The summer months offer vocational instructors an opportunity to pause and reflect on last year’s instructional program and to begin plans for improvement during the upcoming school year. One area which should receive particular attention is the student organization. If the program during the past year wasn’t what it should have been, the summer offers the time to give serious consideration toward improving this phase of the instructional program. The logical place to start is with the development of a program of activities.

While the summer may seem too early to begin work on this item, it should be remembered that the purpose of a program of activities is to provide a plan for the organization’s activities for the upcoming year. The earlier the plan is developed, the sooner the preparation for the year’s activities can begin. This ensures that many activities which should take place during the first few months of the school year are allotted the time and energy necessary for successful completion. It is also important to remember that in order to qualify for most recognition programs, the organization must submit the program of activities early on in the school year.

Below are a few suggested summer activities which can help the organization get a jump on developing an outstanding program of activities.

Many organizations assign this responsibility to the executive committee while others use a committee comprised of the chairpersons of the program areas. In the later case, the vice president usually serves as an overall chair. Regardless of who is selected, it is important to make sure that one group is given the responsibility for the overall development of the program. This group should meet at least once during the summer.

While it may be necessary to wait until school starts before all the members can be gathered together to develop the program (and it is important that all members participate in its development), many items pertaining to the program can be resolved during the summer by the group. These items include:

1. Selecting the type of format to be used.

2. Reviewing last year’s program and deleting activities which were not deemed to be appropriate for the upcoming year.
3. Selecting the method of printing an distribution of the copies of the program.

4. Gathering information for the program of activities committees. Sources could include last year’s program, programs from other groups, the State and National programs, and other appropriate materials.

5. Establishing a time schedule for committee meetings, reports, printing, etc.

Because a list of new members may not be available during the summer, it may not be possible to assign a specific duty or responsibility to all members. However, returning members can be given assignments to the various committees and slots can be left open for incoming members so that they can immediately be assigned once school begins. By assigning them responsibilities right from the start, new members will feel they are a part of the organization and are "getting their say". This should encourage participation in the development of the program as well as the later, more important step of actual participation in the activities.

A well-developed and published program of activities will be of little value if it is not put into operation and, therefore, some prior planning in this regard is a necessity. The following questions are among those which should be discussed (and answered) by the organization members prior to the start of the school year.

1. How are the activities to be coordinated? Will it be by program committees, or on an organization basis?

2. Should a monthly activity calendar be developed? Should there be a monthly meeting of the program of activities chairpersons for this purpose?

3. How will the program of activities be reviewed? Should this be done monthly? Should others be included in the review?

4. How may the membership at large be informed? Should we have program of activities committee reports as a part of every meeting?

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Send questions about this website to Denise Davies at ddavies@ag.arizona.edu.   For course information or questions not included in these pages contact Dr. James Knight. Copyright (c) 1998 Department of Agricultural Education, The University of Arizona.  Website version 1.2, last updated on Thursday, August 16, 2001.