Hartington-Newcastle FFA leadership prepares for 2022-23 school year

HARTINGTON — Summer is a time for fun and relaxation, but the Hartington-Newcastle FFA Officer Team has been hard at work for the last two months. After the school bell rang in mid-May, the following week all nine officers were headed down to Chapter Officer Leadership Training. There the new officers learned what their position all entailed and started the bonding process of the team.

Last week, they were together again for an Officer Retreat and MAPS team training. Seven of the officer team could make the trip to the annual officer retreat. It started with MAPS team building in Aurora at the Leadership Center. MAPS stands for Manage+Assess+Plan=Success, the officer team worked together to work on communication, accountability and planning some calendar events for the coming school year. The team built their relationships and even wrote standards for themselves and the rest of the chapter to help them accomplish the goals set for this year.

Once the MAPS team building was completed, they headed over to Timberlake Ranch Camp. Officers took to the challenge of the high ropes course. The first stop was the quad, four challenges all happening 30 feet in the air, all members made it through this course. The second stop was the power pole, where members climbed up a power line pole, stood on top, then jumped trying to grab a trapeze bar, all while 40 feet up. All members felt accomplished from the afternoon since they made it through some of the elements. To cool down after all that hard work students got to catapult each other off the blob to have a bit of fun. They finished the night by eating out together. The final day was one for the books, the team looked at goals they had written for themselves and also worked on the planning for the upcoming year.