I mean, my blog post title area said to, "Create a catchy title," so... "A September to Remember it is."
When what I really mean is, "A September to remember a bunch of stuff we need to do while also still getting our brains adjusted to a school schedule before holiday craziness starts up in October."
Ha!
First, thank you for being patient on this update. Our secretary needed a few days to get this to me after the meeting and then I (Vicki) had a bit of a medical emergency in the form of an attack of Vertigo (is attack the right way to describe it? Idk... but it felt like an attack).
Even with all of that going on sometime between the meeting and this blog post we (NEST) also attempted two different concession stand nights and determined there aren't quite large enough crowds during volleyball to provide them every home game, but we will try at least twice during basketball season. We also collected the money for The First Annual NEST EGG collection, and we raised OVER $1400!!!! The book fair stuff was delivered to the gym and is ready to be set up. We also (thanks to one NEST parent's diligent efforts) have started to try to rally volunteers to give our teachers duty free lunches.
(SIDE NOTE - if you are free Sunday evening, September 18th, at 5:00pm please join us to set up in the gym... but only if it's wildly convenient. Save your inconvenient efforts for DURING the bookfair when we really need help. Like really... really. Really need help).
So now, the meeting recap so many of you have been PATIENTLY waiting for (I truly appreciate that, btw).
September 8th Nest Meeting Minutes
Location: Katilin Clark’s classroom
Officers Present:
Victoria McFall: President
Rachel: Vice President
Traci Presley: Secretary
Katilin Clark: Teacher Liaison
Taylor: Student Representative
(Our Treasurer was out sick)
Nest Meeting called to order at 6:03 by President Victoria.
Location for the Scholastic Book Fair has been decided. The book fair will take place along the back wall of the gym. We discussed some of the challenges we will face with holding the book fair in the gym and discussed solutions to make for a successful book fair. Nest is looking for more volunteers to help man the book fair and to help us set up book fair, move book fair due to volleyball home games (specifically on Tuesday night of the book fair), volunteers to man book fair during literacy night (on Thursday), and dismantle book fair (Friday before the next game).
There will be a few mass emails concerning the book fair going out to parents and teachers sent by Paul, so be on the lookout. Kids will be allowed to make a wish list this year for the book fair. There will also be an email concerning ways to donate money toward books for children who may not have money for book fair. Every year we have so many students that come to book fair without the means of purchasing a book. We will be raising money so that we can help provide an opportunity for children to purchase a book. We will only use money raised for book purchases, not games or toys. Our teachers normally end up pulling money out of their own pocket to purchase kids' books. We are hoping that teachers will not have to do that this year.
Important book fair dates
Book fair: September 19-23 7:30-3:30 we need volunteers to cover times.
[Visit this link to sign up for The Book Fair]
September 18th is setup day (5pm in the gym)
September 20th Book fair will have to temporarily move out of the gym to host a home volleyball game.
September 22nd Volunteers will be needed to reopen the book fair during Literacy Night. We will appreciate any help during this time.
September 23rd Volunteer at the book fair from 1:30 on Friday will slowly start consolidating items and packing up.
➨ If you want to help with book fair but are unsure what time you could be most helpful, please email Victoria and she will sign you up for a time that both fits your schedule and will fill those most needed time spots!
Title 1 is hosting two literacy nights and Nest was approached about volunteering and providing food. Although we feel this is a great school event we are unfortunately unable to provide food funds due to NEST's lack of funds and we already have two goals for our current fundraiser. We are currently running a fundraiser at the school, Nest Egg and we plan to use the money to buy our teacher appreciation gifts and rebuild our treasury so we can in the future successfully contribute to events and projects that help our teachers and students.
Nest has agreed to be a presence at literacy night, we will be reopening up the book fair from 5:30-7:30 on Thursday September 22nd. We will need ample volunteers to help us man the book fair during the family literacy night because we feel like this will be an extremely busy time. Literacy Night ALSO needs volunteers to help serve food.
Nest was approached by Mr. Morgan Thursday morning and the message was relayed during the meeting about running a concession for athletic home games. This will be a first for the school and for Nest having concessions during sporting events. Nest is extremely nervous about undertaking such a large project with limited funds and volunteers but we are hopeful this will be a good fundraising endeavor. We have been asked to provide concessions for Monday the 12th and Friday the 16ths home volleyball games. Mrs. Hill (our volleyball coach) came in to discuss game schedules and for Monday's game. We were glad to have her input and ideas. We decided on a menu and delegated responsibilities for purchasing items. Victoria took charge of pizza and working out paying and Rachel will be doing pickup. Lauren and I decided to do a Sam’s run for water, candy and chips. Our menu is reflective of what we were able to work out on short notice. We discussed that both peanut and red dye allergies are prevalent at our school so we decided to try to be conscious of this while purchasing snacks.
Our menu items and prices:
Pizza: 2.00
Water: 1.00
Chips: 1.00
*Candy: 1:00
*When taking allergies and options available at Sam's into consideration Lauren and I made an executive decision to change our Candy option to a Cake/Pastry option. Starting a concession program will be a learning process and it may take a few times to get down what sales best and know amounts. Nest has asked that it not be advertised ahead of time that we will have concessions. We don’t want to get swamped at our first two games; we will have limited volunteers. We also hope to work out any kinks and have a better idea of need before advertising. Nest also hopes that our unannounced concession will be a pleasant surprise to our team, sports parents and fans.
