Farm Progress Show, FFA Board Updates, Chapter Strategic Plan, BUILD Conference, National FFA Updates

Illinois Agricultural Education & FFA

Illinois Ag Ed News

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Mindy Bunselmeyer 8/23/2019 10:59:00 AM

Items in this listserv:

****NEW Information****

GROWMARK at the 2019 Farm Progress Show
Country Financial at the 2019 Farm Progress Show
Grain Handling Safety Coalition (GHSC) invites you and your FFA students
Cardinals Tickets
2019 BUILD Conference
4th Annual Illinois FFA Alumni Gun Raffle
Heritage and Cooperative Awards replaced with National Chapter Award Results
FFA Board Updates
2019 Chapter Strategic Plan
Registrations LIVE for Horse, Forestry and Land Use CDEs

1. GROWMARK at the 2019 Farm Progress Show

Heading to the Farm Progress Show this year? Stop by the FS tent to Check In to Cash In for FFA! Students, alumni, supporters, and fans can cast a vote for their favorite FFA chapter in the state throughout the three days of the show. Each vote equals a $1.00 donation to Illinois Association FFA, up to $5,000!

That’s not all! The five chapters with the most votes at the end of the show will each receive a $1,000 donation from the GROWMARK Foundation!

Encourage anyone you know heading to the show to stop by and vote!

2. Country Financial at the 2019 Farm Progress Show

Visit us and vote! Stop by our booth (#749) at the Farm Progress Show and vote for your favorite Illinois ag program.

COUNTRY Financial Booth 749

Get a token at the booth and vote for FFA—your vote could win the state FFA organization a $10,000 donation. And while you’re there, be sure to grab a free glass of cold lemonade!

We’ll proudly donate:

$10,000 to the organization with the most votes
$5,000 to both remaining organizations

https://www.countryfinancial.com/en/landing/il-farm-progress-show.html

Illinois Farm Bureau Booth 753

IFB will be serving free ice cream to help you cool off. You can also learn more about how the Illinois Farm Bureau is helping you to take charge of change – both locally and nationally.

3. Grain Handling Safety Coalition (GHSC) invites you and your FFA students

Click here to view more.

The Grain Handling Safety Coalition (GHSC) invites you and your FFA students to a one-time-only unique life experience and learning opportunity at the 2019 Farm Progress Show.

“SILO” is a narrative feature film set to launch at this year’s Farm Progress Show. The Grain Handling Safety Coalition has partnered with the “SILO” producers at FPS to raise awareness about safety issues on the farm, especially as it relates to young workers.

The SILO exhibit will feature demonstrations, hands-on activities, educational resources, participatory panel discussions with the film’s actors, photo opportunities with the cast, and a chance to view the movie trailer (shown on the hour and half hour). FFA chapters will also learn how they can host a screening of the movie in their community.

As an added bonus, country music star Easton Corbin will perform his single "The Only Life I Know,” written exclusively for the film, at 3:30 PM Wednesday in the hospitality tent.

Students can capture their experience to share with friends using a special SnapChat filter created by GHSC as well as have the chance to win exclusive SILO merchandise during the panel discussions.

SILO is a “must-see” Farm Progress Show exhibit this year. Cool down in the air-conditioned tent, relax, and enjoy an immersive, entertaining, and educational event – complete with the requisite movie popcorn provided! The Silo exhibit # 2174 is located up the street from Bus Gate #9 between Illinois Progress and Iowa Progress Streets.

See the panel discussion schedule (next page) to plan your visit to the SILO & GHSC exhibit.

For more information about the movie “SILO”, please see the included press release.

The Grain Handling Safety Coalition and SILO look forward to meeting you at FPS exhibit #2174!

Kind Regards,

Catherine A. Rylatt, MPA

Program Coordinator

Grain Handling Safety Coalition

Email: info@grainsafety.org

4. Cardinals Tickets

It's time to order tickets!

Click here to review the Cardinals Day with FFA flyer. Ticket prices are $50 p/p until August 1st, and then the ticket price will be $55 p/p.

Teachers must register for their St. Louis Cardinals Tickets through the new website.

For anyone that is not a teacher, please register on-line at this registration link. If you would like to pay by credit card, please use this credit card link or mail your payment to the Illinois FFA Center. Please remit payment by September 1st.

