Friends of SW Charter School (FOSWCS)
Meeting Minutes
November 5, 2013
In Attendance: Elise, Hanne, Juli, Christina, Adrienne, Aileah, Liz
Square, for payment processing
Our Square account is all set up to accept credit card payments with a smartphone. Thanks to Anna Wantz for her help. Hanne will use for the upcoming Chinook Book sidewalk sale and for future events like the Spring Plant Sale and next year’s Run for the Arts.
Dougy Center Fundraiser – Heather
The Dougy Center offers services for grieving children and families. Heather P. shared that they are doing a fundraiser to collect 300 teddy bears. Christina will check with Heather to get the details. We agreed that this fundraiser might be something the kids would like to participate in.
Other Fundraising
Pennies for Patients (Leukemia & Lymphoma Society) drive will be in March 2014. Jessica coordinate.
In early 2014, we’d like to do another food drive to benefit the Oregon Food Bank. We’d like to do the food drive in conjunction with a movie day, like we did last year at the Bagdad Theater. Two dates that look good are March 31 or April 11. Aileah will contact the Bagdad to secure a day for a movie.
Pizzicato’s Dough for Dollars will be December 3rd. We will do pre-orders for pizzas that are delivered to school or you can do take-out or dining at Pizzicato’s Hillsdale location. We receive 20% of proceeds for the entire day.
Community Life
Aileah will be getting some help with Community Life from Christina Moran.
Our next AM Coffee is Thursday, November 7. Aileah will bring in pastries and Christina and Elise will set up and make coffee.
Hanne will check in again with Anne to see if teachers still have any lingering projects that need completion in their classrooms. Next year, we’d like to team up with the Board to plan a more organized and prepared clean-up day before school begins in the fall.
Parent Anna Garnica’s restaurant Verde Cocina would love to sponsor a school restaurant dinner night. We’d like to coordinate with Cinco de Mayo.
Chinook Book Update – Hanne
Chinook Book sales are not going well. We’ll end up selling about 40 books unless we do a sidewalk sale. The sidewalk sale will be planned for next week at pickup time. This will be the last chance to purchase a Chinook Book. Elise will help Hanne with the sidewalk sale. Last year, we sold 60 – 70 books. Hanne will bring some books to sell at the Thursday AM coffee. Hanne will also check with her husband about a Chinook costume at his work. This might be fun for the sidewalk sale.
Run for the Arts Update – Adrienne
We’ve entered phase 3 of RFTA! The award ceremony will be November 22. Adrienne is working hard on prizes. Juli’s husband, Josh, will make a slideshow of photos from RFTA set to music to show during the ceremony. We need to find a tricycle that Anne can actually ride. Aileah has a connection with a bike shop or we might need to rent one.
This year, Subway is not able to provide lunch for the winning class. We are looking into several alternatives. For the winning class lunch, the teacher picks a day, we send the menu home with the kids to select their lunch, which is then sent to the restaurant.
Last year, Krista prepped the T-shirts and pencils before the ceremony and delivered them to the classrooms for distribution.
Other plans for the ceremony were discussed but are top secret and therefore not included here!
We discussed whether we would like to continue partnering with Young Audiences next year or whether we would like to organize our own run. If we decided to plan our own run, we agreed that a committee should be formed this spring to work on planning well in advance of this fall event. Hanne is willing to research cost/benefits of doing it ourselves vs. continuing with Young Audiences. We should also check with parents at other schools to see how they have run their own events. We will discuss this decision further at the February 2014 Friends meeting.
In the past, we have provided a sample email/Facebook post parents could use to seek donations from friends and family. Next year, we will also provide a sample email/Facebook for kids to send to their family and friends.
We need to document through photos what the Run for the Arts’ artists in residence have accomplished with our kids as well as the art supplies RFTA money has purchased. Parents need to see how awesome this program is and where the money goes.
Volunteer Committee Update – Elise
Elise has logged all the Run for the Arts volunteer hours!
There has been excellent response to the electronic volunteer/visitor sign-in computer. Elise will make a sign to hang above or near the computer to make it more visible.
We all should be logging in our Friends meeting hours and any work we do at home.
Susan suggested to Elise that teachers need a better solution for tags that kids wear on field trips and the nametags kids wear in class when there is a guest or artist in residence. They are easily torn, come apart, etc. We decided to explore the idea of making two sets of buttons with the school’s button-making machine. These can be attached to lanyards we already have. One set will be for field trips and the other for use in the classroom. We will use Susan’s class as a test group and see if these work out. Elise and Adrienne will work on this project.
We had trouble getting people to sign up to bring entrees for the teacher conference potluck. We’ve decided to eliminate beverages from future potluck sign ups and add sign-ups for set up and clean up.
Elise has been sending in the Boxtops, Labels for Education, and TerraCycle. The school should be receiving checks soon. But we don’t know where the money from these programs goes. Christina thinks it goes into the school’s general fundraising budget.
Auction Committee Update – Juli
An email will be coming soon to announce next year’s annual auction and dinner event. The theme is “Rocking Riverboat Ride” bridging old and new Portland.
The auction will be Saturday, April 5th from 5-9 pm at the Multnomah Athletic Club.
There will be an auction kickoff meeting Tuesday, November 19th at 7 pm in the Great Room. We will be working in small groups to brainstorm procurement ideas and sign up for committees. Christina and Adrienne have volunteered to lead small groups for brainstorming.
The poster for the auction was done by Chris Beckley and it is awesome!
Juli has begun a Pinterest board for the auction committee. Nicki and Juli have also put together a Surveymonkey survey to send out the community. The auction announcement email will include a link to survey.
Juli has received some concerns from staff about what the Board purchases for the school with the money raised at the auction. Staff would like there to be more accountability. There is concern that last year’s auction money was spent on things it wasn’t intended for and that teachers didn’t want. Christina and Juli would be willing to take these concerns to the Board.
Juli wants to work with the Board to get a clear idea as to what next year’s auction $ will be spent on. Since we are the ones that are doing the fundraising, we agreed that Friends also wants accountability from the Board where auction $ goes. A fundraising report from the Board would be really helpful for us.
Middle School Dances – Juli
Some of the 6th – 8th grade students would like to have 1-2 dances per year. Their one stipulation is that it is truly for middle schoolers; no 5th graders. It would be great if kids could plan much of it. Friends will help coordinate, get chaperones, etc. One date to consider is February 14th. Juli will coordinate with Anne.
Financial
We have $5000 in our budget. Nicki and Christina have developed a budget for Friends and will present it to the Board.
Board has shown interest in having a liaison who comes to our meetings.
We agreed that it would be helpful to have access to the Board’s agendas and meeting minutes. Christina will let the board know that the community wants to know the board agendas and minutes.
Next meeting: Tuesday, December 3 @ 7 pm (social time @ 6:30 pm)
For a Google Docs version of the minutes click here:
Friends of Southwest Charter School 