Nest expressed our concern about not having enough volunteers to manage a full year of concessions and asked Mrs. Hill to get parents of athletes involved. Our student representative Taylor also suggested that we involve some of the older students in volunteering. Victoria added that volunteer time for students could be put toward required community service projects. Taylor told us that “brag sheets” are a list of activities and achievements students attach with college applications and community service is often expected. Nest has decided to record any time students help volunteer to write official “brag sheet” recommendations. We are counting on parents and older children to help us make the sports concessions possible. We require that at least one Nest officer attend games to keep track of the lockbox and how much is sold. Our first few games will help us determine the quantity of snacks bought and help Nest gauge if this will be a time worthy fundraiser. Nest will discuss at the next meeting how the new sports concession is going, comparing the amount spent by Nest on concession and the amount sold and raised to see if we will continue to run the concessions at the games.
Reading Buddies is another year long program Nest is trying to implement to help our teacher get more time with our students that need help with reading. A mass email will be sent out looking for volunteers to come during reading times to read with our kids. Our reading buddies will focus on reading to our children that are on grade level that may need help with a few words here and there. Encouraging children to read to their buddies with assistance when needed. This will give our teachers time to spend with the students that are struggling with reading. We will need as many volunteers as possible to make the Reading Buddies Program possible. Requirements to be a reading buddy is to have a four-year degree or be able to take substitute teacher training. The substitute teacher training is online and individuals that pass the training would then be qualified to sub at our school.
Christmas Parade information is coming in and we are already in the planning stage of our Canton Christmas float. The Canton Christmas Parade is set for Friday Dec. 2nd and we are asked to be there at 4:00. The theme for Canton Christmas Parade is Grits and Grace. We talked about doing a country themed dress and float. Victoria will be reaching out to the We Love Waynesville Facebook community to ask if anyone would allow us to use their trailer for our float. Our float used last year was too small to accommodate all the turn out we had for children and adults needing to ride. We will take into consideration all offers we receive to make the best choice float for our school. If you know anyone that could help us find or borrow a float please email Victoria. The town of Waynesville has not decided on a theme yet but the parade day is Monday December the 5th with an arrival time of 4:00. We will further discuss our plans for the town of Waynesville's parade once we get a float nailed down and the theme is announced.
We will also be asking for people to donate candy to be passed out during these two parades. So if anyone can donate a bag of candy we will start a collecting candy for the Christmas parades as well.
Other miscellaneous things we discussed and plan on going over in more detail at next month's meeting.
Lauren made a PTO questionnaire that will be sent out to all of our Nest volunteers to get an idea of things we like and don’t like about PTO. This questionnaire will also go over our personal strengths and weaknesses to help us understand who could assist with different projects and previous experiences with PTO. Lauren also made a sign up sheet for volunteers to come into the classroom and give teachers a small break during the day, like a duty free lunch day, Volunteers would not be teaching classes but watch class while the teacher gets a much deserved break. Be on the lookout for both of these in an Nest email.
We did not have time to discuss the Penguin Patch but we will be making plans and preparations for this event at the next meeting.
We will be discussing future fundraising ideas and our holiday events. The candy cane grams are not a crowd favorite so we are looking at ideas to replace our popular holiday fundraiser (possibly pajama day).
We also discussed the second uniform event of the season briefly. The second uniform event will be a swap not a sale and we penciled in January the 14th as the tentative date. We also discussed the possibility of creating a Facebook page specific to uniform swap.
We will further discuss the sports we may be doing concessions for. We will also need to get a firm location from Mr. Morgan to leave our stash of concession snacks and drinks when being stored..
We started drawing our meeting to a conclusion with a recap of some amazing things we have accomplished already this year.
We are so proud of the efforts of our Falcon family and community that has reached out to help a family in our community that experienced a house fire. We are overwhelmed with the support our school has shown and continues to show for this family. We will be looking into a Christmas ornament collection for this family to show our love and support during the holiday season.
We also continue to support our falcon Bella who is a fourth grader at our school undergoing chemo. We have and are still trying to raise money for the family to support Bella. We view our support for Bella to be a marathon, we hope to continue to send donations and support to her family as they navigate her treatment. Please check out our facebook page or reach out to Victoria if you would like to find out more ways you can donate to Bella.
Meeting Minutes Concluded at 7:45
WE LOVE OUR VOLUNTEERS! We want to express our gratitude to our volunteers, and we are so proud of all we have already accomplished this year. We do not want you to feel like you need to volunteer at all events to be a part of Nest, we do not even expect you at most. We hope that you will consider volunteering when it is something you feel passionate about and when it works with your schedule. We love it when we get a fresh set of eyes on a project who is excited about what we are trying to accomplish. We know it takes a village and we hope that we can grow our village. If you haven’t volunteered with us yet, we invite you to look over our calendar of events and hope you see something that you can bring a fresh perspective to and would love to be a part of. Thank you again for all you do to make our PTO successful!
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I (Vicki) will be sending out that PTO questionnaire this weekend! That is a "no rush" kind of thing.
We also decided not to "decorate" the float for the first parade and for everyone's "outfits" to be the decor, since the original day for decorating the float was set for December 3rd. That way nobody has to decorate over Thanksgiving Break and we are only decorating for one theme.
There wasn't much time for Q&A - and I would really like for anyone who has questions to drop a comment or email me. & I will add those to this blog post with answers.