Teachers Registration,

Here are the steps:

1. Login to the new website

2. Click on Illinois Ag Ed Online - top right of the screen - yellow oval/box

3. Look to the left and click on Event Registration

4. Click on the Cardinals/Cubs Game Event link

5. Enter the number and sizes of shirts needed - tickets will accompany every shirt.

6. Click on submit.

7. Once submitted, you cannot resubmit, if your order needs to change, please contact the Illinois FFA Center for your order to be unsubmitted and then you can order again with the changes you need to make.

8. A pdf invoice will be listed on your Event Registration page. You can access your invoice immediately following submission.

Payment can be mailed to the Illinois FFA Center or you can pay online.

Online:

The credit card payment option has been added to the Foundation Account Balances. If there is an outstanding balance on a Foundation account, you will see a link in the top-right corner to make a new credit card payment.

When you select that link, it will take you to a page that shows your current account balance, what the credit card fee will be, and finally the charged amount. You cannot change the Charge Amount since that has to be set for us to be able to show the Credit Card Fee when the page loads. You then click the "Pay with Card" link to enter your credit card information.

After a payment has been made, you will be taken back to your Foundation account balance page. You will see two new transactions, one charge for the credit card fee and another for the actual payment. You will also automatically receive an email from the system with your receipt attached to the email.

5. 2019 BUILD Conference

The BUILD (Being United In Leadership Development) Conference is the merger of the Illinois Farm Bureau Youth Conference and the 360 Conference. We have an original curriculum developed by an Illinois Agricultural Education student and past state FFA officer, Miss Jordan Johns. The conference is designed for Juniors and Seniors in high school. This conference will also feature some pieces that have always been a part of the Illinois Farm Bureau Youth Conference, such as team activities, a career/college fair, and a keynote speaker.

The 2019 BUILD Conference will be held on Monday, October 14 - Tuesday, October 15, 2019, at the Decatur Conference Center in Decatur, Illinois.

Registration for the event will go live on Tuesday, August 20, 2019, and closes Friday, September 20, 2019.

Cost of the event is $125.00 per person, this does not include hotel expenses.
FFA Advisors will need to complete the Decatur Conference Center Hotel Room Order Form and send the form and payment to the Decatur Conference Center postmarked by September 20, 2019.
Each student attending the BUILD Conference is required to sign along with their parent the Participation Agreement and please bring the signed form to the BUILD Conference Registration area.

For those FFA Chapters who have attended a Farm Bureau acquaintance day in their county this past year, County Managers will have funds available to help support FFA Chapters who attend the BUILD Conference.
County Farm Bureau Managers will be in touch with the chapters in their county with more information. Please be sure and have the payment sent to your high school and then you pay the Illinois FFA Center for the total amount due.
Food Allergies/Vegetarian Meals - If you, the student(s), and/or chaperone(s) have food allergies or need a vegetarian meal. Please complete the Food Allergy/Vegetarian form.
All of these forms are located under the Event Registration tab.
Trading Post - Please utilize the Trading Post after registration closes to exchange registration and/or hotel rooms with other schools. Please note that the school that registered for the BUILD Conference must pay the Illinois FFA Center, and the school that is taking the additional registrations/hotel rooms must pay the school that they are taking spots from directly.

6. 4th Annual Illinois FFA Alumni Gun Raffle

The Illinois FFA Alumni is selling tickets for the 4th Annual Gun Raffle. The tickets are $20 per ticket. The proceeds from this raffle fund alumni scholarships and events. Only 1,000 tickets will be sold (000-999) and the winning numbers will be drawn from the Evening Illinois Pick 3, Monday-Friday, December 2-31, 2019. We will have an early bird drawing on November 1st.

Each day's winner will receive e-gift cards from Dick's Sporting Goods Store for the value of that gun for that day. Please see the Gun Raffle Poster regarding the amount to be given during the raffle.

You may purchase the gun raffle tickets from the Alumni Council Members, or you may send a check made payable to the IL FFA Alumni and mail to Patti Davis, IL FFA Alumni, 3221 Northfield Drive, Springfield, IL 62702.

