New Durham Elementary School

PTO Meeting Minutes

(Please scroll down for previous months’ minutes)

MEETING DATE: November 15, 2007

ATTENDANCE:

Nancy Haseltine

Barbara Reed

Diane Booth

Amy Chasse

Heather Cataldo

Wendi Fenderson

Heather Wingate

Secretary/Treasurer’s Report: Balance - Balance - $3746.29- Barbara will give Heather in invoice for the slide. We also earned $250.00 in Boxtops for Education.

UPDATE ON PAST AGENDA ITEMS:

Trick-or-Treat at the school was a big hit ******FOR NEXT YEAR, PLAN ON ENOUGH CANDY FOR 400 KIDS.*********

Concerning the pizza party for the pizza fundraiser. There will not be a pizza party, however, the family that sells the most kits will get a free pizza kit.

Family Fun Night: Derek Small from Wildlife Encounters will be back. He has been scheduled for Thursday, March 13, 2008 from 6-7:30. Cost: $250.00

Christmas Craft Fair: PTO will not participate in the fair this year.

Volunteers needed for Little Caesar Delivery: Delivery to rooms on November 30^th. May need many people to help with this. If possible, parents of children with large orders may need to pick up child at school.

Discussion ensued concerning the new report card. Barbara will be working out the kinks with staff and will also be a topic of discussion at all school admin meetings. If any parents have any concerns regarding the new report card, please feel free to contact Barbara or come and address concerns during “Open Office” evenings.

Christmas Party - The official PTO Christmas Party will be hosted by Heather Wingate (yeah Heather!) at her lovely home on Thursday, December 13^th at 6pm. Please bring an appetizer and your drink of choice. More details to follow in a later email!

Spring Carnival - We will set the date for the Spring Carnival at the January meeting. We will be gearing up to send out the large corporate donation letters in January (Major league teams, American Girl Dolls, Build-A-Bear Workshop, etc). Amy Chasse will be bringing in the list of corporate names for dispersion to volunteers.

MEETING DATE: October 18, 2007

ATTENDANCE:

Amy Chasse

Wendi Fenderson

Heather Wingate

Birgit Walker

Barbara Reed

Anne Marie Spack

Secretary/Treasurer’s Report: Balance - $4,224.43 currently in account. A gift for Peter Yates was sent this past week - A GC to Dockside and a plant.

Box Tops/Hannaford Slips

$200.00 in Box Tops so far this year. Barbara will do something in the newsletter. Hannaford slips - need to check dates with Sharon. Need to make a drop off location for these at the school. We can check the office periodically and bring them over to Hannaford. Amy - Pat Jones stopped by regarding student council taking over toner/cellphone recycling program the PTO started. Need to follow up with Heather to see what information she can pass down to Pat Jones. Need to advertise the program. Motion made to let student council take over program voted on and passed. Barbara will have Heather contact Pat. Pat would also like to do a book fair at the Spring Carnival. Need to confirm date.

Halloween Candy

PTO will sponsor a door. Amy will pick-up popcorn or pencils. Heather W. Will get popcorn and Amy will get pencils for about 150. Amy’s mom will sit and hand out candy at the door. Anne Marie will do Barbara Reed’s door so she can participate in the Town Meeting House event.

Playground/Water Fountains

The current slide structure is 15+ years old and the slide needs repair. The slide costs $1368.00. Barbara approved to order new slide.

Drinking water is a concern at school and many parents are concerned about the safety of the water. Barbara has assured the water is safe. May look into getting a bubbler down in the gym. What costs would be incurred by putting in a bubbler that is chilled in the hall? Amy suggested a Brita filter for classroom sinks. Barbara will investigate the water solution and will put something in the jottings.

TV/DVD-Amy will start investigating for the 9 remaining.

Fundraising: Silent auction: We need to do something this fall/winter. Christmas craft fair was a lot of work for little money. We need to decide on a fundraiser and state in the newsletter what the funds will be put towards. Birgit mentioned a Florida fruit sale? Barbara wants us to decide on the fundraiser now, due to the impending holidays. Someone will contact Celeste as she has done a fruit fundraiser before. Will put it in the newsletter.

