Friends of SW Charter Meeting Minutes ~ September 2014

Friends of Southwest Charter School

September 9, 2014

Meeting Minutes

In Attendance: Melissa Allen, Christina Cartwright, Sarah Mutal, Hanne Rousing, Nicki Stewart, Liz Ward

FOSWCS Meeting Location/Time

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, October 7^th at Elephants on Corbett located in close-in Johns Landing.

We are hoping a change of venue will draw more people who have expressed interest in coming to Friends meetings, but would rather not come back to school in the evening.

Meeting time will be at 7 pm, instead of 6:30. Elephants closes at 8:30 pm, so meetings will not go longer than 1 ½ hours.

We will meet in the large room upstairs.

Purchase of food or drink is not required. Eat or drink if you would like, but don’t feel obligated to purchase anything.

Melissa will check to see if we need to reserve the upstairs area.

Fall Fundraising: Chinook Books

As of today, we’ve sold 7 paper and 5 mobile Chinook Books.

Elise Christman is coordinating the Chinook Book fundraiser this year.

Chinook Book order envelopes went home with students.

At the Block Party on September 26^th, we’ll be selling Chinook Books and have the Square available for taking credit card payments.

Our goal is for every family to sell 1 book.

There will be an email coming out from school about Chinook Books soon.

Class Reps

We are starting to get Class Reps lined up for each class. We still have several openings.

Teacher Amanda (K) — Brittany

Teacher Mike (1/2) — Melissa Allen

Teacher Nesa (1/2)

Teacher Susan (3/4)

Teacher Courtney (3/4)

Teacher Karinsa (5/6) –JoLea Ulschmid

Teacher Lisa (5/6) — Meigan Madden (?)

Teacher Chris (7)

Teacher Sarah (8)

Elise Christman will be Class Rep Coordinator. She will send out an email to class reps with some guidelines and tips that have worked well for her in the past.

We need class reps for: Nesa, Susan, Courtney, Chris, Sarah

Financials/Budget/Fund Allocation – Nicki/Christina

Nicki and Christina are still working on the Auction and Friends budget details for the School Board. There still seems to be some discrepancies between Nicki’s budget and the one maintained by Karen in the Office.

Last year we put money that we fundraised toward scholarships and lowering overnight field work fees. In the next month or so, we need to decide where we want to put this year’s fundraising monies.

We discussed finding out how much we need to fundraise in order to cut the price of overnight field work in half. Our Field Wok Coordinator, Sarah Anderson, may be able to get us these figures. We can promote our fundraising by letting the community know that monies raised will go towards scholarships and decreasing the overall cost of trips.

2015 Auction – Sarah M.

The Annual Auction & Dinner is scheduled for February 28, 2015 at the MAC.

Our auctioneer and consulting services will be provided by the Stokes Auction Group. They will pair us with an auctioneer and a consultant that can review our ticket prices, items for bid, use of mystery envelopes, hot items we should seek out, what to focus on, etc. They have done many auctions at the MAC.

Juli Kirby and Carrie Hartley will be the Procurement Co-Chairs. We are still looking for an Event Night Auction Coordinator.

We might try doing something different for the auction kickoff party. It may be held off-site. One possibility may be The Emery. Juli would like to organize mini procurement teams which focus on restaurants, hotels, etc.

We are very much considering making the silent auction portion of the evening free to everyone. Those that want to attend the live auction and dinner as well can purchase tickets as usual. There may be an option for those that decide to stay for the live auction and dinner to purchase a ticket at the door.

Melissa would be willing to do auction décor again.

Sarah M. and Josh Kirby will be working on sponsorships for this year’s auction. Sarah would like to have a “Sponsorship Shadow” to which she could hand over sponsorship gathering next year.

Parent Business Directory/Parent Resource Directory

Didn’t get to discuss.

SWCS Block Party

The Block Party is scheduled for September 26^th at Caruthers Park.

Jessica Nichols from the School Board is coordinating the event. The School Board’s fundraising committee hopes to use this event as a springboard for fundraising in the greater community.

Christina and Aaron are also on the fundraising committee.

Run for the Arts

Run for the Arts is Wednesday, October 1, 2014. Our goal is $18,000.

Pledge forms came home yesterday. Kickoff assembly is Friday. Sarah and Jonathan wrote a quick skit that the 7^th graders will perform.

Anne wants us to provide 3 incentives for the kids: making Anne into an ice cream sundae, whipped cream pie toss, face painting your teacher. Kids will vote at kickoff.

Zidell will provide all the safety cones.

We still volunteers for set-up, lap counters, safety patrol, water station, photographers, and clean-up crew. Sign up here: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080e49a9ad29a46-runfor2

We may also need volunteers to help with photocopying, planning the awards assembly, depositing checks, and planning parties for classes. Maybe older kids could help with tallying, etc.

Hanne will consider doing administrative tasks for R4TA.

Community Life

Amber and Harmony are doing a great job with the Community Coffees! In addition to the things we get from Grand Central, they’ve added nondairy and gluten free treats.

Christina will work with Amber and Harmony to start planning restaurant nights.

Harmony will make a sign for the hallway that promotes AM coffees. Christina is willing to stand in the lobby on coffee AM’s and ask people to stop by.

Closing Comments

Hanne will be interim VP until December 2014. This will give other, especially new families, a chance to learn more about Friends and get involved. We’re hoping that the new VP would then step up to President.

We need to let people know what positions are open positions now and in December. Liz will post on blog and on bulletin board.

Sarah Anderson presented a talk on place-based education to the staff. We thought this might be a great topic for a parent night. We also discussed the possibility of creating a webinar of the talk so that people could watch from home on their own time.

Melissa suggested that we make a Facebook page for SWCS Special Events like the one we have for the Auction. Anything related to an upcoming event such as planning, sharing ideas, letting people know what’s needed, and recruiting volunteers could be shared on the page. Here’s the address: https://www.facebook.com/groups/foswcsspecialevents/

Christina will make a flyer to hand out at Parent Night for the October 7^th meeting at Elephant’s Deli. Liz will post on the bulletin board.

Melissa has handed out her staff and teacher surveys so that we can get a better idea of what they like and dislike. Liz will add to the blog when surveys are turned in.

We all agreed to invite 2 people to the next Friends meeting.

Melissa would like to get in touch with all the teachers and see what needs to be done and plan another work party later this fall and one during Teacher Appreciation Week in May.

Next Meeting: October 7th Elephants on Corbett 7 pm

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