Conference moira::parenting

    Hi Dave,
    
    Our daycare has a parent's group that meets about every two months. 
    Generally, the meetings have maybe 8 to 10 parents at them.  (There are
    about 55 to 60 children at the center, and many are siblings.)
    
    We alternate between meeting at lunchtime and in the evenings.  In the
    evenings, we meet early, at 6:00 or so, order pizza, and if you have
    kids with you, you pay some of the regular teachers who stay to watch
    the kids.
    
    The director attends the parents meetings to represent the center and
    tell us what is going on.  The parents set the agenda, run the meeting,
    and write up the minutes.
    
    When something "hot" is happening, the meetings can have a lot more
    parents at it.  
    
    I like participating in it, but it's my style to join groups like this
    and be active.  I want to be part of the decision making process and to
    affect what is going on at the center that is such an important part of
    our lives.
    
    If you have other questions, fire away.  I'll be happy to respond.
    
    judy

This is interesting.  I never thought about PTA in day care, although I'm 
relatively new to day care.  What types of issues have you discussed?  How 
receptive was the day care director to this?

Kathy

  Well, we haven't actually had a meeting, except for the inital one when we
  voted for officers.  Obviously they had been working on it for a while
  because they had state and local PTA people there and the charter ready
  for us to review.
  
  The daycare is behind it 100%.  The director has encouraged all the
  teachers to join as well and most of the staff was at the meeting.
  
  There is a real meeting scheduled for later this month so I'll have more
  to report after that.
  
  Dave

    Here are some issues that I've thought of:
    
    The changing of the schedule for older infants (walkers to almost 2)
    Updating the playground surface
    Moving the sandbox to get more shade
    Adding lights to the playground so it is accessible for more hours
    Safety issues (electrical outlets being plugged, getting a security
                  system on the door, etc)
    What the director is submitting for the budget to the corporate office
    Staffing updates
    Temperature of the rooms
    Having regularly scheduled entertainment come to the center that is
                  paid for by the parents
    
    Generally, topics are more center-wide than room specific.  Each room
    has their own meetings periodically that are called by the head teacher
    and the director.
    
    The director has two children in the center and has been receptive to
    these meetings.  Sometimes she is a little defensive, but not so much
    that I don't want to go to the meetings.
    
    judy

    I'm involved with a PTO at an elementary school.  I was wondering what
    other people have done for fund raising.  We seem to get in a rut and
    do the same things over and over.  This year, we had a gift wrap sale,
    ice cream social, auction, kid's fair and are considering a bingo
    night.  Does anyone have any success or flop stories to share?
    
    Wendy

    
    
    Re -1
    
      We have done all that you mentioned.  We also had a pizza party
    night whick did not raise a lot of money but it was a nice
    evening.  Actually the money we raise is not on the pizza but with
    balloons and the washable tattoos and face painting but it is
    a nice evening.  Also I think candy bars are always a good one, 
    much easier to sell.  
    
    

    One thing they used to do at our school was an Icecream and pie 
    social, along with a performance from the choir and  band. 
    Unfortunately this has been discontinued, and the school is back to the
    glossy fund raisers that  commercial groups do for schools.  
    
    An idea I  would like to know if anyone has tried might be a craft and
    or skills auction, where those of us with some skill at something,
    auctions off x hours of time  for that skill and the proceeds  go to
    the school.  
    
    meg

I know that the Parents Org. in my daughter's school has 
created a local cookbook (1) and is selling it through local 
businesses.  I don't know if they're making much money with 
it, though.  This is through one of those companies that
specializes in creating cookbooks for fund raising and/or 
for keepsake purposes.  If anybody is interested, send me 
mail, and I'll look up their phone number on the cookbook
we have at home.

fwiw,

- Tom

(1) It was already published when my daughter started 
attending this year, so I don't know what their process was
for soliciting or selecting recipes, but they got a good selection.

    a big money maker for us [no, I'm not on a pta, but non-profit org]
    is the discount card.  Local merchants offer discounts that we put on a
    card.  We sell the card for $5 each.  card can be used all year long.
    presented at time of purchase.  example discounts are:
    Fashion bug:  $5 off any purchase over $25, used anywhere
    Donkin Dounuts: $1 off dozen dougnuts [local only]
    Burger King: buy one sandwich, get second free.  no limit.
    many pizza places, $1/$2 off pizzas
    
    cards are in demand, people come to us to get them now.  certainly a
    value to the buyer.
    
    the first year we did this, a professional company came in and charged
    each business $75 to get on the card[ the company kept this], and
    charged us $2.50/card to make.
    Now we make our own cards, we make design on home pc, add the
    businesses, then lamenate the cards.  cost to make approx 40 cents.
    $4.60 profit per card.  careful, you tend to make thousands on the
    deal.
    
    candy is hard.  you have to be really focused.  potential for real
    losses.   We made some real quick money with it, and this year we broke
    even.
    
    something that came out of the blue was Tupperware sales.  We did zero
    effort and got about a thousand quick bucks.  A tuperware distributor
    approached us.  She sent home books with all the kids, offered prizes
    for the kids for sales,  she took the orders and distributed the 
    merchandise.  all we had to do is sit back and collect our prifti
    checks.
    
    of course we do bingo each week.  I don't advise unless you are
    professional.  It does require a lisence, and a knowledge of how to
    put on.  need person with state/federal tax knowledge.
    
