Three Things

First, CONGRATULATIONS on a stellar fundraiser! Because of your hard work and the generosity of our community, we surpassed our goal of $3,000...we raised over $5,000! So the "cool slide" repair is paid for and field trips & teacher stipends & carnival now have funding. SO HOORAY FOR YOU!

Second, DON'T FORGET THAT BUTTER BRAID ORDERS COME IN FRIDAY MARCH 23rd after school! They must be kept frozen, so please make arrangements to pick up your orders & keep them cold. If you'd like to help us sort the orders, please come to the Winans lobby at 1pm Friday (TODAY).

Third, Mr. Huntzicker, who has been our principal for 28 years, is retiring this summer. The Livingston Enterprise published a nice article about him this week--click HERE to read it. We are grateful for Mr. Huntzicker's dedication and service to us. You might think of your own way to thank him and wish him well before the school year ends.

PTO Meeting Minutes for 6 March 2012

Combined Meeting with Eastside PTO, Eastside School Library

Attendance: Bob Stevenson, Jim Huntzicker, Angie Tinsley, Angie Printz, Terri Chambers, Brooke Weimer, Muffy Norquist, Christina Howell, Julie Bartz, Jamie Melin

I. Combining Winan's & Eastside PTO
After discussing pro’s and con’s, the decision still seems to be up in the air, with most of the Eastside PTO satisfied with the status quo and most of the Winans PTO wanting to combine. This is because the Winans PTO members are stretched thin trying to participate in both PTOs and we know we will eventually be part of Eastside PTO anyway, so why not start combining our talents and efforts (if not our leadership and treasury) now?

A median approach was agreed upon, that we begin the 2012-13 school year with a combined meeting since membership in both groups will change drastically between now and then. The decision can then be made about how much of the PTO we will combine and how often we will meet together. We did decide that we will continue to work on carnival together, that we should do all 4 fundraisers (2 in each school) next year, and that the Crazy Mountain Productions workshops will remain exclusively for Eastside students.

II. Carnival Report
Spring Carnival April 20th from 5:30- &:30 pm at the Civic Center

• Muffy is in desperate need of volunteers to lead three groups of more volunteers for Carnival.
o Set up Crew
o Running Booths
o Clean Up Crew
If you or someone you know can motivate and organize a group of volunteers, WE NEED YOU! Please contact Muffy ASAP. We also plan to recruit at PHS to offer students a chance to complete their community service hours by helping at the carnival.

• Eastside offered to cancel their Family Fun Night for this year and channel that energy, time, and money into the Carnival. Their budget will now cover meals for volunteers. (THANK YOU, E-PTO!)

• If you have gently used books to donate to the book walk, please bring them by the Winans office before March 30th.

• Angie, Brooke , and Jane have individually wrapped cookies frozen for the cake-cookie walk.

• Mustang Catering will have a food booth again, and the Floyds will bring the snow cone truck

• Brooke and Jamie discussed “marketing strategies” for next year’s PTO and plan to have an info booth at Carnival with fresh new material introducing PTO to parents (and TEACHERS, too).

• We have plans to advertise the Carnival as “The Spring Carnival presented by Eastside and Winans School Parents”. Muffy is creating newspaper ads, flyers/posters, and sandwich board signs. We are looking for materials donation for the signs, Brooke offered to look into a labor donation, and we plan to use the Insty-prints 50 free flyers for non-profits offer. We will also look into putting the carnival info on marquees around town.

***

[the "just Winans" part...]

III. Read Week Finalization
March 19-23, 2012
• Jim will decide on the “fun days” and we will send a flyer home on March 15th or 16th
• Christina will put an ad in the paper asking for volunteers and perhaps send home a form to recruit community readers.
• Coordinate with Marcia & teachers to schedule readers?---ask Jim about organizing details

IV. Braided Bread Fundraiser - Delivery line up and Order submissions
• Jamie & Jessi will enter orders by computer this weekend
• Anyone who wants to help Jamie & Jim sort orders, they are scheduled to arrive on Friday March 23rd at 2pm. Jamie will send out a reminder email.

V. Teacher Appreciation Week May 7-11, 2012

• We agreed to do wishing tree, Friday potluck, and mailbox surprises again.
• We will need to recruit a volunteer to head up the potluck- Sarah Knecht has done it the past 2 years, and a couple of people to brainstorm and create mailbox surprises.
• If you know anyone willing to donate or offer discounted items please let us know—for example, DQ donated ice cream tokens, a nursery sold us discounted potted herbs, the flower shop gave us half-price flowers one year—ask around and let us know your ideas!

WE DID NOT GET TO THESE THINGS…
VI. Box Top Report/ Treasury Report
VII. Follow-up on T-Shirts or any other possible 2011-12 projects (wrap up), new mascot= the Eagles
VIII. Jim Retiring; Retirement Party for Jim, Jane Welch, and Doreen Reich—check if anyone else is making plans for this (district?); if not, Muffy will look into scheduling something with The Elks Club toward the end of the school year.

**Reminder: Meeting with Rich Moore regarding the new Winans Principal on Wednesday, March 14th at 5:30 pm in the Winans Library

BUTTER BRAID ORDERS DUE!

Our Butter Braid fundraiser ends TODAY! Please turn in all orders & money at the office ASAP!

Also, please make arrangements to pick up your orders on FRIDAY MARCH 23rd around 2pm and keep them frozen.

THANKS for your help! I'll be back soon to post the results of our efforts!

Principal Meeting

ATTENTION WINANS PARENTS:

Our Principal, Mr, Jim Huntzicker, will be retiring this year.