Family Fun Night-Do we want to plan/have an event in spring? Animal encounters was well received and may be a good one to do again. Possible musical event, Steve Blunt ($200.00)-was wonderful with the kids as well. Heather Wingate will look into program.

Christmas Craft Fair-PTO will not be doing the craft fair this year

Miscellaneous: Teachers need to submit for the refund for class trips. Not many teachers have submitted the form. Will tell teachers about the program again.

For Next Meeting: Possible music man for entertainment at Spring Carnival (separate from Family Fun night)

MEETING DATE: May 23, 2007

ATTENDANCE:

Amy Chasse, Barbara Reed, Ann Marie Spack, Wendi Fenderson, Heather Wingate, Heather Cataldo, Diane Booth

Treasurer’s Report: Balance: $2,645.06

End of Year Party-Thursday Evening, June 14^th, 6PM, Amy Chasse’s house. Potluck, bring salads and appetizers

First Day Celebration: School personnel will take care of assembling the balloon arch, PTO will buy the balloons and ribbon. We will also provide food for the breakfast after and check on refilling the helium tank. Barbara will order another school calendar magnet after next year’s school calendar has been finalized. *****First PTO meeting in September 2007, Barbara Reed will go over policy changes, etc for the new school year. We will try to elicit participation at the First Day Celebration will a brief intro of PTO and mention of the meeting.

Spring Carnival-Finalization of plans continue. Food will include pizza from Dominos Pizza. They will give us 20 pizza free and 40 for $5.00 each-$200.00 total for food. Shopping will be done by Heather C and Amy C. at BJ’s which will save us considerable money.

Silent Auction Items: Current list to date:

-Hilltop Fun Center (6 mini golf passes)

-Atlantic Gymnastics (Pass for Birthday Party)

-Michele Hamilton (Quilt and table runner)

-Amy Chasse and Amy Bacon will do a Mary Kay Basket

-Mary Nason ( New Durham Wildcats sweatshirt)

-Amy Bacon (Silpada Jewelry)

-Basket of Pet Items (Jan Allard)

-Poker set (Wendi Fenderson)

-Autographed Hockey Picture-Mike Eruzione (Wendi Fenderson)

-Mia Bella Candle (Heather Cataldo)

-2 Longerberger Baskets (Lori Tetreault)

-Eastern Propane:Weather Station, Beach Bag w/towel, cd holder, sunglass case, water bottle and ball and Coleman Cooler, Radio Cooler and 2-20 lb grill tanks w/ set of stainless steel grill utensils)

-Massage GC(Emma Scala)

-Haircut GC(Jen Hoyt )

-Creative Memories GC(Jen Hoyt)

-AMC Membership (Appalachian Mountain Club)

-Wal-Mart $25.00 Gift Card

-Six Flags New England 2 tickets

-Water Country 2 tickets

-Vermont Teddy Bear

-Barrington Shores Campground - two night stay

-Johnson’s Restaurant $50.00 gift certificate

-Main Street Café in Alton $25.00 Gift Certificate

-Curves for Women in Rochester a 1 month membership

-Cardinal Glidden Oil

-Dance n Motion $10.00 Gift Certificate

-Squam Lake Science Center 4 passes

-Whales Tail 2 passes

-Rochester Motor Sports $25.00 Gift Certificate

-Wendy’s $10.00 Gift Certificate

-Papa Ginos $5.00 Lunch Packs

-Circle 9 Ranch, Epsom donated a weekend of camping.