    We are currently in the middle of a raffle.  pure profit.  items
    donated.  cost is for printed/numbered tickets.  low work required.
    
    then there's the pancake breakfast.  spaggettee supper.  work.
    
    and don't forget dances!  we put on one monthly. profit reanges from 
    $300-600/month  organization a must.
    

    My mother-in-law's church arranged for Papa Gino's to give a 
    percent of their profit for one nite's business -- they chose
    an off night for the deal.
    
    Everyone wins in the deal.  Papa Gino's gets extra business for
    an off night (the first time they did this, they were so swamped
    with customers, they were understaffed).  The church gets some
    percentage for just eating pizza on a Tuesday.
    
    Diana

    Oh ,
    
    One thing I forgot.
    
    One of the local roller rinks has nights for each school, where
    a certain portion of the gate goes to the school of the night.  
    
    works well.

    
    
     our school worked that same deal with Burger King.
    
    patty

My daughter goes to a cooperative nursery school, and they do fund-raising
all year around.  There are about 40-50 families involved with the school,
and I think they raised about $7000 last year via various activities.  But
these are all families very dedicated to the school.

Activities are:
 - sell coupon books in the fall
 - sell t-shirts, sweatshirts (shirts in children and adult sizes) and
    tote bags with a school logo -- last year, the kids drew the picture,
     and it was really cute.  Last year's effort made a good profit.
 - big: have a concert -- the musician is paid and a hall is rented, but
     parents sell tickets (we get a minimum quota to sell; also made
     available by some area merchants), sell ads for the programs (this
     raises a lot of money), and distribute flyers, and sell snacks.  A
     lot of work!
 - big: auction -- our school raises a lot of money through this.  Almost
     all the parents show up, and people sell really neat things.  Eg. a
     quilt was made and each child in the school drew a picture on one of
     the squares ($400); the teachers made 2 sets of puppets to play out
     "little rabbit foo foo" and the fairy ($120 each); a poetry reading
     with luscious desserts ($700 -- a bunch of couples decided to share
     this at $50 each)

      Our church also does an auction, but the people there bid very small
      amounts of money in comparison to the bids I saw at the school auction.
      For example, shirts my husband designed and made sold at the school
      auction for $40 and $45; at the church auction one sold for $14 --
      probably less than materials cost.


The fundraising is a lot of work, though.  Several people have various
aspects of fundraising as their jobs for the cooperative.

Beryl

At the PTA meeting at the daycare last night it was brought up that some of 
the movie companies are demanding that the centers pay a fee in order to show 
their movies to the children.

Some of the larger daycare chains have paid this fee, but ours is a private 
center and doesn't want too.  We have also just had cable installed and get 
programming from the public TV stations so that helps to fill the gap.

Have you heard about this latest move?  I can understand it from the movie 
company (they mentioned Disney and Hanna-Barbera), but still think it's a 
little mean spirited.  Will they be coming after recorded music next?

Oh yeah, it looks like I'll be running for Pres of the PTA next month.....

Dave

    Is this really legal?  I thought you only couldn't show to a "bunch" of
    people, if you got money for it?!?  
    
    I agree it's mean-spirited.  
    
    ....take it back to the "lying" topic - who'd know?!

    
    I know if you own a place of business that plays music (i.e. a dance
    or aerobic studio, a store that pipes music over the PA system) 
    you have to pay a fee (I forget the name of it), so I suppose the
    playing of videos is based on the same thing.  Videos are not suppose
    to be played for public audiences other than home private use - hence
    the warning at the beginning of each video.
    
    It kinda s&*ks - I mean you bought the music or video - that should be
    enough - the recording company/artist is still making their money. 
    Leave the businesses alone - especially the daycares.
    
    
    

I think the tact the movie companies use is that the kids are paying to 
attend daycare, so, in a sense, paying to see the movie.

The daycare is having a lawyer look into it.  I've also asked if I can bring 
in things like Laurel & Hardy or Marx Brothers movies, they're looking into 
that as well.

They also have to limit any movies to a G rating, but these older ones don't 
have ratings.....

This morning I brought in some in-car racing movies I took myself so no one 
can complain about that ! :-)

Dave