Dr. Rich Moore, our Superintendent, would like to have a meeting with the Winans parents on March 14th at 5:30 PM at Winans school to find out what qualities and characteristics parents are looking for in a new principal.

Dr. Moore would also like to have a meeting with Winans staff at Winans on March 14th at 3:30 for the same purpose, to find out the qualities and characteristics they would like to see in the new principal.

Please come participate (bring a friend!) and help make this change as positive and smooth as possible. A flyer should be coming home later this week.

Thanks!
Winans PTO

A Few Reminders

I. Our next PTO Meeting will be COMBINED with EASTSIDE SCHOOL. The meeting will be held Tuesday, March 6th at 5:30 PM at the EASTSIDE LIBRARY. Please join us and bring a friend!

II. This weekend, Eastside and Crazy Mountain Productions present "The WILDEST WEST SHOW EVER" at the Dulcie Theater. In addition to being a really FUN show, this is a fundraiser for the PTO, so please come to the show if you can, support the older kids in our community, and bring some extra cash for the PTO concessions sale. All seats $5, $20 per family, shows Friday night at 7PM and Saturday at 2PM and 4PM.



III. Our spring fundraiser, Butter Braids (that delicious filled pastry!) begins this coming Monday and runs for 10 days (February 27th- March 7th). Please check backpacks for the order form and be sure talk it up this coming week. The price is $12 per braid and we keep $5. We came close to earning $3,000 last year and we hope to reach that goal this year. The money will help pay for the repairs to the playground ("The FUN Slide"), replenish the field trip fund, and support teacher stipends. Thanks in advance for your help.

Also, please be sure to bookmark this blog and share it with friends. You can email jamiemelin@msn.com if there is anything you would like to contribute to the blog--field trip photos, special recognition, community events, etc. Right now it's just PTO updates but it could be so much more! Thanks, as always, for your support!

FEBRUARY PTO METTING MINUTES

Winans PTO Meeting Minutes
February 6, 2012 / 5:30pm / Winans Library

Attendance: Principal Jim Huntzicker, Lora Brown, Christina Howell, Jessica Tyner, Muffy Norquist, Jamie Melin, Maggie Harris, Pat Thums, and Caroline Rehder

I. READ WEEK has been postponed until further notice and Green Eggs and Ham has been cancelled this year, per Mr. Huntzicker & the staff.

II. Treasurer's Report
August 2011 beginning balance: $405.14
Popcorn Profit: $296.37 [brought in $467.28, spent $170.91 on supplies]
Empire Twin Theater Tickets: $55.00
Innisbrook Profits: $4,979.73 [Total Sales: $11,987.01, paid to Innisbrook: $7007.28]
Box Tops $277.90
Ending Balance: $6,479.76

· Given this balance, it was proposed that we offer a $200 stipend to each of the 14 teachers, the 2 resource teachers, librarian, music teacher, PE teacher, and counselor.
· Motion by Muffy Norquist, seconded by Christina Howell.

III. Box Tops
We have collected over $200 since November (THANKS!); February is the next submission deadline, so send in your box tops ASAP.

IV. Broken Slide on playground: new parts have been ordered by Jim; PTO will try to reimburse $522.00 to his fund.

V. Carnival
Muffy is organizing the PTO Spring Carnival. They committee has had the first of three planned meetings and has saved us some money already by switching the venue to the Civic Center. Here’s the basic info from Muffy so far:
PTO SPRING CARNIVAL hosted my Eastside & Winans Schools
Friday, April 20th from 6-8 pm @ The Civic Center
Muffy has created a Facebook page so, please feel free to share it (PTO SPRING CARNIVAL). If you have any questions, concerns, ideas, please contact Muffy Norquist via email [norquist5@gmail.com] or telephone [222.8645].

VI. Braided Bread Spring Fundraiser
· We voted to do this fundraiser again this year and try to have the bread delivered before Spring Break. It was proposed that we set up the schedule so the bread arrives by March 23rd.
· UPDATE: Our proposed schedule was approved on 2/7 by Success N Fudraising (the makers of braided bread) so we will operate on the following schedule:
Feb. 17th: Order forms mailed to us

Monday, Feb. 27- Wednesday, March 7th: Selling- the actual fundraiser

Friday, March 9th: Absolute deadline for order submissions

Thurs. or Friday, March 22nd or 23rd at 2pm: Product Delivery-March 23rd at 2pm CONFIRMED

VII. New Fundraising Ideas
· Most feedback from parents has leaned away from big selling projects with money leaving the community; we want to come up with more local, simple fundraisers with most money staying in the community.
· Caroline Rehder attended a fundraising webinar and got ideas for a whole year’s theme of “healthy choices”- a walk-a-thon, a run with an entry fee, a healthy choices cook book to sell for about $10, coordinate with Kitty Springer and the Healthy Eaters Club program.
· We are open to lots of ideas and input—we need you to MAKE IT GREAT!

VIII. T-Shirts and Yearbooks
· No Yearbooks this year
· Muffy is checking on Tshirts (prices, etc.)

THANKS FOR COMING! NEXT MEETING TUES MARCH 6 @ 5:30PM IN THE EASTSIDE LIBRARY (combined with Eastside PTO)

CARNIVAL COMMITTEE MEETING

Please come to the first

CARNIVAL COMMITTEE MEETING

of the year on

Tuesday, January 24th at 5:30pm

in the Winans Library.

If you have even THOUGHT about volunteering to help you should come to this meeting and bring a friend. We need a good army of parent volunteers, for tiny jobs and big jobs alike, and the earlier you get involved the more say you have in shaping this year's carnival. See you Tuesday!