The National Conversation, endorsed by the Trust in Spring 2001, addressed all five themes of theNational 4-H Strategic Plan. The Trust continues to play an active role in advancing the Strategic Plan by emphasizing constant and consistent reporting and communication against each of the themes.

THE POWER OF YOUTH
National 4-H Youth Directions Council
The National 4-H Leadership Trust (Trust) actively supports both the involvement of youth in the Trust process as well as the work that the National 4-H Youth Directions Council does in support of implementation of the Power of Youth portion of the National 4-H Strategic Plan.

At its July 2003 quarterly meeting, the Leadership Trust demonstrated that support by funding in full N4-HYDC's FY 2004 budget request. The Executive Directors have set four priorities for the year ahead in order to move N4-HYDC forward in its work to "ensure an equal voice for youth through youth and adult partnerships within the 4-H system" at all levels of the 4-H system. These priorities are:

1)	Continuing to give youth a stronger voice in decision making and governance
2)	Work closely with state and local 4-H programs to more effectively utilize the resources of N4- HYDC
	State Representatives
3)	Expand and strengthen N4-HYDC internally to create a true national network of youth
4)	Provide the programmatic planning of the 2004 National 4-H Conference

The Trust also agreed to provide $10,000 to fund the development of a plan for how 4-H can lead a national movement to involve youth in governance. The initial effort will be a working group to identify key strategies and will be chaired by Greg Hutchins, the state leader from Wisconsin.

ACCESS, EQUITY, AND OPPORTUNITY
Over the course of 2002, the Trust developed key statements to guide their work in this area:
Definition of Positive Youth Development (Attached)
National 4-H Leadership Trust Statement on Diversity and Inclusion (Attached)

As part of its definition of positive youth development, the Trust emphasized that 4-H youth development programs go beyond traditional concepts of youth development as prevention to be an intentional process that promotes positive outcomes for young people in a variety of settings. Furthermore, these experiences, on a sustained basis, promote attitudes and outcomes that help youth become competent, caring, confident, connected, and contributing citizens of character. The Trust continues to view this theme as a priority area of its work.

4-H and Religion - The Trust will consider the issue of 4-H and religion by focusing on the importance of inclusion in all 4-H Clubs. The Club experience should be one that is open to members of all backgrounds and creeds.

AN EXTRAORDINARY PLACE TO LEARN

EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE, INNOVATIVE PRACTICES
4-H Scholarship
The Leadership Trust is in full support of a collaborative effort to define and articulate the unique dimensions of 4-H scholarship that are applicable to the youth development profession and our work. To further this process, the Trust (through Pamela Olsen, NAE4-HA President) will steward dialogue on a white paper, "4-H Youth Development Scholarship: Thoughts and Observations" which addresses this topic. The Trust solicited input electronically among participants in the 4-H movement and also shared the paper to prompt full dialogue at the April 2003 State 4-H Leader meeting. The Trust considers it a priority to encourage dialogue and debate throughout the system and has committed to the following action steps to support the above:
1) Members will work with the university provosts, directors and university system to broaden their understanding of 4-H in the scholarship arena.

2) The Trust will help lead a shift in thinking among 4-H professionals so that they begin to envision themselves as scholars.

3) Each Trust member agreed to continue the dialogue as appropriate in the group they represent. Building on the dialogue during the State 4-H Leader meeting in April, State Leader Chair Bo Ryles will establish a work group to further the scholarship dialogue.

Staff /Professional Development
Dr. Barbara Stone, National Program Leader for Professional Development at CSREES will lead development of a National 4-H Professional Development Task Force over the next three years. The funding allocated by the Trust in FY03 to enable the Task Force's work will carry over to FY04.

The Trust places a high priority on supporting professional development opportunities. To that end, the Trust agreed to support, in full the funding request of the Youth Development Practitioner Apprenticeship Program (YDPA). Funding will cover the development of program materials and staff support.

Volunteer Development
Recognizing the need for a volunteer voice to be present during Trust discussions, a Volunteer representative (with a term of two years) was added to the Trust's member composition in February 2002. The current Volunteer Representative is Daniel Holdridge of Connecticut.

The Trust supports the development of electronic systems to connect and support the work of 4-H volunteers nationwide. The 4-H volunteer listserv was launched in September 2002 and a Web presence for 4-H volunteers is also being planned.

The Trust agreed at its January 2003 quarterly meeting to provide up to $2,500 in funding to support the production of additional copies of the 2002 Programs of Excellence.

National 4-H Hall of Fame
The Hall of Fame Committee has met twice via conference call to discuss the logistics and process for the 2004 induction. Next year's Hall of Fame ceremony will take place during Conference (exact time and date TBD). The planning group has discussed the general criteria for lauriet selection including citizenship, leadership and career accomplishments. The new selection committee now includes two representatives from each region, one from USDA, one from National 4-H Council and four past lauriets. A specific number of lauriets for induction will not be set, however, each will be asked to submit a nomination form that is longer and more detailed.

As the work of the Task Force has been completed, the Trust supported the decision to disband the group.

EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONAL SYSTEMS
Moving to a Systems Approach: Keeping the Peace and More
Shared leadership has been the goal of the Trust from the day it was officially formed in December 2000. The partners in the 4-H movement share the common goal of youth development but had struggled for years to work together as partners to accomplish that goal. A major accomplishment of the Trust is the unified voice with a consistent message that has resulted from the partners discussing and deliberating at the meetings of the Trust. The partners in the 4-H movement are now focused on youth development instead of on the perceived last worst act of one of their partners. In many ways the Trust has become the policy advisory committee for the 4-H movement. All the partners are part of the shared leadership team, ready and willing to work together for Extension's youth development program, 4-H.

Building the 4-H Brand
The Trust fully supports the brand building work currently underway and actively discusses its potential and impact for the 4-H movement. The Trust will continue to vision new ways for the brand essence to be widely shared and understood across the system and is has developed talking points to ensure that this happens in a consistent way.

National 4-H Policy
The Trust recognized that the many partners in the 4-H movement have different reporting structures and sensitivity around the concept of policy. When the 4-H movement needs a unified voice on a policy question, the Trust will determine the policy or affirm the partner with the appropriate policy role (e.g. USDA's role with Name and Emblem and EEO issues).

Communication
The Power of Youth newsletter produced by National 4-H Council is the Trust tool for communicating actions and information on broad issues of the 4-H movement. In addition, each Trust representative communicates information and actions and requests input for future discussions from the groups s/he represents. Brief meeting highlights will be shared widely and a quarterly statement of activity is available from members of the Trust.

Acceptable 4-H Partners
Determining from whom 4-H should or should not accept funds and engage in collaboration is an ongoing point of discussion and deliberation of the Trust. While it has been a goal to determine a list of criteria, the reality has been that each time someone wants to partner with 4-H we must have another deliberative discussion. At the July 2003 meeting, the Trust tasked its Executive Committee with determining a broad checklist of criteria to be used in evaluating potential partnerships, developing a target list of partner opportunities, and reviewing the type of commitment entailed in our current and future partnering work.

The Trust also decided at its January 2003 quarterly meeting to modify its policy on endorsing legislation by 4-H partners so that requests are reviewed on a case-by-case basis, in accordance with the Trust's guiding principles for these activities. Specific requests will be raised during the Trust's monthly conference calls with a definitive decision made by the Trust's Executive Committee if time does not permit for a full discussion.

Research Response Task Force
With financial support from the Trust, Dale Blyth and Lynne Borden led a process to define an agenda for youth development research utilizing the unique missions of the Land-Grant System.

Legislative Initiatives
While a proposed structure for the Rapid Response Team and Advocacy Network was developed and shared with the Trust at its October 2002 quarterly meeting, the current legislative environment and advocacy work underway by the ECOP/4-H Task Force has moved this initiative off of the priority list for the Leadership Trust. Several representatives from the Trust serve on the ECOP 4-H Task Force.

N4HCCS
The Trust has served as an objective third party, representing the 4-H movement, as the Cooperative Curriculum System attempted to make the transition from its status as an independent body to a part of the National 4-H CCS Foundation at National 4-H Council. The Trust has deliberated the recommendations of the CCS Executive Committee and provided feedback to that body. In 2003, N4-HCCS is establishing independent existence as a 501 (c)(3), Section 115 organization, a not-for-profit corporation doing business for the government.

4-H Movement Committee Infrastructure to Support Strategic Plan Implementation
The Trust devoted time at its October 2002 meeting to analyzing the issues and make recommendations as to where to invest in internal organization structures/teams for the future. At that time, a working group to explore the issue presented its assessment and recommendations for follow up. This work continued at the January 2003 meeting, where the Trust decided that an effort would be made to reach out to existing committees to assess how their activities align with the Strategic Plan and to learn what support each would like from the Trust in the future.

In May 2003, the National 4-H Leadership Trust completed a comprehensive review (via survey) of these groups and the ways in which they accomplish their duties. The Trust developed some basic principles to guide the review as well as several initial recommendations for how the 4-H committee structure could operate more effectively and efficiently.

To date, the Trust has reviewed the responses and drafted a list of committees which it believes require State 4-H Leader participation as well as the appropriate number of leaders for each. These decisions will be communicated directly with those committees affected. The Trust will continue to address the committee infrastructure issue by focusing on criteria for the formation of new committees in the system. This will include setting guidelines for new committees' charges, composition and funding, as well as accountability to the Trust and others in the system.

Representing the 4-H Movement

Staffing the Trust
An extensive dialogue on Trust operations was held in the July 2002 meeting. Currently, Susan Halbert coordinates staffing for the Trust and manages the structure and process of meetings. She is uniquely qualified for this role because of her background in process facilitation and organization systems and change. She also has extensive experience with Cooperative Extension/4-H. With Jennifer Zaniewski, Program Coordinator, the focus of the Trust staff support is to help Trust members be prepared to be effective. Susan is Senior Vice President for 4-H/Extension Relations and Jennifer is a Program Coordinator at National 4-H Council. They can be reached at shalbert@4htrust.org and jzaniewski@4htrust.org related to their work with the Trust.

National 4-H Leadership Trust Statement on Issue Management and Communication (Attached)