Minutes: September 16th, 2013

Prepared by Leah Elzinga, September 16th, 2013
1. Meeting called by Leah Elzinga, President, at 5:40pm, September 12th, 2013
2. In attendance: Leah Elzinga (President), Eva Scrimshaw (Vice President), Robin George (Event Coordinator), Wayne Rufiange (Principal), Kari Morgan (Vice Principal), Nadine Sowers, Amy Duvall (Treasurer), Erin and Mike Vollick

3. Additions or amendments to the agenda.
a. Robin motions that item #6, Planned Events, be moved to the top of the meeting. Eva seconds and the agenda is approved as amended.

4. Planned events for 2013/2014
a. Snowflakes & Stars Winter Market
i. Scheduled for November 23rd
ii. Hosted by MPES parent Kelli Sales-Allen
b. Snowflake Festival
i. Dec 10-11th
ii. This year’s concerts will be held on two nights, both at the Morinville Community Cultural Centre.
iii. The concerts will be split alphabetically as opposed to by age or grade in order to ensure that families need only attend one concert
iv. PFA will commit to hosting a Silent Auction or other similar event in the CCC lobby
v. PFA will also commit to expending more energy on a larger scale bake sale, due to its resounding success last year. Lollipops will also be sold. There is still some inventory remaining in PFA storage.
c. Sham-ROCK Family Dance
i. Whether the event will be handed off to School Council or not, PFA is will consider this event a priority and will make sure it’s a go ahead for a date near or on St.Patrick’s Day.
d. Community Carnival
i. Community Carnival will be a go. Sponsors and vendors will need to start getting booked asap to prevent cancellations and last minute crunch time.
ii. PFA will attempt to recruit Ford Canada again this year.

5. Summary of PFA Activity for the 2012/2013 year
a. Bylaws and Operating Procedures
i. Leah stated that the bylaws and operating procedures are now complete and can be found as hard copies with herself or online at mpespfa.blogspot.com.
ii. Leah outlined the basic duties of President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer as described in the bylaws.
b. Fundraisers: a brief outline of each of PFA’s 2012/2013 fundraisers was presented
i. Snowflakes and Stars Winter Market
1. PFA was asked last minute to run the concession. PFA sold hot dogs, light snacks, Tim Hortons coffee (donated), and chili. The event was a great success in that it got the PFA out in the community and was an excellent team building exercise. The only downside was that the chili and hotdogs were so popular that they sold out too soon. Need to assess profit margins and amounts for this year.
ii. Winter Fundraiser
1. PFA ran one large Winter Fundraiser selling Purdy’s Chocolates, Fundscrip giftcards, and Poinsettias.
2. The general feedback was that a multiple fundraiser was confusing to parents. This year’s will still be a go for the holiday season, but streamlined.
a. Purdy’s : expensive, but decent return. Very nice product, gift wrapped, pleasant customer service, BUT the website and tech support was so poor that Leah’s initial advice was to scrap the idea. However the website has since been overhauled.
b. Fundscrip: though parents spent over $12k on Fundscrip, the school saw only a few hundred dollars. We will not be returning to fundscrip.
c. Poinsettias: easy to deal with, straightforward, and an excellent profit margin. Only downside was that flowers that were not picked up suffered.
iii. Bake Sale/Lollipops
1. Surprisingly successful, run by Robin George. More support and organization should make this into a very profitable event for 2013/2014.
iv. Silent Auction
1. 48 lots and approx. $1500 in profit. Though it made a decent pile of money, the work to profit ration was very high. It did allow the PFA to establish relationships throughout the business community.
v. Calahoo Meats
1. Terrific customer service, straightforward ordering, would recommend again.
vi. Carnival
1. The event had three main components: community groups support, family event, and Ford-sponsored fundraiser
2. Helped nearly a dozen community groups and provided exposure to several school groups as well.
3. Games were provided free of cost from the Bon Accord Harvest Festival.
4. Activities included Zoo 2 U, tattoos, face painting, a fire truck, clown, Go Fly a Kite event, police cars, animal rescue, toddler zone, two bouncy castles, Ford Drive One 4 UR School, a Pie Toss Booth.
5. The Carnival was a HUGE hit, featured on several websites and on three local newspapers. It drew in over 1000 people!!!!
6. Three food trucks were booked but unfortunately Bon Accord Bar and Grill cancelled at the last minute. It was the only negative feedback received.
7. Sponsors included: Town of Morinvile, Landrex, Alliance Pipeline, CKUA, Ford, NextAuto, Sobeys, Morinville News, Starbucks, Morinville Tattoo
c. Events
i. Silent Auction/Snowflake Festival
ii. Sham-ROCK Family Dance
iii. Community Carnival

d. Initiatives
i. $2500 Library
ii. $2600 Milk Fridge
iii. $775 Positive Reinforcement Program
iv. Paid for Sham-ROCK Dance
v. Paid for Leah and Eva to attend the ASCA conference in place of School Council
vi. Prometheon Projects
1. Aided the school in setting up the matching portion needed to purchase approx. $700 in Smart Boards. The boards are received and waiting installation.
2. Extra funds saved will go to financing the Carousel project (monitors throughout the school like that mounted at the main doors)
e. Relationships
i. 60+ relationships with local businesses, organizations, adminstrators, and members of government
f. Gaming
i. Bylaws were missing a small section. They’ve been revised and refilled but we need to get them back and stamped before going ahead with our application.
g. Grants
i. The deadline for the CFEP grant is the 16th, but the Blue Cross Grant has been filled out and should be in the mail in plenty of time for the September 30th deadline.
h. Playground
i. The challenges and history faced by the playground were described for new parents, including difficulties sourcing replacements parts, the removal of equipment without it being replaced, the damage to existing equipment etc.
ii. It was also explained that the reason that PFA funds are being fast-tracked for the playground is that while there ARE funds in the budget, potentially, for a library, there are not, nor will there ever be Alberta Education funds for the playground. That the role of PFA is to provide funding that is NOT otherwise accessible to the school.
i. CurrentBalance
i. $8023 in chequing, and $5000 in GIC. This does not take into account the $4000 donated by the dissolving Morinville Ag Society, the final cheque from Ford Canada, or the expenses related to the promised $2500 to the library.

6. Priorities for funds raised during 2013/2014
a. Positive reinforcement program support; potentially $1500.
b. Carousel
i. Monitor
c. Screen for gym
d. Outside Shed
i. Sea Can

7. Proposed Fundraising Ideas
a. Book Drive
b. Touch a Truck
c. Leah motions that PFA makes it official policy not to take on direct sales or home based businesses as fundraisers. Amy seconds. Motion will be added asap to Operating Procedures.

8. Executive Nominations: Nominations are as follows, there were none against and all members accepted their positions.
a. President: Leah
b. Vice President: Eva
c. Treasurer: Nadine
d. Secretary: Eva will act as secretary until one can be found.

9. The next PFA meeting is scheduled for October 2nd , 5:30pm. Selected a specific day of the week for meetings was tabled until such time as the School Council executive is named.

10. Meeting Adjourned 7:08pm