Poland FFA members and advisors with the Maine State Officer team.
Recently, Maine FFA held a member workshop for the southern Maine FFA members, which was the first workshop for the region since the COVID-19 pandemic. Hemond Farms graciously hosted the workshop. Three chapters from southern Maine (all of which were founded in the last 2 years) participated – Poland, Lincoln Academy, and Fryeburg Academy. This workshop included 3 sessions: Developing your POA, FFA Jeopardy, and Finding Your Values.
Session 1
In the first session, we started developing our chapter’s Program of Activities (POA). The 3 chapters split up with a state officer to help develop the POA. We planned our POA based on the 3 FFA standards: Growing Leaders, Building Communities, and Strengthening Agriculture. The FFA chapter presidents came home with the whole chapter POA planned and new skills learned to help us for the next year.
Maine FFA Members play a game.
Poland FFA Members develop their POA.
Lunch
After the first session, Hemond Farms catered lunch, featuring a farm-to-table style. We were split into groups based on the future careers we were interested in: ag mechanics, plant systems, animal sciences, and ag communications/ag education/ag business. Then we went on a farm tour. I led the farm tour as it’s my farm. I talked about what we do, why we do it, safety practices, and showed everyone all the animals. We then headed back to the event barn for the second session.
Session 2 and 3
In the second session, we played FFA jeopardy. The topics were based on FFA facts, past FFA members, people to know, Maine agriculture, and finish the lyrics. I had a lot of fun with this. The teams were the same as where we sat at lunch. I was on the Ag communications team, and we ended up winning because of the sudden death round.
In the third session we talked about the difference between defined values and valuables. We discussed it at our tables and then we got little pieces of paper to write our values on. These pieces of paper were small so we could stick them in our official dress pocket to always serve as a reminder.
The Impact Of The Workshop
“I learned FFA isn’t just about agriculture, it’s also learning to be a leader within your community,” said Isabella Lizotte, a sophomore who just joined the Poland FFA chapter. This was her first FFA event/experience.
Rounding out the workshop, it was a great experience to get to know other chapters, state officers and my chapter members better and gain more leadership skills. I would like to thank Emily Doughty and the amazing Maine State Officer team, Lane, Jilly, and Callie, for putting on such a great workshop.
