ENGAGING OUR YOUTH

Ryah Young, age 15, with Kruz

By Jane Wigen, Originally appearing in "The Versatile Hunting Dog" magazine.

 Some of the greatest conversation hours I ever had with my father were in a duck blind.

I also endured countless and incredibly long foot-hunts for grouse off dirt roads lined with a palette of colorful Wisconsin deciduous trees. This is not the same landscape of my Southwest Montana mountain life today, but it is because of those experiences that I insist on living in an area with a “backyard” that offers abundant outdoor opportunity.  I am well aware that those early moments set the stage for a deep-seated love for dogs and   hunting. The secret to my participation was that it started early in my youth, my father made it easy, and it created quality time between the two of us in a life where a father and his young daughter were always seeking common ground. He didn’t have to compete with Facebook or XBOX, but neither would many of us if started early and our youth found it fun, important, and fulfilling.

I am quite passionate about getting our youth outdoors and it begins with the same kind of insistence my father had on those duck hunting days at 3:00AM.  He would have the decoys and gear in the truck, snacks my mother would never approve of on hand, and all I would need to do is wake up, slip into my hunting garb, put a hat on, and away we would go. 

What we need to understand is that our chapters will always have a few youth members that enjoyed early experiences outdoors that cause them to seek out chapter events. Although we should be cognizant of that group of youth and their interests when developing chapter programs, we also need to find ways to entice the youth that don’t attend with their parents and the very young children that are present that have nothing to participate in. Our chapters need to develop programs that are easy to implement and execute based on varying attendance. The content must appeal to youth with different ages, interests, and skills. Unfortunately, outdoor activities will continue to compete with the lure of down-town fun with friends, the ease of internet gaming, and other various ball-and-chain computer addictions as our youth get older. It is my belief that we need to start young and have a venue for youth available for those that want to participate at every event.

Make Chapter Youth a Priority

From the very beginning, the Montana Sharptail Chapter of NAVHDA has viewed youth membership as a priority. The chapter mission states that we will ensure that young people receive not only ample opportunity, but quality mentoring and leadership in the values of   stewardship, sportsmanship and the training and care of "Versatile Hunting Dogs.”            As we move into our chapter’s second year, we decided to put that mission into action. The 620 mile door-to-door distance between our Youth Program Directors is representative of the distances are chapter Board, Officers, and members drive for tests and training camps. These great distances present an enormous challenge when trying to coordinate youth    activities for both consistent youth curriculum and attendance.  We decided to not be        deterred, to focus not only on the existing youth interested in youth membership, but to also create programs for the youth that show up unexpectedly that will be educational and enjoyable enough to desire to return for the next scheduled event.  This tag-a-long group of youth will become our future youth members. Other chapter members will see these activities and find value in bringing their youth that previously stayed at home.  That is not to say that we don’t need to be sensitive to the members that take delight in a venue  without youth. The programs must be organized and sensitive to all chapter members in attendance.

  

Define Chapter Youth Needs & Find Your Focus

For the 2012 year, our chapter decided to focus on cultivating our youth membership with spontaneous group activities suited for the ages and skill level of the youth present at each event when possible, and offering a scheduled Youth Member Training Camp in the late summer. We worked with the International Office to make sure that all of our youth activities were appropriately insured and determined the training camp event could provide a broad series of scheduled activities based on youth ages, skills, and needs of those in attendance.  As a budget restricted new chapter, we are utilizing our chapter members for instruction. The training camp will offer various stages of training dogs, NAVHDA test preparation, handling birds, gun safety, emergency veterinary care, and the like.  It will also involve additional fun outdoor activities to engage our youth in this incredible landscape we are fortunate enough to experience.  We have scheduled instruction on fly fishing and have one of Montana’s blue-ribbon trout fisheries available to the chapter.  We have a chapter friend who ties flies and one who is a falconer and both will provide demonstrations. There will be camping and campfire time and hopefully a venue for new friendships and experiences that will ignite a passion for the outdoors and a desire to return to chapter youth events in the future.

Solicit Participation & Use Social Media

Historically, Montana Sharptail has utilized a website and member weblog as the chapter communication vehicle. With the need to cultivate a youth membership, we are now working on a PDF email flyer about chapter youth activities and looking to social media through Facebook.  The flyer will be sent to all members, posted on the website, and a link will be provided through Facebook .  Our hope is that the flyer will be printed and shared with other new and youth member prospects. Our chapter has also discussed the launch of a youth member newsletter in 2013 that will be emailed to chapter members to share with their youth, including those that are not involved. It will highlight a wide variety of topics from dog breeds and NAVHDA test tips to bird habitat and even games or methods to entice chapter youth to participate on a future Montana Sharptail youth member Facebook page.

Reflect on What Interested You

As you embark on your chapter activities this year, if you do nothing else, find some time to plan some content for spontaneous youth activities for interested youth in attendance at your chapter events.  Reflect a bit about who and what created the opportunities and        exposure for you in the sport you now enjoy, and duplicate opportunities for that to occur in your chapter membership. And lastly, make it easy for the youth in attendance to participate and make it fun.  After all, that one day outdoors when that special dog retrieves and places a bird that child’s hand, it might change the course or path of that child by igniting a passion we are all quite familiar with.