BLANCHESTER — The Blanchester FFA hosted its first chapter meeting of the school year on Sept. 2 as members sat outside for the meeting to follow the pandemics guidelines on social distancing.
The meeting discussed the Mum Sale Fundraiser, some activities for the community such as Greenhand Night and our Nursing Home Outreach program. We agreed to host a Greenhand Night for the new FFA members on Sept. 9.
After the meeting was adjourned, there were options of soccer outside and a committee meeting for the chapter’s new shirts. Thank you to all who came to our first meeting!
Greenhand Night
The Blanchester-Great Oaks FFA Chapter had their annual Greenhand night on Sept.9. The FFA officers teach all incoming first year ag-ed students about the opportunities that they could make reality.
Greenhand Night consists of the Blanchester FFA officers informing the new FFA members about the different activities, fundraisers, CDE (Career Development Events), SAE (Supervised Agricultural Events), and trips that the Blanchester FFA participates in throughout the year.
The term “greenhand” is what we call all of our first year FFA students — we use the term greenhand because at the end of the year all first-year FFA students can earn their greenhand degree.
Our greenhands usually have the opportunity to attend greenhand camp with other greenhands across the state of Ohio but with COVID guidelines they were unable to do this event this school year.
COVID-19 protocols were accounted for by hosting the various rotations outdoors underneath tents to ensure social distancing rules. We also allowed each greenhand to only bring one parent or guests.
Every year the FFA paints the hands of each greenhand and has them put their hand on the wall. This year, to ensure that we didn’t have any guests in the building, we took the greenhands into the building by groups to paint their hands to ensure they didn’t come in contact with someone that they didn’t come with.
We also took pictures of the greenhands putting their hands on the wall as well to make sure that the parents had the picture if they wanted it.
Overall, the chapter’s annual greenhand night was very successful. Each officer did a presentation about the different things that you can do in FFA along with giving the parents a better understanding of what the Blanchester FFA is about.
