The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1915-03-25
A Years Experience with Boys and
Girls Clubs.

When Miss Horner came to visit
our school last April, she introduced
the club work to the pupils and find
ing them eager to take up the work
we organized several clubs; namely,
the corn acre, Gardening" Cook
ing Canning" Sewing and
Poultry
The names of the members and the
various clubs which each entered
were sent to the U. S. Department Of
Agriculture at Ames.
In due time, each club member,
and as club leader, received instruc-
lions as to our procedure.
There were twenty-seven who
found it convenient to take up the
work of the sewing club; fifteen cook
ing and canning; two, corn acre; SIX
poultry and six gardening.
All except the cooking and sewing
clubs, | could instruct during inter-
missions at school, as we received
circulars every few days from Ames.
But, there being so many in the
cooking and sewing clubs found 1t
necessary to call special club meet
ings.
The first meeting of. each club was
held after school, at the school house,
where the different subjects were
brought up, discussed and explained
until each member knew exactly what
to do.
We decided that the sewing club
should meet on Thursday evening and
the cooking club on Friday evening
" 10
be convenient to have secretary for
our clubs, and accordingly elected
one for each. The secretary's duty
was to keep record OF all the mem
bers present at each meeting, the
work accomplished by each, and
their different successes or failures.
This report was read at the meetings
every month. The secretary was not
the only one who kept a record but
each member was required to keep
an accurate account of his or her
work and the results. These reports
were read every week.
Very little work was done at the
first meeting, but before dismissal We
voted as to where our next place OF
meeting was to be held and was
surprised how many mothers had
sent us invitations to meet at their
homes.
After our first meeting we proceed
ed by purchasing eggs, selecting seed,
sewing material and patterns.
The boys who were to take the
corn acre work selected their seed
corn; then brought it to school 10
test, that all might witness the pro.
cess OF, testing.
We kept faithfully to our work, en-
couraging each other as much as pos
sible, for must confess we all felt
more or less discouraged at times, as
the season was very dry for gardens
and corn, and some of the eggs were
not good though bought as first class.
Some who were successful in hatch
ing the eggs, had their focks dimin-
ished by accidents and disease. BY
referring to the secretary's books we
found disc0uraging failures reported
by some of the cooking club.
We never let these failures entirely
depress us, but kept steadily on with
our work, and later, enjoyed 1T more
for the knowing we had had over
come difficulties and gained by our
mistakes.
Many of the older ones in the local
ity became interested and visited our
meetings, and we soon found that the
number OF members were increasing
as well as the interest.
We kept up with this work even
through the summer; each OF the two
clubs meeting once week. S
AT the cooking club meetings, the
members cooked the article practiced
on durinE the week, learned to place
the linen, decorate the table. place