get them used to a ring and other people and noises generally present at our district show and sale. We break up into two groups or more and work with our calves by walking them around and using our show sticks to set them up and to get use to the other steers.
We have a mini showmanship where one of our leaders demonstrates the dos and don’ts of showing and also a clipping demonstration on clipping our calves.
One of the time treasured activities we do comes every May; we all participate in highway cleanup. Highway cleanup doesn’t seem like work so much as team building, a chance to bond and have fun while working together. It’s a choice we make to keep our community clean and a better place to live.
Doing highway cleanup helps us to learn to take care of our environment and gives us a respect for not littering. I bet the garbage we pick up each year has not been put there by a 4-H member.
Our club also votes on a theme for the year. It’s a theme we try to incorporate our projects with, like last year was Bon Ayr Branders. We had a branding iron as our hockey stick. Or the year we had wanted posters for our steers. We have a lot of fun coming up with new and exciting themes each year. Each year gets better and better.
This year’s theme, we can’t wait to share it. Come and check out our show and sale on May 31 and June 1 at the Taber Agri -Plex. All the fun will start after lunch or you can come and see before the show and see how we get the steers and heifers ready for show that morning. We can’t wait to see you and share our club.