AGRICULTURE COMMITTEE SEPTEMBER 10, 2008
TULLY HIGH SCHOOL CONFERENCE ROOM
MEETING MINUTES
The meeting was called to order at 7:10 pm with the following attending:
Colleen Currie, Derek Hill, Kim Cameron, Denise Cardamone, Peter Cardamone, Jamie Rodems, Jill Northrup, Kraig Pritts, John Snavlin, Mr. Somers, and Jean Reed.
Derek introduced guest speakers who gave presentations. Bob Haight showed an educational/promotional video about aged—what it is all about. The video was well received and Kraig asked if it was available to us to use. It is and we will have a web link to it from our web page. It was discussed that this video would benefit the guidance office in showing kids a little more about the agriculture program and what diversity is available.
Guest speaker Eric Larson spoke about the functions of an ag committee and Kim Cameron asked him what other Ag programs looked like around the state. His answer was a sampling of the diverse areas different schools have leaned towards in their individual programs. Anything from specialties in the area of aquatics, to maple syrup production.
Jean asked Bob about the Cornell program “Ag in the classroom” for elementary age children. Heather Davis has some new information coming out soon for that age. They are working on a book containing NYS products.
Peter asked Eric about the frequency of schools who share programs as we are starting with Lafayette school. We have a student going there for an engineering program and two students from Lafayette are coming to our school for some Ag classes.
This lead to what our numbers look like in regards to enrollment. We are at 62 kids in the Ag classrooms. The approximate percentage of kids who wanted an Ag class verses how many are actually enrolled was 90%.
Jamie talked about the importance of Derek with some help from the committee, writing up a 5 year plan with short term and long term goals. Stating that this gives the board something to look at and consider at budget time. A well thought out game plan gives credit to our program.
On the lines of presentation-Kraig suggested an article in Southern Hills publication that is a multiple town wide weekly paper, along with the Knight Insight, in regards to the village plantings that were grown in our greenhouse.
Mr. Somers said a little about theTilapia project – Derek and Kevin are working on getting that going. He is also still trying to create a tree plantation. He has some Chestnut trees ready to transplant. He would like to study the virus that kills them as time goes on. He has many other trees available to plant and study also. As has been discussed before, we will use a bit of land behind the new gym. Jean has some topsoil, and will check with some sources to see if it could be delivered. Mr. Somers will put down landscaping fabric and wood chips to hold the soil in. We will see if there is a drainage problem and address it as needed.
Derek gave a State Fair report. We competed in Landscape Design, Dairy Judging, Horse Judging, Horticulture judging, wildlife ID and did well. We placed as follows: Landscaping design-Zoe Guttendorf, Tom Twentyman, Casey Doody-1ST. Wildlife ID-Tom Twentyman-7th, Casey Doody 4th. Horse Judging-Mary Burgett, Brandie Richards, 11th. Dairy Judging- Jessica Currie, Mary Burgett, Brandie Richards-9th. We did tractor driving (Jessica Currie, Casey Doody, Casey Cole) and welding (Tom Twentyman, Casey Doody, Brandie Richards) at the Empire Farm days and did very well.
At Camp Oswenchatie Lindsey Collis Reported, leadership skills, and Lindsey received 1St in speech contest.
Derek talked of building a new FFA Bldg at State Fair and wondered if donations could be made for the building through the Ag Committee
Talked about the FFA meeting of 150-200 students that Tully will be hosting on 9/24/08,
We would like to make a good impression. We have a budget of $500 for food. Will discuss with Peggy in cafeteria to provide food-eating will be at 6:30. Jean will talk with Bill Byrne about donating milk. Jean will donate apples. We are planning a “bagged dinner”-put on by cafeteria. Derek needs help with registration-assigning schools to different rooms, needs to notify the cleaning crew.
1)chorus room 2) band room 3) auditorium 4) large classroom.
Received e-mails from Cobleskill in reference to earning 3 credits for taking 3 courses in Agriculture and possibly 2 credits for Horticulture and Animal Science separately from Cobleskill or Morrisville.
Sub committees- Jill and Colleen will serve as a co chair on the committee.
Jr High FFA chapter-Peter says involve the 6th-8th graders with the high school.
There have been approx 50 students coming to the Tully FFA Chapter Meetings.
Fund raiser—
Antique Tractor raffle—send tickets to other FFA chapters
Haunted house @ Elementary school for Thurs Oct. 30th
Ag. Committee Members need to meet with their sub-committees outside of our regular meetings. They need to appoint a chair person to organize meetings.