Friends of Southwest Charter School

Meeting Minutes

May 7, 2013

Online Auction Wrap Up (Liz)

Approximately $3400 was raised during the Spring Online Auction (April 29 – May 6). We also collected $195 in donations for Staff Appreciation Week.

Field Day Planning (Hanne)

Hanne will coordinate this year’s field day scheduled for the last day of school, Friday June 14.

Hanne is assembling a list of field day duties. She will begin recruiting helpers to carry out smaller tasks. Jen Litwin has also offered to assist with field day.

We began discussing the games and stations that have been successful in years past. Hanne would like to continue these traditions and maybe add a few new things.

Kathy was suggested as a resource for game and activity ideas. Hanne also hopes to meet with Carolyn Whelan to get her ideas from last’s year very successful field day.

Things that have popular at past field days include:

• facepainting
• water balloons
• tug of war
• teacher kickball game
• throwing sponges at teachers
• crafts under the shelter

One suggestion for forming teams for tug of war or other group-based activities, such as a kickball game, was to assemble the kids into their Animal Families. Other games suggested were “Capture the Flag” or “Sharks and Minnows”.

We were in agreement that goodie bags distributed at the end of the day were unecessary. The group agreed that temporary tattoos were a good alternative.

Juli will look into having The Professor’s Ice Cream Fund ice cream truck visit again. This year, we’ll need to better manage ice cream distribution. It was a bit crazy last year. Again, dividing the kids into their Animal Families might be useful.

Other people we might ask to help run stations are:

• Christine Watkins from Outsource-PE
• Kathy Price
• Melissa Allen (crafts)
• Jeremy Weikel (soccer)
• Elizabeth K. (crafts)

Hanne estimates we’ll need at least 20 volunteers to staff field day, so she will try to recruit at least 30.

Since Field Day is on a Friday this year, dismissal will be at 1:30 pm instead of 3 pm. We have Willamette Park reserved for the entire day, so there is no rush to leave.

One logistical problem over the years has been how to organize dismissal and pickup. In the past, it has been rather chaotic. Some ideas are to tie dismissal in with ice cream distribution or an end of the year final message to the entire school from Anne.

We also need to manage the flow of traffic as parents come to pick up their kids. Perhaps we shouldn’t allow cars into the small lot by the shelter.

If we need to order any supplies from Oriental Trading Co., we need to let Marlene know a couple of weeks in advance.

Things we need to remember to bring to field day are: hand sanitizer, ice packs, wipes, and the first aid kit.

The tentative timeline for field day is:

• 8:30 – 10:00 am Parents set up at Willamette Park
• 10:00 am Kids arrive at Willamette Park
• 10:00 -11:30 Play
• 11:30-12 Lunch
• 12 -1 Play
• 1 -1:30 Ice cream and dismissal

Since we have the park reserved for the entire day, families are welcome to stay later and hang out.

We discussed the pros and cons of handing yearbooks out at the conclusion of field day. Unfortunately, many yearbooks get lost and kids don’t have time to sign each others. Krista will get the teachers thoughts about distributing the yearbooks in the classrooms during the last week of school. Marlene will be able to have the yearbooks ready. We just need to let her know the plan.

Community Life Updates (Juli)

Our final family restaurant night of the year will be Tuesday, June 4^th at Fulton Pub on SW Nebraska. McMenamins encourages us to make table tents with brief information about our school as well as include a shout out to McMenamins for helping us to raise $. Juli will get someone to make these.

When available, Juli will be reviewing the Portland Parks and Recreation summer movie and concert schedules. We will select some events at which SWCS families could gather for summer get-togethers.

Juli will start reserving some restaurant nights for the 2013-14 schoolyear. Some places to investigate are Little Big Burger in the S. Waterfront and Hopworks Urban Brewery.

We all agreed we would like to do another Bagdad Theater movie day next year, but we should schedule it on a day that PPS is not off and not on a student conference day. We also like the idea of continuing to make admission free and tying it in with a food drive. We’ll look for a date in January 2014.

Because we were able to retain a portion of the Vintage Vegas auction proceeds, we will be able to keep community events free next year!

Plant Sale Pick Up

Things are in good shape, but Sarah G. might need some helpers.

Financial Report

Karen from the office ran an income/expense report for Friends. We have $4000 in our budget! These funds are our portion of the proceeds from the Vintage Vegas auction. The approximately $3400 we made from the spring online auction will be seed money for next year’s auction to cover auctioneer fees, Tofino auction software, and venue rental. We’ll also generate some additional income from the family restaurant night at Fulton Pub in June.

We discussed the idea of Friends helping to fund chaperone fees for overnight field trips. Another idea would be for chaperone fees to be divided among all the families equally. Then the cost wouldn’t be so high for just those families send a parent chaperone along on overnight field trips. This year, we only had a few students needing scholarship $. We also discussed that it would be helpful if families knew what the costs of overnight fieldtrips were at the beginning of the school year, so that they could budget accordingly.

Calendar

We discussed the idea of producing a printed school-wide calendar that would would include important school dates and feature pictures of the kids. We discussed some options of what months the calendar would cover. There was some discussion about when the calendar would start – either September or January. There were those in favor of both options.

Rather than a printed calendar, some expressed the need to for an up to date school web site with a current online calendar. Juli mentioned the idea of creating a Google calendar for school or a SWCS calendar app. Liz will look into adding a Google calendar to the Friends blog.

Krista will talk to Harmony and Amber about their experiences with print calendars and get their ideas.

Board Elections Discussion/Voting

While we weren’t ready to have Board Elections for the 2013/14 school year at tonight’s meeting, we did review the positions that are open and Krista shared the names of some who have expressed interest.

We reviewed the responsibiliites for each position:

Chair

• Oversees all Friends activities
• Assures that Friends fundraising is in line with the School Board and the Development Committee
• Maintains communication between Friends and Board is key
• Attends Board Meetings
• Speaks at events such as Back to School Night, auction, etc.
• Communicates and meets with Anne regularly
• Be a visible part of the school community

Vice Chair

• Recognizes staff birthdays
• Keeps up with classroom coordinators
• Maintains snack chest refill schedule
• Organizes Staff Appreciation Week

Volunteer Coordinator This position has remained unfilled

Classroom Coordinators

Treasurer

• checks in with Karen
• reimbursements

Secretary

• Takes meeting minutes
• Maintains Friends blog
• Maintains bulletin board

As outgoing Chair, Krista will be serve in 5^th Board position for 2013-2014.

We discussed restructuring our organizational chart. We will consider creating (2) co-chair positions responsible for different events and activities throughout the year.

Nicki Stewart is interested in serving on the Board, possibly as Treasurer. As Treasurer, she would also be able to work on the annual auction.

Hanne is interested in the Chair position. She would like to see a restructuring of the organizational chart as mentioned above. She feels she could be most effective knowing in advance which events and activities she would be responsible for.

Christina is also interested in a Board position but is not quite sure which one yet.

Juli is also interested in the Board, but is not ready to Chair this school year. Maybe next year??

Other names mentioned were: Adrienne Smith, Elise Chrisman, and Alesha Hanson.

Jen will reach out to the community this week to encourage others to consider joining the Friends Board. We all need to encourage other parents.

We decided to set a date for dinner on Monday, May 20 to meet with those interested in Board positions and discuss how to better split up the Chair and Vice-Chair roles. You are encouraged to attend if you are interested in Board positions. Location and time TBA.

Next meeting: TBD

For the Google Doc version of these minutes see:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3DbXTFz7e1FUndCU1FnYWVjazg/edit?usp=sharing