General Meeting Minutes
Monday, January 9, 2017
Number in Attendance: 10
· Call to Order:
o Motion to call the meeting to order by Krista Bean and Tara Grotto at 7:04pm.
· Principal’s Report: Mary Pat Long
o ESL Program’s Welcome Night for the 2016-2017 school year is on 1/19/17 at 6:30pm.
o Home & School Board will provide refreshments.
o Planning a visitation for kids entering the program possibly in March.
· Teacher’s Report: Mrs. Mary DeAngelis
o Thank you for the cookies provided to the staff!
o Next RIF will be the first full cycle in February. Theme is “every story has a hero” and there will be a comic strip activity.
o Mrs. DeAngelis’ bird project is going well and the kids are continuing to record info for Cornell. They are working on their field guide.
· Co-Presidents’ Reports: Lynne Lombardo and Krista Bean
o Nothing to report on at this time.
· Recording Secretary’s Report: Karen Faix
o Nothing to report on at this time
· Corresponding Secretary’s Report: Tara Grotto
o Will look into sending out a parent survey after the dance for feedback on recent events.
· Treasurer’s Report: submitted by Larry Lombardo
o As of 12/31/2016 Brooke Home and School activities have generated $25,320 in proceeds from events and spent $29,321resulting in a net deficit of $4,001 thus far. Overall, we have not met our planned profits on most events with exception of the Art Fundraiser. Our cash balance in our operating account reflects this deficit as our balance has moved from $23,300 to $19,299. Our Savings account remains unchanged at $28,616.
o The main reason for the current net deficit is the payment of LifeTouch Yearbook deposit of $2,900 in advance of some of our larger annual fundraisers (CMF, Giant A+ and Basket Raffle).
o Since our last meeting the following events have been concluded:
· Art Fundraiser generated $3,665 resulting in $1,227 profits ($227 over budget).
· Book Fair generated $2,422 resulting in $1,562 in profits ($438 under budget).
· Winterfest generated $1,563 resulting in $289 loss
· Box Tops received payment for $582, and will likely meet or exceed budget.
· Spirit Sticks and Spirit Wear continue to sell well and will likely both make budget for the year.
· Local Restaurant Nights generated $321 resulting in $96 in profits ($400 short of budget so far).
· Gift Cards (Giant, Texas Road House) generated $650 resulting in $33 in profits.
o Overall, while we are coming up short of budget on many of our fundraisers and events, our projected year end position indicates we will be able to fund all planned events from current year fundraisers, but may need to decide whether we dip into our cash for funding any of Mrs. Long’s Brooke Goal items (we had talked about funding a teacher wish list in late spring). Even if we miss our budget, we still have cash reserve to provide this support.
o Finally, our planning in the Spring should focus on next year’s events to find key replacements for the Target fundraiser loss this year and the Boosterthon loss from 2 years ago. It will become critical for us to find profitable replacements to ensure our long term ability to continue funding "extra" items for the school and teachers.
· Committee Reports:
o Basket Raffle and Glow Dance: Cristina Marsilio, Alicia Strenkoski, and Gina Romano
· The basket raffle/dance is moving along. Donations have been secured from a good amount of local businesses. Waiting on the outcome of the classroom basket donations. Several glow items were brought to the meeting to review for purchase the night of the event. Pricing of these items was discussed. Leftover glow items can be donated to the School Store for sale. Flyers have been sent home for parents to pre-purchase raffle tickets for the baskets. A signup genius was emailed out and have secured a few volunteers for help the night of the event; hopeful that including Interact students will cover all areas. Cristina, Lynne, Gina and Alicia will be starting to assemble the business baskets this week. Food will be snacks/light refreshments. Completed baskets will be posted on Facebook.
o Beautification: Stacey Sollazzo
· Holiday decorations need to be taken down.
o Book Fair (Spring): Michelle Gantzhorn and Michelle Christie
· Need date for Spring Book Fair.
o Box Tops: Andrea Straka
· From Andrea: Checks are on their way.
o Color Me Fun Run: Tracey Finney and Roseann Stadler
· Registration website is ready to go. The start time changed with the hopes that it will be a little warmer. Registration at 10am, run at 11am. Looking for volunteers. A bunch of teachers are already showing interest to help! Will be at glow dance to provide info. Looking into food options for the day.
o Family Night/Bingo: Chairperson needed
· Bingo is the preferred activity as of now. Entrance will be to bring a $10 gift card for prizes. Feb. 16th, but nothing further has been done with this yet.
o Fourth Grade Celebration: Tara Grotto
· Tara will begin working on the 4th grade celebration soon.
o Gift Card Sales: Heather Reiter
· No update.
o Outreach: Krista Bean
· No update.
o Restaurant Nights: Heather Reiter
· No update.
o School Store: Shannon Dauphin
· 1/20 and 2/24 are next School Store dates.
o Spirit Sticks: Lynne Lombardo and Michelle Gantzhorn
· From Lynne: Lynne has ordered birthday treat-only sticks that are only available to students buying birthday treat spirit sticks for their classroom. These sticks will not be offered at school store. This new process is running much better with Lynne filling orders at home and delivering to teachers for distribution. No more redemptions during school store.
· Discussion re: Spirit Sticks Swaps with other schools
o Spirit Wear: Lauren Drakeley and Karen Skilton
· No update.
o Teacher/ Staff Appreciation: Katie Druckenmiller and Dawn Svendsen
· From Katie: The Teacher & Staff Appreciation Committee provided a dinner during November conferences. Donations were collected and the teachers and staff had a warm dinner on one of their longer days of conferences. During December, we collected holiday cookies and provided boxes for the staff to enjoy a variety of cookies for the holiday season. Next up will be a Mardi Gras themed event in February.
o Winter Carnival / Santa's Secret Shoppe: Krista Bean
· Went well and appeared to be well received. Will seek feedback from survey that Tara plans to send out after the dance.
o Yearbook: Shannon Dauphin
· From Shannon: The Cover has been submitted to Lifetouch. We have just begun the layout - adding backgrounds/borders to pages. We are still accepting pictures. Please email any pictures from school events to . I will send out a reminder email to families soon. We will be busy the next few months working on the layout. Order forms will go home some time in February. The cost of the yearbook will be $17.50 again this year.
· Completed Committees / Looking Ahead: **Not reviewed at this meeting. To be reviewed at a later date.**
o Art Fundraiser (Lauren Drakeley and Karen Skilton)
o Fall Festival (Melinda Eck and Stacey Sollazzo)
o KidStuff (Karen Faix)
· New Business:
o Request for Home & School Board to look into funding for assistance with cleaning/maintenance of the pond. Currently school staff are doing this, which requires a great deal of work. Can we see if anyone else has any experience with pond c are that will be willing to assist?
· Adjournment:
o Meeting was adjourned at 8:03pm. Motion to adjourn passed by Krista Bean and Tara Grotto.
Next General Meeting: Monday, March 13, 2017 at 7pm