PTA meeting 10-15-09

PTA MEETING – 10/15/09

In attendance: Brandi Barnes, Tonya Walton, Andrea Southwick, Dorothy Rogers, Cindy Critchfield and Kris Mullen.

December 10 PTA advocacy meeting 7-8:30
Reflections due date: December 10 at District PTA meeting.
Advocacy panel: 2 Teachers (elementary and secondary), principal, administrator, school board member, state representative

Festival of Trees: December 1 -5 (Dec 1-4, 12P to 9P) (Dec 5th, 10A – 9M)
Getting volunteers, Tuesday – (Kris Mullen), Wednesday (Tonya Walton), Thursday (Cindy Critchfield), Friday (Andrea Southwick), Saturday (Brandi Barnes)
Stevens Performing Art Center
Setup Monday Nov 30. Take down Saturday Dec 5.
PTA responsible for gift shop. Half of the gift shop will be book fair with scholastic. Ask about 5 home consultants to bring inventory and sell giving PTA a portion of the cut.

Money for regional projector to be brought up at next general meeting.

Advocacy Conference – November 14th If anyone is interested in going please let us know.

Reflections

Attention all reflections chairpeople: How is your reflections program going? I hope it is up and running. The deadline for entries to be turned into the region is December 10 at our region 5 PTA meeting. The meeting starts at 7:00 pm and will end at 8:30 pm, no entries will be accepted after this date. The school district will be in the throws of festival of trees, so they will not accept any deliveries of reflections entries. To turn in your school entries they need to be delivered that night. If you have any questions please contact Andrea Southwick

Change in December Regional Meeting

Due to the Festival of Trees we will be moving our regional meeting to the next week. It will be held December 10th from 7pm- 8:30pm. We will be focusing on advocating for our students in our area. We will be putting together a panel to help every parent positively navigate advocating for their child and other children in our community.

Legislative Update

Often, we hear questions about why we should designate a legislative rep for our local unit. What role does such a rep have? A good example came via e-mail today, when I received a request from National PTA asking for our support. A bill (S.678) was introduced to renew the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, which provides grant funds for several programs directed toward at-risk youth (you can search for some such grant opportunities from Idaho Juvenile Justice Commission). With all the focus on other legislative priorities, this important bill has sat in committee since March.

National PTA has asked us to remind our legislators how important this bill is to us. Encourage your unit to contact their member of congress. You can get information, including a summary of the issue, the full text of the bill, and a simple way to contact your leaders, from the PTA Takes Action Center: http://npta.sparklist.com/t/1670133/11121348/1427/0/

Festival of Trees

We are excited to partner with District 25 and help with the Festival this year. We, the PTA, will be running the gift shop. We are in need of people willing to help us on the gift shop committee, help run the shop during the festival and donate holiday decorations to sell. If any of these things interest you or people in your PTA's, please contact me at region5pta@hotmail.com.

OMDR Your Quick Step Guide

This is from Victoria and is a great resource!
OMDR: Online Membership Data Reporting

• Particpation in this program became mandatory in 2007-2008.
• The Local Unit PTA/PTSA must submit its CURRENT board/officer list to the State Office by deadline (Nov 15).
• The State Office enters the Local Unit President (LUP) data only. OMDR assigns the LUP's Member ID number which is needed to start the unit each year. The LUP shold be going to www.pta.org/omdr and selecting "First Visit" - they will choose their username and password. The LUP will need the Member ID # and the Local Unit Record # to complete this step. You cannot edit any data of the LUP - if you have changes to the LUP, please advise the State Office.
• The LUP should then selct "Officer Entry" and enter the date for the current year board officers! Use a term date of 7/1/09- 6/30/09.
• The next step is to update the local unit information through the "local unit update" link and change the membership year to the current year (i.e. 2009-10). Use a "Membership Year Date of 7/1/09 - 10/31/10." *It is recommended that you exit out of OMDR and re-enter your username and password before doing anything else!*
• The LUP should then select ONE officer to take responsibility for entering and maintaining the local unit membership and officer information in OMDR (this can be the President, Pres Elect, Secretary, Treasurer, or Membership Chair). The LUP should provide the LUR and the Member ID # to the officer that has agreed to be in charge of OMDR. They enter OMDR by going to "First Visit" and selecting their own username and password, similar to the LUP.
• Usernames and passwords are changed yearly.
• Each member is assigned a Membership ID number. This remains the same from year to year. Two peple will not share a number. Husband and wife should have two separate cards/two separate members/ two separate numbers. If their address is the same ( and entered the same into OMDR) - they should only get ONE mailing. It will be valuable to you if you enter data in a like manner - for example: 101 Alphabet Drive OR 101 Alphabet Dr. or 101 ALPHABET DRIVE. This entery will result in three different mailings being sent!
• Same with Term Dates and Membership Year Dates- Term Dates should be noted in your Local Unit Standing Rules. There will be some overlap in Membership Year Dates - but previous year entries will drop off after 10/31/09. Keep an accureate count of your members at your local unit. Download from OMDR to an Excel file versus an upload from Excel to OMDR.
• Please use the forms provided in the Idaho Resource Manual to accompany any payment to the State Office.. Remember anything pink requires some type of action from you.
• A membership roster does not have to accompany membership dues payments made. The local unit can email the State Office a downloaded Excel listing (straight from OMDR). Please includ the pink Membership Dues Remittance Form.
• Payments received will be checked against what has been entered in to OMDR.
• In an Officer Report - only officers are shown. It is assumed that officers are member ( which they should be!)
• In a Membership Report - all members are shown - whether or not they are an officer.