-L. Sweet Pet Grooming Gift Certificate

-Celebrity Limosine GC

-Portland Sea Dogs 4 tickets

-Sandy Point Restaurant $50.00 Gift Certificate

-Granite Cutting Board

-Primative Furniture by Steve Mosher

-Black Dog Car Wash $25.00

-Zoology book from Fox Tale Books

-$75.00 Halloween Mask made by Bill Nicosia

-Hike or Lunch with Jeb Bradley

-Jewelry by Dawn Wallis

-Autographed Book by Tomie DePaola

MEETING DATE: March 15, 2007

ATTENDANCE:

Diane Booth

Heather Cataldo

Heather Wingate

Amy Chasse

Wendi Fenderson

Nancy Haseltine

Ann Marie Spack

Paul Kiely

Treasurer’s Report: Current Balance, $3,270.60. Recently received a check for $107.70 from Box Tops for Education.

Budget Review: In an effort to better serve the school and the support the many programs offered, the officers will review the budget in the summer months, prior to the new school year. We will also be adding stipulations to the monies donated to particular programs during the year. We feel it is imperative that the PTO provide funds to support the broadest audience possible, since all of the children in the school and the programs we support are important to us. The officers will meet in August to discuss the 2007/2008 budget. Another item discussed was the field trip money provided to the teachers annually. Although the $100.00 does help to defray the cost of field trips, it was thought that maybe teachers would better benefit by being able to use the funds for a special program or item for their class. This will be discussed with teachers for next year.

Principal’s Report: Mr. Kiely reviewed the artist in residence program being offered this April. Randy Armstrong, a well-known musical artist will be with the New Durham School for 1 week, offering lessons to the 4^th through 6^th grade students. This program will culminate in a concert presented on Friday, April 6^th. This is one of the more expensive programs offered by the school and it was decided upon by the members present that the PTO will support this program with the money collected from the Hannaford School Slips program, with an amount not to exceed $1000.00. This will help to greatly defray the cost of this important program.

It was also discussed that some parents would like to see more programs offered to the 1^st through 3^rd grade students. An idea was brought up to provide some type of outdoor program in the winter during the ski program. An ice skating program was discussed and may be a possibility for next year. The cost impact would be minimal, however, it would require many chaperones, due to the young age of the childre

Family Fun Night: Derrick will be presenting his program at the school next Wednesday evening from 6:00 to 7:30 pm. There will also be a book sale starting at 5:30 pm in the media center. It was decided that we will not have any refreshments nor will we have a donation jar. Amy Chasse will check with Derrick to ensure we are on the schedule and also to inquire on the invoice for the event. Posters will be put up around the school and Amy Chasse will put a notice in this week’s newletter. We will also have a notice put up outside on the school sign. **NOTE: It would be good to try to remember to have important dates for events at the school listed in the Baysider newspaper. We will do this for the spring carnival****

Spring Carnival/Silent Auction: The date for this years spring carnival will be Wednesday Night June 6^th from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. We will streamline the food portion of the event this year by serving pizzas and subs, hopefully donated or discounted from Subway and local pizza joints. We distributed to-do lists to the members present and have other lists to distribute to those who indicated they wanted to help but were unavailable to attend the meeting. Diane will talk with Russ Perrin on the climbing wall and if there is interest with him in doing that again this year. We will need belayers and maybe will limit the climbing time, instead of having it available during the entire event. We will also contact the Hannafords in Alton for ice cream donations, since they were helpful with ice cream during our playground ceremony. We will be posting notices in the newsletters for help as the time approaches. Nancy H. reviewed the sign-up sheet for the teachers and will recruit for the evening event. Diane will also contact Linda Labbe to see if she is interested in coordinating the craft event again this year. We also will try to increase the number of face-painters, since 2 last year were kept extremely busy and the lines were long. The balloon lady will definitely be contacted as she is a big hit with the kids and we will also contact the rec dept. to see if they are interested in having the dunking booth and also to ensure we will have access to the popcorn machine. The Vaughans will be contacted to see if there is any interest for them to run the cake walk as in past years. Although it is only March, June will be here before we know it!

MEETING DATE: January 18, 2007

ATTENDANCE:

Diane Booth

Heather Cataldo

Heather Wingate

Amy Chasse

Jan Allard

Wendi Fenderson

Barbara Reed

Treasurer’s Report: Current balance: $3,247.87. We received a check for $372.16 from BoxTops for Education.

