Friends of SW Charter School

Monthly Meeting Minutes

December 13, 2016

Monthly Meeting with Amanda (Emilie)

Due to the weather-related snow closure last week, Melissa and Emilie were unable to meet with Amanda this month. Emilie will email Amanda about language class details and spring dance dates.

Emilie has emailed Brandy with questions regarding a possible Sky High Sports fundraiser. Waiting for her reply.

Saturday Community Hikes with Brandy – We will pick some dates and locations. Emilie will email Brandy. If needed, Hanne can suggest some family-friendly hike locations.

Emilie and Amanda discussed efforts to facilitate successful communication with office staff. Amanda make re-institute a SWCS weekly email newsletter that was dropped in favor of single subject email blasts. We all like the idea of returning to a newsletter format!

If the weekly newsletter format is revived, Friends would like established:

• Specific office staff to send our communications to
• A set day of the week that newsletter is published electronically
• A set day and time of the week for items to be submitted to the office for inclusion in the weekly newsletter.

Office remains unwilling to allow Friends to email directly to community.

We are most concerned about addressing the untimely distribution of our communications but some also mentioned instances of changes made to the content of our communications by the office.

Things FOSWCS would like addressed at the School Board Meeting (Emilie)

No one had any items they wished discussed at the next Board meeting.

Staff Appreciation (Melissa unable to attend tonight)

Nicole has reminded Room Parents about collecting money from families and getting the holiday gifts out to teachers because of possible snow days.

In case of snow days this week, we may have to alter plans for Friday’s Staff Holiday Party. If there’s no school Wednesday or Thursday, and people can’t bring in food items, Emilie and others may just purchase things. There is also a possibility of rescheduling the party.

We will take care of a staff gift for Melissa.

Auction (Hanne)

Hanne is having difficulty scheduling a date for the auction with Amanda. Hanne has sent her three possible dates. The only date Amanda responded yes to will not work as several of our large donors will already to be attending a function that day.

Verde Cocina has generously offered to provide catering for the auction!

Hanne has found a beautiful, yet affordable venue ($750) at Disjecta Contemporary Art Center on N. Interstate. They have a great space as well as all the audiovisual equipment we would need. They allow the use of your own caterer. Many other venues have buyouts of at least $20 per person if you don’t use a caterer from the venue’s approved list.

Hanne is going to go ahead and book Saturday, March 18^th at Disjecta. We support Hanne’s choice on a date. After this week’s Board meeting, Hanne would like to start sending out information to the community about the auction. She wants to make sure that Dennis Allen, SWCS Board President, can attend on this date.

Hanne would like some time at next Friends meeting in January to talk about the auction and perhaps have a kickoff event.

Hanne is working with the Board fundraising committee on messaging for the auction, but has not heard anything yet.

Budget (Elise)

Elise has numbers from Karen through October 2016.

Expenditures:

• $30 on the spring dance
• $262 emergency preparedness rations.
  • The Emergency Preparedness Committee is researching the purchase of water cisterns. At their next meeting, they will focus on evacuation and lockdown procedures. In addition, the committee has made contact with the local fire station no.4, the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management and police to attend their next meeting January 24, 2017 at 8:45 am.
• $243 Staff appreciation, $22 staff drinks, $75 staff gifts.

Income:

• $1400 Chinook Books sales
• $55 Amazon Smile
• Terracycle (we received $182 in June 2016, will get another payment in January 2017)
• $570 Emergency Comfort Kits
• $510 Fred Meyer Community Rewards
• $226 Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant night
• $75 Mike’s Drive-In restaurant night
• $290 T-shirt sales
• Waiting for Pizzicato Dough for Dollars earnings

Closing Comments

Nicole wants to make sure doing room parent coordinator job well. After she sends out an email, Nicole doesn’t hear back from many room parents. Elise assured her that this was normal and just what you can.

Next Meeting

January 10                 6:30 pm @ Elephants on Corbett

Google Docs version of December 2016 Minutes