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President’s To Do List

January 14, 2010

Action Items:

  1. Membership Dues – All local unit PTAs must submit their membership dues to the Council treasurer, Debbie Sexton, by January 25, 2010. If you are still working towards 100% membership a supplemental payment can be made in February as the calculation is based on paid members.
  2. Seeking Nominations – Please send your nominations for the Council Executive Committee and Board of Directors to Leigh Stokes.  A list of officers can be found in your Council directory. Other members of the nominating committee include: Robin Callahan, Jody Mull, Beth Donahoe, Trina Davis.
  3. Award (Golden Acorn/Outstanding Advocate) Reception – please send the name and contact information of your award chair to Judy Babb so she can contact them directly with details and information about this Council event.
  4. Council Celebration Luncheon – save the date for Thursday, May 20 for our annual celebration/transition luncheon. All principals are invited as well as incoming presidents. This is also a change to our schedule as our morning General Membership meeting will take place on this day rather than our normal 2nd Thursday of the month to give everyone a chance to attend the ISF luncheon. More information will come soon about possible testing schedule conflicts.
  5. School Board Work Study – Please plan on attending the School Board work study with the Council PTSA Board of Directors on Wednesday, January 27 from 7-8pm. We’d love to have you in the audience showing your support.
  6. Nominating Committee Training – Thursday, January 28, 10am-12pm at the Admin Building.

Information Items:

  1. Transition Materials – the information from the January 14 meeting and other documents that can be used for developing programs and communications for your PTA/PTSA will be posted soon on our website. (Deborah, our webmaster is on vacation so I’ll send out a quick note when it is all posted with the link)
  2. Honor Unit Award and Communication Award - can be found on the State PTA website, under Leadership Resources (username: PTAmember, password: leader), click on Awards and it is towards the bottom of the page. You will find the application form and a judging sheet which gives you insight into how the submissions are reviewed.
  3. Art Docent Materials – Vicki Hoffman is your council rep if you or your art docent has questions about the change to the art materials specifications.
  4. New Boundary Contact List – start thinking of the best way for your PTA to use your school’s list for a one-time use. I believe this is only a mailing address not email.

New Items:

  1. February General Membership Meeting – We are still looking for a venue for this meeting. Please look closely when the meeting reminder comes out in February so you will know where to go. 
  2. Haiti Relief – If your PTA is interested in helping in some way here are some organizations that your donations can help: Red Cross, UNICEF, Doctors without Borders. You can either vote to distribute some of your PTA funds as a donation to one of these relief organizations or you can publicize to your community the contact information for individuals to donate to these relief organizations. What you cannot do is have parents write checks to the PTA and then the PTA write the check to the organization – this is frowned on by IRS regulations as it looks like money laundering. You also cannot throw together a fundraising event without a vote of your GM as you most likely do not have a line item in your budget to cover this.
  3. New PTA Steering Committees – Just an FYI that notices about the formation of the steering committees for the Creekside Elementary and Pacific Cascade Middle PTAs is starting to go out. I have been in contact with Sunny Hills, Discovery, PLMS and IMS but if you feel your PTA should also be advertising this please let me know I’ll pass along the info.

Best Practice Moment:

  • Be sure you are communicating in a variety of ways with your membership. Don’t count on just your newsletter to get the word out – use flyers, reader board, posters, email messages, etc.
  • Get your awards committee going so they can be on the look out for possible candidates for Golden Acorn, Outstanding Advocate and Outstanding Educator. Refer to the Council provided Awards Guidelines for detailed information.
  • All Local Unit award applications are due to the state on March 1. Including: Communications, Newsletter, Standards of Excellence, Honor Unit, Outstanding Local Unit of the Year, and PTAs Taking Significant Action.
  • Be sure you are continuously recognizing volunteers.
  • Where are you on your 100% membership? How about staff membership?
  • Is your treasurer providing monthly budget reports at your meetings, on your website, and posted at the school?
  • Are you passing on information from the State and National PTA to your membership?

January Collection List (add to your folder)

  • Minutes from meeting where Nominating Committee was elected.