With students now settled back in school, many extra curricular activities such as 4-H are also starting to get underway.

There are about 150 4-H clubs in Manitoba that offer over 80 different types of programs.

Clayton Robins is the executive director of the Manitoba 4-H Council.

He hopes to see their membership numbers continue to rise.

"We were over 2,400 members last year on the books and that was up again, that's the second time in four years we've seen an increase," explained Robins. "We're starting to see an increase in areas that typically haven't had 4-H like the City of Winnipeg, and some other areas. It's great to see that we're getting some new people interested and I think we're doing a really good job of retaining some of our teenage members as well."

Robins notes the program teaches many hard skills such as carpentry and mechanics that participants can build a career out of but it also teaches soft skills such as team building and critical thinking that are also beneficial.

Communications and learning how to communicate effectively is also a big part of the program.

4-H is open to those between the ages of 6 and 25.

For more information visit the Manitoba 4-H website.