Friends of SW Charter School (FoSWCS)

Monthly Meeting

January 6, 2015

Elephants Deli

Important Dates

• January 8 ~ FoSWCS Morning Coffee 8:30 am
• January 8 ~ Voicebox Karaoke Party 7 pm
• January 19 ~ MLK Day No School
• January 27 ~ Open House K-4 6:30 – 8pm
• February 3 ~ FoSWCS Monthly Meeting 6:30 pm @ Elephants

Open Forum

Melissa suggested that next year we provide written guidelines for new room parents. This document could also include a calendar, so that room parents know when to communicate things to families. Melissa will work with Elise to put this together.

We all agreed it would be helpful if room parents have a schedule of field work projects at the beginning of the year to help plan for chaperones, etc.

It would also be great if we could encourage parents from other grades to be drivers for classes that continually have a need at field trip time.

SOLVE – Amanda

Amanda attended tonight to ask for Friends as a whole and one individual to work with her in planning the annual SOLVE Earth Day/Cottonwood Bay cleanup in April. She especially needs help with “day-of” stuff. Hanne volunteered to help Amanda. Thank you Hanne!

We may also considering coordinating with the SW Waterfront’s Earth Day activities. When Juli meets with Charlene Zidell, she will ask if there is way to also get residents from the Mirabella involved.

Hot Lunches

Christina has been working with Amanda and Anne to set a date for an all-school hot lunch day. Friends would like to begin with serving a hot lunch once a month and then if successful, ramp up to weekly. We do need a volunteer who can work on logistics, planning, and day of needs. We will approach Rovente Pizza to provide the meal.

Some lessons we learned from when we did Pizzicato lunch two years ago:

• Slices must be pre-ordered, no last minute orders
• Payment must be received prior to pizza day
• Need a way for parents to order and pay online

In February, Anne and Amanda are planning an all-school lunch to provide community building for students and teachers. Students will bring a lunch from home and everyone will eat together at the same time. The ultimate goal is for everyone eating lunch together every Friday. They do this every day at MLC.

Liz suggested we use the Tofino auction software to handle pizza orders and payments. Juli will look into. May Chris B. can make a pizza order form on Tofino.

School will do an all-school lunch in February and then Friends will try for pizza in March.

It would be nice to have a few parents come in to help with the all-school lunches too.

Buddy Bench

Kathy didn’t have a lot of time to get suggestions before winter break.

Some of the ideas she did receive were:

• I got the blahs
• go ahead make my day
• take a break (give me a break today),
• games throne
• idea area
• make my day
• name that game
• kindness couch
• give me a game
• make me an offer I can’t refuse

Erin Wagner and Harmony Spangler would be great people to paint the bench.

We tabled selecting a name for the bench. We decided to take some time to brainstorm individually. If you come up with an idea, send to Christina and we will vote by email.

Auction

Unfortunately, Storm Large will be traveling and will not be able to MC the auction. Jonathan was suggested as an alternative. If you have any other ideas, let Juli know.

Storm and the Kirby’s are donating “Cooking Dinner with Storm Large & the Kirby’s” for the live auction. Juli will also be getting Storm to record an auction promo video to send out in email blasts.

Art projects are rolling. Nessa’s class is still up in the air. Carrie Hartley has heroically taken on this challenge! Thank you Carrie!

Melissa shared some other neat ideas such as watercolor lampshades with lamps made out of wood stumps.

Harmony shared a project done at her preschool. With cast offs from the Joinery, kids made wood sculptures which were mounted together and then spray painted one color.

Marlene will start sending out e-blasts this week with a reminder to families that everyone is expected to make a donation.

Juli stressed that we really need physical items right now.

We need to talk to teachers for sign up parties – Amanda will bring it up at next staff meeting, and then Juli and Christina will start talking to teachers individually.

Nicki is coordinating sign up parties

Auction Deadlines

• January 8 ~ Meeting with Charlene Zidell to talk about getting Mirabella residents involved in the auction
• January 30 ~ Official Procurement deadline
• February 5 ~ Thursday wall of wine collection begins
• February 6 ~ Sign up Party Deadline
• February 9 ~ Tickets go on sale online

One auction night, we will highlight the work that Sarah Anderson, our field work coordinator, has done this year. Funds from last year’s auction went toward funding her position. At the auction, each dining table will be named after a field work project. We will be making large posters from photos taken during field work projects to display at the auction and then hang at school. We want parents to realize that their contribution to this position has been beneficial to their children.

Melissa stressed that she received a lot of positive feedback from parents who enjoyed all the photos of the kids she used to decorate the tables and the silent auction area. Melissa is planning to have the table #’s created from natural materials in combination with pictures of the kids.

This year the silent auction portion of the evening will be free of charge and open to everyone. But we also want to make sure live auction items are enticing so we get people to buy tickets and not just attend the silent auction. We have made a concerted effort to have smaller priced live items.

At this year’s auction, you must be present at the live auction to win the Golden Ticket.

Sarah G. will start putting out a call for day-of volunteers.

Financial Update

So far this year we have had $924.00 in expenses. These are mostly from the block party permits and potties.

We have $2538.

We made approximately $645 from our Pizzicato “Dough for Dollars fundraiser.

We have not received our total from Oaks Park’s Black Friday Roller Skating, but we had a great turn out from families.

We’ve made $122 from Boxtops.

We’d like to get access to the Labels for Education account from Marlene.

Closing

Rachael Lane, our New Family Liaison, has already contacted many of the new families who started after the New Year. All the new families will be contacted this week.

After the diligence of the Stedman family over the summer, the Bottle Cap Mural is coming to school this week.

Rachael would like to talk about playground safety at our next meeting. Jolea is also interested in working on this.

We also discussed how the smell of the student bathrooms can be improved.

Google Docs version of January 2015 Minutes