This first half of the years has just flown by… we have been running around doing chapter visits, business and industry visits, local conference and most important of all meeting you guys “the members”. I can’t believe that we are more than half way through our year as state officers. I mean I think way back to the beginning of this whole experience and I realize we have done so much in so little time, I just don’t know how we have done it.
JUNE- What an eventful month June was. We were elected; we spent a week in a cabin together… (6 girls 5 boys) and Mr. Brammer!!! WOW, talk about some fun times), we ate meals that were cooked by our own teammates (talk about trust), went through some training stuff, but most importantly, we learned that we needed to be the best family we could be in order to be the best STATE OFFICER TEAM possible!!!
JULY- We did our first conference (WPLC… Western Pennsylvania Leadership Conference), we canoed and kayaked as a team (DANGEROUS CREEK), we traveled all over the place and met a whole lot of people that I promise you, I can’t remember a third of their names, but the funniest to me would have to be getting PANTS shirts at PANTS (Penn Atlantic Nursery Trade Show), So we did some of this and some of that… more or less we did A LOT!!!
AUGUST- First board meeting (couldn’t have been more nervous), next up was NLCSO (National Leadership Conference for State Officers)… I had heard so many great things and my mind was still blown away by how much fun we had (YEAH, we even had a dance party for just us J ), we also had to opportunity to job shadow some of the most important people involved in the Agricultural Industry from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture… MORE or LESS I followed Ms. Jean Lonie around with a pen and paper and just about wrote down anything she said!!! Even when she told me “Sam stop writing!”
SEPTEMBER- Chapter Visit MADDNESS started!! <3!! As well as chapter visits we traveled as a team in one 15 passenger… this included all 11 officers and Mama and Papa Brammer. Let me tell you, once you ride in that close of quarters with Alex’s jokes, they do start to get funny after a while!!! ALL AMERICAN DAIRY SHOW, I showed a cow and took a cow from its stall, but its okay because I was given permission by my boss not by the owner (don’t worry though, they knew I was taking the cow) and then if that wasn’t a great month already we also threw the AFY Leadership Conference into this month… I mean could it have gotten any better???
OCTOBER- Chapter Visit MADDNESS continues!! <3!! Just wondering how many of you have heard of the BLUE AND GOLD Ball... so much fun, yeah we even got Secretary Russell Redding doing a conga line!!! How many other people can say that? J AND there should be one more really significant event that happened in October… I think it was NATIONAL CONVENTION!!! Wow what an amazing 9 days, I mean Josh Sundquist, Mike Rowe, Toby Keith, the delegate process and of course the National Officers! So much of a different experience as a state officer as when you’re just a high school member… CRAZY FUN J
NOVEMBER- Chapter Visit MADDNESS Continues!! <3!! We got the opportunity to learn more about the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau when we attended their annual conference. Then we spent a couple of days if Philadelphia for a bit of fun consisting of Farm City day on the 20th and the Thanksgiving Day parade on the 26th. But most of us made it home in time for the annual TURKEY dinner… YUMM
DECEMBER- Chapter Visit MADDNESS Continues!! <3!! A good bit of business and industry visits were done in the beginning of this month, you know walk in act like you know what you’re talking about… I have done that a bunch this year!!! Yeah we had another one of those board meeting to attend… yeah still nervous, not too sure why, but I was. So by the end of December we had a meeting to talk about MID-WINTER and then we had Christmas, but to finish the month we had another meeting to talk about MID-WINTER.
So this was just a little run down of the fist half of the year… if I would have gone into detail I would have been here for the next year. But from now on my journal will be in BLOG form. I will write something and my email will be at the bottom of each entry, this is for you guys as members to write back (IF YOU WANT)! But this is your opportunity to talk to me!!! Talk to you guys soon! Hope everyone has an amazing New Year celebration!
Samantha Barrick-Poust
State Secretary
Pennsylvania FFA Association
“Beyond the Blue”