Box Tops(Heather Wingate): Heather was commenting on how we are eligible to receive up to $20,000 from Box Tops. Although we recently received over $370, it is not inconceivable for us to get much more. Our goal, for the next deadline which is February 28^th, is to have $1000.00 in Box Tops to redeem.

New Business:

Thanks to Dan Nebesky who donated time and materials for a step platform for the monorail, to allow those children that are to small to reach the monorail. We discussed and agreed that we should send a thank you with a small token of appreciation, since he would not accept any funds. Amy C. Will take care of this item.

TV/VCR’s: There is a need for 5 TV’s to complete this project. We discussed possibly upgrading the current TV/VCR combos with DVD players and to purchase 5 new ones (tv’s and dvd’s). This would cost approximately $2350.00. We need to research more pricing and the possibility of obtaining a grant. Wendi F. had an idea to mount existing in-focus machines to classroom ceilings to provide capability to play DVD’s and to output information sent to a PC. Currently, we have info that the cost of 27" tv’s would be between $250-$500, mounts would be $50-$150 each.

Family Fun Night: We have a family fun night scheduled for March 21, 2007 from 6-7:30pm. Derek Small will send a certificate for insurance to the school as the time approaches. Pat Jones will be holding a book sale during this event as well, in conjunction with Fox Tale books. The books for sale will be books relating to animals in keeping with the theme of the evening. Additionally, a used book sale will be held and we will send out a notice the week prior to the sale for parents to send in gently used books to sell. Proceeds from the book sale will support the media center.

Spring Carnival/Silent Auction: Yes, it’s that time again to talk about the Spring Carnival. We have picked June 6^th from 5:30-7:30 as the event date. A big issue last year was the food...how much time and commitment from personnel it took to provide hamburgers/hot dogs, etc. We have decided to go with a deli format this year....subs and pizzas which hopefully we can get donated. We will still need the chips and drinks as well as help from many people to make calls to obtain silent auction items and to pick up said items. Heather C. will chair the silent auction and will be the point of contact for items. Please come to the next meeting with ideas to parse out and a few contacts from each of us for silent auction items.

Conference: Heather C. enlightened us with information from a retreat/conference she recently attended. EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique is a method employed to allow a person to be freed from a particular stress, phobia or fear. It is a technique the employs massage and a meditation-like state of mind. Anyone interested in hearing more about this technique or for class information can contact Heather.

Upromise: Amy Chasse provided info on the Upromise program to allow matching funds for eligible purchases to be earmarked for our school. Just go to the Upromise website and enter New Durham School. Then, when you make purchases through participating retailers, funds will be applied to our school. See the upromise website for more information.

LEGOS: The Lego company will possibly be making kits available to our school for a discount. We will be getting more information in the near future on this and what types of kits will be available. In the meantime, they will be sending 30 copies of the LEGO magazine for the kids in the LEGO club.

MEETING DATE: November 16, 2006

ATTENDANCE:

Diane Booth

Heather Cataldo

Heather Wingate

Amy Chasse

Derek Small

Wendi Fenderson

Barbara Reed

Nancy Haseltine

The meeting was brought to order at 6:40 pm. The first item of business was a presentation by Derek Small of Wildlife Encounters in Rochester NH. They provide a traveling zoo with exotic animals representing 64 different species native to almost every major land mass on earth. He explained his philosophy and how the program works and even brought an animal ambassador, an adorable African Cherval. The PTO would like to have Derek and his ambassadors come to the school in March for an assembly or “Family Fun Night”. The date for this event has been slated for March 21^st at 6PM, or March 28^th if the 21^st is not good for Derek.

Secretary’s Report: Minutes from October 19^th distributed.

Treasurer’s Report: Current balance: $3,723.18. The cookbook fundraiser netted approximately $708.50 and the Original Arts fundraiser netted approximately $770.00

Box Tops(Heather Wingate): We are awaiting a check for approximately $350.00 in December.