If you would like to sell gun raffle tickets, please contact Patti Davis at pdavis@illinoisffa.org

7. Heritage and Cooperative Awards replaced with National Chapter Award Results

The Future of the Heritage and Cooperative Awards Program

July 30th, 2019 | Illinois Farm Bureau, Illinois FFA

In March, the YEA Committee decided to transition from the longstanding Heritage and Cooperative Award programs and tour to utilizing the results of the National Chapter Award application to determine the chapters selected to participate in a new award tour. This meeting was held with Illinois FFA and Illinois Farm Bureau staff as well as two agricultural education teachers who were nominated by the FFA Board to assist in working out all the details of how that transition would be executed. The following plan of action was decided upon:

Illinois Farm Bureau and Affiliates will be recognizing the winners of the newly renamed “Illinois Farm Bureau & Affiliates Premier Chapter Award” beginning at the 2020 Illinois FFA State Convention. Award Tour participants will be selected based on the results of the previous year’s National Chapter Award Results and will no longer be based on a chapter’s Heritage or Cooperative program.

National Chapter Award Judging & Timeline

Illinois Farm Bureau & Affiliate employees will be encouraged to volunteer as judges of the National Chapter Award. We will spread the request through the YEA Committee, Family of Companies FFA Alumni network, and at the National FFA Convention Prep Day. Additionally, we will explore the possibility of Illinois FFA/Jeff Maierhofer presenting a Lunch and Learn at the IAA office to prepare and train judges.

Applications are due from FFA Chapters on April 15th

Judging takes place during the following 2 weeks in two separate rounds

Results are finalized by the week of May 1st, Section winners are announced

Illinois FFA will distribute the winner’s information to Illinois Farm Bureau after selection

Winners Recognized at State FFA Convention

Illinois Farm Bureau & Affiliates Premier Chapter Award – Official Award Title - Formerly the Premier Chapter Award, prior to that this was “Bankers Plaque”

Large plaque – Top 5 Premier Chapters/National Chapter Award Finalists

Canvas plaque – 25 Section Winners of Premier Chapter Award

Printed Certificate – All National Chapter Award Finalists (around 35)

To clarify for the 2020 Premier Chapter Tour:

5 chapters will send 4 students= 20
3 chapters will send 3 students= 9
2 chapters will send 2 students= 4
27 chapters will send 1 student= 27

60 students represented from 37 total chapters - on average that is about 10 to 12 more schools represented on the trip than most recent years.

Award Tour to Washington DC

Illinois Farm Bureau & Affiliates Premier Chapter Award Tour – Official Tour Title

In order to maintain the same level of competition and suspense as in past years, the National Chapter Award finalists and placings will not be announced until FFA State Convention. Because this time frame does not allow for students to then immediately attend that year’s tour, the chapters that attend will be selected from the previous year’s results. This will begin with inviting the 2018-2019 school year winners to attend the 2020 Award Tour.

Participants for the Award Tour will be selected as follows:

1 student from each chapter of the 25 Illinois FFA Section winners
3 students from each chapter of the Top 1-5 National Chapter Award Finalists, chapters may also be section winner
2 students from each chapter of the Top 6-10 National Chapter Award Finalists, chapters may also be section winner
The remaining 10 spots will be selected from the following ranking chapters beginning with 11th place. 1 student from each chapter that has not already sent a participant and is not a section winner.

Chaperones will be requested from the Top 4 schools and will be filled in descending ranking order if those four schools are unable to provide chaperones.

Total of 60 student participants

The maximum number of students one chapter could send is 4 students, which is consistent with the previous Heritage and Cooperative Award Tour.

Illinois Farm Bureau will draft and send a letter to the 2019 Premier Chapter Award winners announcing the addition of the Premier Chapter Award Tour to their award.

Participants information will be due to Illinois Farm Bureau by February 15. Medical & Authorization forms will be due May 1, in addition to the $50 fee per participant.

Similar to the meetings held for WLC, Illinois Farm Bureau will look into holding a meeting at Illinois FFA State Convention with trip participants and advisors to distribute information regarding the Premier Chapter Award Tour. This would be a great opportunity for the participants to get to know each other, distribute packets and trip information, give rules and guidelines, and answer any questions they may have. The best time would be before or after the WLC meeting, Wednesday at 9:30 am or 11:00 am on the terrace level of the convention center.

8. FFA Board Updates

The FFA Board decided to align with National FFA and the IAVAT Board on allowing 7th and 8th grade (middle school) members to compete in FFA sanctioned events, which included Creed, Prepared, and Extemporaneous Public Speaking, as well as Parliamentary Procedures Leadership Development Events beginning in the 2019 - 2020 school year.
The Advisors Guide has been updated for the 2019 - 2020 year, but as always is under review and open for revisions and suggestions, please contact your FFA Board representatives for any suggestions the Advisors Guide.
The FFA Center staff has been given the directive by the FFA Board via the SAE committee to work with AET on the development of a hybrid between the National FFA Proficiency application and a complete record book for judging purposes in the 2020-2021 school year. The goal is to have a template of this hybrid application for review for the joint IAVAT and FFA Board meeting on January 10, 2020.
Click here to view the notes from the August 6, 2019, FFA Board meeting, these are not official minutes, they still must be reviewed and approved by the board.

