The Telling Room presents new Free media production workhops

These look like three great after school workshops  in photography, documentary, and music for your kids and mine.  I’ve put them on the blog under a new category: Activities for kids.   Please read on if interested.

Meeting Minutes from 9-18-08

Attending

David Grant
Jim Kessler
Kitty Purington
Gail Landry
Mary McQuillan
Jonathan Nolan

Jonathan began the meeting with a discussion of the nature of trying to build a sustainable organization in the context of a middle school.

Jonathan gave people an overview of the history of the PTO from the prior year.  He discussed the good will of the King parent community toward the PTO, but also acknowledged the limited participation that the PTO has had so far developed.

We reviewed some of the goals that were established for the group last year (fund raising, community development, etc.), and discussed the strategies and incentives that parents might feel that would help the group grow in participation and meets its goals.

The group discussed the efficacy of the list serve.  It was noted that conversations via the list serve undermine people’s interest in reading emails from the list.

Jonathan proposed that the group will gain energy from defining it’s specific actions / projects.

Dave and Jonathan spoke about the ideas that came out of the group the previous year:  hosting a fall community event that combines food and info about the school as a way to generate interest and participation in the PTO; and fundraising events for the school tied into existing school events like the Celebration of Learning and the King Faculty Talent Show.

The group had a lively discussion about different ideas and projects the PTO could undertake.

The group focused around three major ideas for the PTO to work on:

•    A community event in January:  Pot luck with a presentation or learning event about King;
•    Supporting the King Talent Show / Auction in April;
•    Developing business sponsorships for the Celebration of the Learning in May.

In general, people discussed how they might be able to approach organizations where we have ins.

Group leadership issues were raised.  The group decided that Jonathan is in charge through the community event in January.

The group decided to explore using the third Tues instead of Thurs.  So Dave agreed to get back to the group about Oct 21st for the next meeting.