Hannaford Slips: The deadline for these slips is December 19^th. Keep them coming! Drop slots are available at Hannafords-Alton and Hannafords-Rochester.

Christmas Craft Fair: We have purchased items from the Dollar Tree and Oriental Trading to allow the children to have some small crafts to create and also to purchase inexpensive gifts for Christmas. We will provide a wrapping station and will be needing volunteers to work the table. An notice will be placed in the newsletter asking for volunteers. Diane and Amy Chasse have both offered to work a portion of the fair but we will need more coverage.

Scholarship Funds: Barbara Reed indicated that there are many more requests this year for ski scholarships. Although she does have some sources for partial funding for these scholarships, she has asked the PTO if we could help with a donation. Discussion ensued and Amy Chasse made a motion for the PTO to make a $500.00 donation toward the ski scholarships, or approximately half of what Barbara anticipates will be needed. The motion was seconded and passed and Barbara will contact Heather Wingate with a final figure.

Legos: Amy C. brought up the fact the very popular after-school Legos program has so many participants that Mrs. Spack has had to turn some children away. There are not enough Legos to go around. Amy contacted Legos and we may be getting a donation from them in January. In the meantime, Barbara will contact Paul Perry to see if there are any mind storm Legos left from that program. Also, we will be asking people to clean out their toy closets and donate any Legos. This is a great time to do this since Christmas is just around the corner!

Playground Equipment Update: The benches for the playground have arrived, however, just like the other pieces of equipment, they need some groundwork prior to installation. We need 4 post-holes dug for the two benches. It was brought up that NH Electric Coop or Union Tel might be willing to dig these for us free of charge. Heather W. will check into a contact for this as we will want to get these dug before the ground freezes.

Heather C will follow up with Paula Gehl who had mentioned wanting to donate either materials or a sandbox for the playground.

There are some children in the school, under the tutelage of Russ Perrin, building a “boat” for the playground. This will be a suitable replacement for the school bus that was removed. The PTO decided to provide whatever funds we have left over in the playground account so they can purchase materials for this wonderful project. We will also be providing sleds for the kids this winter, to replace the cardboard ones previously used.

The PTO welcomed newcomer Wendi Fenderson. She jumped right into the thick of things and will be checking with her husband on the feasibility of getting some bark mulch for the playground to be placed under and around the new equipment. Thanks for your support Wendi!

We are also going to be looking for someone to build us a step or platform for the zipline. This will enable the smaller children to use the zipline safely. A notice will be placed in the newsletter.

Discount Cards: Our previous fundraiser from last fall, the discount cards, are still gracing our presence. It was determined that since they were paid off, it would be better to have them get some use prior to their expiration in March. The PTO will be donating the cards, one to each family in the school, in the holiday spirit of giving. Barbara has graciously agreed to prepare a letter or card to send home with the discount cards in one of the forthcoming newsletters.

Christmas Party: Last but certainly not least, lively discussion surrounded the wonderful topic of next month’s meeting which will be our Christmas Party Meeting. It was decided that the PTO deserves a night on the town; so instead of having everyone bake, cook, clean their house, scurry the kids to bed early, we thought a nice dinner at a lovely, local establishment was in order! The Cider Press in Wolfeboro is on the venue, however, we need to check the availability of the date: Thursday evening, December 14^th . We would like to have an entourage meet at the school for 6pm to car-pool over to the restaurant and we’ll have reservations for 6:30 pm. More details will follow in an email for pricing, menu, etc.... Hope to have a great response to our evening out. Everyone in the PTO, regardless of meeting attendance, is invited!

Meeting was adjourned at 8:16 pm. HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!!

MEETING DATE: October 19,2006

ATTENDANCE:

Diane Booth

Paul Kiely

Ann Marie Spack

Heather Cataldo

Heather Wingate

Secretary’s Report: Minutes from September 21st. were distributed. As in the past, minutes from meetings will be emailed to PTO mailing list as well as being posted on the PTO webpage.

Treasurer’s Report: Current balance: $3,118.54. The yard sale netted us $198.50