9. Chapter Strategic Plan - DUE Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Just like last year, you can submit your Chapter Strategic Plan (Pre POA) in any format that your FFA chapter prefers. The only requirement is that it is submitted electronically and received by the Illinois FFA Center by October 1, 2019.

The Chapter Strategic Plan (Pre POA) is a minimum standard requirement for Section E of the Incentive Funding Grant Application (IFGA). You must submit a Chapter Strategic Plan ( Pre POA) by October 1, 2019, to receive any credit in Section E of the IFGA.

The FFA Chapter can use any format they prefer, but all plans received must be sent electronically. NO paper copies are needed.

Steps to complete the 2019 Chapter Strategic Plan Process:

ALL FFA Chapters MUST Click here
ALL FFA Chapters MUST Answer the first 5 questions of the form.
EITHER upload your own plan OR complete the form you have opened created by the Illinois FFA Center created.
ALL Chapters MUST open this form REGARDLESS of what format you choose to do your Chapter Strategic Plan in.
Here are the Questions on the Chapter Strategic Plan form.
Questions, email mbunselmeyer@illinoisffa.org

There is NO NEED for emails or any other correspondence for submitting the Chapter Strategic Plan.

As a reminder, the Chapter Strategic Plan (Pre - POA) is due October 1, 2019.

Because everything is submitted electronically, it is dated when you complete the form, there is NO need to send this to your Section President or anyone else, simply print a copy of it for your records and have a GREAT year accomplishing your goals!

10. Registrations LIVE for Horse, Forestry and Land Use CDEs

Continue to keep an eye on the registration system on the new website, ALL registrations will be added once the first few events are tested and relative to when the events will take place. ALL registrations will be located here on the new website.

**** PREVIOUS Information Shared****

**** WORTH Sharing Again****

Career and Leadership Development Events:

IAVAT:

Illinois FFA:

FFA Board Updates

Click here to view the listserv message sent by the FFA Center.

Illinois FFA Alumni:

Illinois FFA Center:

September 2 - Illinois FFA Center CLOSED - Labor Day
October 2 - Illinois FFA Center CLOSED - Office Clean Up Day
November 11 - Illinois FFA Center - CLOSED - Veterans Day
November 13 - Illinois FFA Center CLOSED - Staff Retreat
November 28 - 29 - Illinois FFA Center CLOSED - Thanksgiving
December 24 - January 1 - Illinois FFA Center CLOSED - Winter Break and Holidays

Illinois Foundation FFA:

2018 - 2019 Illinois Foundation FFA Report

Click here to view the latest Foundation report

Industry Friends of agricultural education posts:

GROWMARK Foundation to Provide FFA Jackets

Click here to view the listserv message posted by the Illinois FFA Center

AGCO Scholarships

Click here to view the listserv message posted by the Illinois FFA Center

National FFA:

Greetings from Fair Oaks Farms located in Fair Oaks, Indiana! Click here for tour information.
The CHS Foundation has announced the opening of their 2019 grant cycle at: https://agclassroom.org/teacher/grants_chs.cfm

$500 grants for pre-k-12 teachers are available for ag-related education projects.

Applications are due September 15th.

The application window for the #FFANextGen Animal Science Conference that I talked about during your summer conference is now open.

This is a new conference that focuses more on the technical side of agriculture; specifically animal systems agriculture and less on leadership development.

This is an application-based, competitive selection conference where 50 FFA members ages 15-18 will be selected for a week of animal science-related career preparation, skill development, and exploration of emerging ideas and technology. All costs for the conference will be covered by the National FFA Organization except for round-trip travel to Kansas City, MO.

The conference runs Tuesday, February 18 - Sunday, February 23, 2020.

Learn more and find the application at https://www.ffa.org/participate/next-generation-conference/. Applications will close October 1, 2019.

The 92nd National FFA Convention & Expo is just over two months away! We're thrilled to announce who will play the exclusive convention concerts and speak on the convention stage.