To be released soon... OMDR Plus. . A new system similar to what you are doing now but with added features, such as volunteer management, newsletters, calendars unique to your local unit - National PTA has joined up with "Just Between Friends" to create this new and improved OMDR Plus - you'll love it! The information you have in OMDR will automatically be transferred over to OMDR Plus. A go-live date has not been established yet. More information will follow soon!

All payments and forms are sent to the State Office - Idaho PTA - 500 W. Washington - Boise, ID 83702 - 208-344-0851, 208-342-8585 (fax)

idahopta@mindspring.com

Fall conference notes

Region 5 Fall Conference – Wed August 5 , 2009

Call to order 6:30 – Brandi Barnes
People in attendance - about 21
Reflections – Region deadline December 20th
Use as many people as possible to make a great PTA
Region 5 Budget - $700
$150 fall conference
$300 reflections
$100 board expenses
$150 conventions
Vote on budget - 21 yes, 0 no
State PTA PowerPoint – Shawnee Stosich
Powerful voice for all children, advocate for all children.
PTA founded in 1897
Benefits of PTA - benefits child, resources for child safety, learning and school experiences. Benefits you – Help make decisions at school that affect our children. Benefits school – See firsthand what the school needs, privy to information. Number one success for students in school is parent involvement.
Programs – Reflections (last standing art program in the schools going up to national level); Three for me program (a person gives 3 hours a school year of volunteer hours); Healthy lifestyles; Family school partnership
Advocacy & legislation – when PTA talk to legislators in Boise they start to listen. Advocacy day in November – this is the day where they decide what most of the legislative voices will be.
PTA gives you a voice beyond the school, the district, the state. PTA helps us be informed. PTA offers support and the tools to be a voice.
Where our dues are benefiting us – Reminding our nation of its obligation to children. Membership of PTA local unit (school), state and nation. Your organization is a non-profit status, insurance at much less cost, keeps us informed on how to keep non-profit status.

What has PTA done- Started kindergarten, hot lunch, juvenile justice system, mandatory immunization, public health service, child labor laws.

Idaho State PTA President – Susan Bench
In the end PTA should make your life better.
State Awards given out – Region 5 had the largest PTA increase in the state of Idaho!!!!

Break out session for 20 minutes (Pres/VP, Treasurer, Secretary, Reflections, Membership, Legislative, PTSA).

Question/answer:
Key communicators needs to be put on the blog.
PTA cannot endorse any candidate, must stay nonpartisan

Check out the training powerpoints

Idaho PTA has put together these wonderful training tools to make sure everyone gets all the information to help them in their positions. We hope to add an OMDR membership training soon. The "PTA is for you" was put together to be shown to every local PTA group. Please plan to present this powerpoint at one of your first meetings or invite me to come and present it.

"PTA is for You" Power Point Presentation

President's Training Power Point Presentation

Secretary's Training Power Point Presentation

Treasurer's Training Power Point Presentation

PTA Treasurers

There will be loads of information at the District training on how to be a great treasurer so plan on attending. Please email me at dndrogers7@gmail.com if you have any questions.

Legislative Topics

Welcome Legislative Chairs! I hope you will join us for this Wednesday's training, where we will discuss why legislative topics are an important element of each PTA chapter. We will preview the 2009-2010 dates and opportunities and review a brief DVD about land grants. Hope to see you there!

Region 5 PTA Secretary Fall Training

Region 5 PTA Fall Training will be Wednesday August 5. Please plan on coming. We will be discussing some very helpful things to improve our role as a PTA Secretary. Being a secretary is much more than just taking good notes. Behind every good President is a good secretary. Having been a PTA president myself I understand how important a good secretary is. We will be discussing items such as: Taking good notes, contacting our parents via e-mail and text message, effectively getting information out, what to do with pink action forms, volunteer hours (this is vital to maintaining a nonprofit status), board lists, district #'s, evaluation sheets, standing values, budget, and calendars.

To All Reflections Chairpersons: Don't miss our region 5 training, schedule for August 5. There will be lots of information that will help you run a great reflections program this coming school year. Learn how to avoid mistakes that will disqualify entries from your school. I look forward to seeing you at our training. Andrea

Come and figure out how membership works! I will be trying to answer any questions you have on the OMDR (Online Membership) and will try to have a laptop so we can look at the website and get some practical experience.

August Training

Who: Presidents, Vice Presidents, Treasurer, Secretary, Membership Chair, Reflections Chair, and Legislative Rep.

When: August 5th, 6pm- 8pm

Where: School District 25, 3115 Poleline Rd, Pocatello

We will be serving a light dinner, answering many questions, giving you the training and skills you need to run an effective PTA or PTSA, sharing ideas from other schools, and much more. Don't forget, all the schools who have at least 5 people attending will be awarded refreshments at a local PTA meeting of their choice.

Directors Message

I am Brandi Barnes the new Region 5 PTA director. I look forward to meeting and working with the many PTA members in our area and in the state. I hope everyone has put our August 5th training as a high priority this summer. We will start at 6pm at the District 25 office. It is so important that you have people representing each of the areas in our breakout sessions as the information to those specific positions will only be given there. For example, if your person over Legislative can't make it or you don't have one, ask someone from your school to attend that workshop to make sure that information gets back to your members. We want to pack a lot of information into a short time because we know everyone is busy and we value your time and service. Looking for a little extra insentive? Every school that has at least 5 members from their school attend will win! We will attend one of your local PTA meetings and bring treats for all who attend. Again, I look forward to meeting everyone and want you to know I am here if you have any questions or need and help. You can email me at region5pta@hotmail.com.

Minutes of Meetings

Contact Tonya Walton.

Reflections

For Reflections information contact Andrea Southwick.

Legislative

Contact Kris Mullen.

Treasurer

Contact Dorothy Rogers.

Membership

For membership information contact Cindy Critchfield.