September 2, 2008

GEPTA Meeting
September 2, 2008
6 p.m. @ River View School

The meeting was called to order by Karen Montel and Helen Wright, co-presidents at 6:10 p.m. There were 26 people in attendance, and introductions were held.

Kristy Gould read the secretary’s minutes from the June 4, 2008 meeting. Motion to accept as read by Ellen, 2nd Jill, passed.

Tony Thebarge presented the treasure’s report. The current balance as of September 1, 2008 in the checking account is $7601.52, and the savings account holds $8344.65, which is for the playground fund. MTA Veronica, 2nd Ellen, passed.

Principal’s Reports:
Mrs. Moody:
• Reported that school was off to a good start
• Snacks can no longer be purchased at the schools. Mrs. Moody has already bought some for kids who do not have one.
Mr. G:
• Off to a great start and getting to know everyone
• Thanks the PTA for their support

Octoberfest Committee – Veronica Babcock & Ellen McGuire
• Octoberfest is 10/4 from 11-3
• Katherine Kollman is helping to coordinate volunteers – a memo will be going home soon about that
• 5th grade is doing the food table again and will get the proceeds for their 5th grade trip. Paula Bourque is chair of that
• Many grades have already signed up to help with a specific function, all but the 3rd and 4th. Mr. G will speak to them about that.
• Many more details were discussed and coordination si well under way
• A list of interested committee members was passed and a meeting will be held shortly. Date & time TBA via email by Veronica.
• A discussion was held about the request of another organization to run a fundraisers at Octoberfest. The group agreed that Octoberfest was never set up to be a fundraiser, but we merely break even as a community event, with the only exception being for the 5th grade. If we let others in how would we choose who & restrict? Ellen will let the other groups know that we are not opening it up to other fundraising.

Meadow Farms Fundraiser - Jen McKenna
• The kick-off assemblies for the fall fundraising campaign will be on September 23 at both schools.
• Packets are being done up for every student.
• Volunteers were coordinated for picking up forms and money, as well as for tallying forms, which will be 10/8.
• The drop off date of the products has yet to be determined.

First day Celebration
• Thanks to Katherine Kollman for organizing – we got great press for it and have made some new contacts with several community organizations.
• Parental turnout and support was quite good at both schools.
• We discussed making sure there was even more exposure for the PTA.

Playground Committee
• The new River View Playground has been ordered and will be here soon!
• $3,156 is still needed to pay for the playground. This summer we voted to take those funds from the GEPTA general fund so that we could order before the price went up again. We will need to continue fundraising to replace that money.
• Ground work has been arranged, and we expect to have it in 2-3 weeks.
• Thanks to all who helped with summer fundraising and especially to those businesses who donated generously to the playground fund. Plans are to recognize them in a visual and public way. A suggestion was made to have the kids write thank you notes to those businesses, too.
• Helen Wright is the committee chair and any questions can go to her.

Fundraising
• Subway – on 9/12 from 5 – 8 p.m. GEPTA will get a portion of the proceeds form sales of people who bring in the coupons. These went home with the kids and will be distributed as widely as we can. The percentage will be between 22-28% depending on the volume.
• Hannaford Helps – flyer will be coming home soon. It lasts until 12/4. Parents need to be encouraged to send their receipts back through the school so we can maximize what we send in for the participation bonus.
• Zipgoesgreen – tote bag sales. We looked at the flyer but were not interested.
• Baxter Tea Co. – we may look into it later

Elections for officers
• Secretary (3 year term) – Kristy Gould is not running for office again. Tony Viet was nominated by Ellen, 2nd by Kristy. There were no other nominations. Elected by acclimation
• Treasurer (3 year term) – current treasure Tony Theberge has agreed to run for a second term. He was nominated by Ellen, 2nd by Jen. There were no other nominations. Elected by acclimation.

Snacks for the Classrooms
• Motion to allocate funds for some bulk snacks that the teachers can dole out to students in need of them, by Ellen, 2nd by Paula, passed.

Communication idea
• A suggestion was made to start a Yahoo group for the purpose of informal PTA communications. A sign up sheet was passed for those who were interested to share their email information.

Maine Parent Federation
• A grant is available through this program. Katherine has the materials and will read up on it for discussion at a future meeting.

Funding Requests
• The 2nd grade will be attending the Junie B. Jones program at Merrill Auditorium next spring (April 16, 2009). As this is a very popular program, tickets had to be purchased already. The 2nd grade teachers asked for $650 to fund the cost of the tickets for the students. Motion to allocate funds by Ellen, 2nd Veronica, passed.

Motion to Adjourn, Jen, 2nd Tony V., passed.

Next meting October 7, 2008 @ 6 p.m., LER Library