Meeting Minutes August 28

Fun Walk Meeting Minutes
Tuesday August 28, 2007
Chris Blumenfeld’s House (5649 Penn Avenue South)
Present: Dawn Lemke and Tina Erazmus, committee chairs, Chris Blumenfeld, Nikki Lindberg, Pam McCarthy-Kern, Daena Stearns, Nan Carlson
Tina and Dawn presented the event timeline

INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION

Info flyers will be available at Open House, Tina will make copies

Nan will verify with Pam Durand when the first Wednesday envelope will be going home.

Event intro flyer will go out in the 2nd wed envelope with sneaker “I’m walking for Armatage” must be signed by parent to be valid

Fun walk packets will go home _______.

Tina will have flyers copied for Curriculum Night

Nan will give Dawn and Tina healthy kids info from National PTA Office that they can use to incorporate into promotional literature

PROMOTIONS

2nd week of school: kick off naming contest
Names submitted by September 14th
Leadership Council will select winning name (without looking at room numbers)

Winning classroom will be served healthy breakfast by event committee/parents (try to get donations from Great Harvest, etc.) week of Sept 28

School Event Tie-Ins

Wendy’s Night: Sept 20th
Tickets will be given to each child who makes a healthy choice. They can put their names on the tickets then a name will be drawn for razor scooter prize – make sure info goes out in advance

Wendy’s Night: October
Coloring contest and healthy tip: prizes awarded for best coloring and best healthy tip (such as how would you groove your body?)

Assembly: first week of October
Have permission from Joan to do assembly in the lower gym
Need to ask Julie Railsback if she would like to lead the assembly in a yoga demonstration. Other options are a personal trainer at the Southdale Y named Tiffany and Tina’s mother, who teaches yoga also at the Southdale Y.
Recruit an athletic celebrity or sports team/mascot to appear. Gather leads from PTA members.

School Spirit Week: October 22-26
Have permission from Joan to create dress-up days as long as it does not get wild. No crazy hair or anything that gets the kids distracted. Keep the focus on things that are germain to getting exercise. Sports day, workout wear day, sweats day, etc. Run all ideas past Joan first

Lunch with Crunch?
who knows the T’wolves? 2 hours for lunch?

Pledge Tracking
Nikki will make a Foster Poster with our fundraising goal on the finish line. She will make a Foster to move along to the finish line.
Each info packet will include an 8.5X11 sheet with 8 “walkin’ Fosters” on it that the kids will be instructed to cut out and return weekly as pledges are collected.
Ticket buckets from the carnival will be repurpsed and labeled by Nikki to be placed in each classroom (22 classrooms) for the sole purpose of collecting these pledge strips. Pledge strips will need to be signed by parents.
Daena will collect buckets on Friday afternoons and keep track of incoming pledges and move Foster closer to his goal.

Challenges
Need to create challenge board for some prominent location of the school.
Challenges need to be accepted to be posted.
Joan Franks will accept any reasonable challenge, such as wearing a silly hat the Monday after the walk if we meet our fundraising goal or walking backwards all day, etc.

FUN WALK PACKETS
Will include the following

The inter-office type envelope with lines on the front for recording pledges. If these cannot be donated or purchased in the desired format, they can be made.

Official registration form, including name, room number, t-shirt size, fundraising goal, walking goal, personal challenges (accepted)

Complete explanation of event: what, why, how (if you raised $32k selling product, let’s try raising that much money having fun and being healthy)

Explain challenges and incentives, different levels of achievement: gold, silver, bronze Olympic champion, sponsor; financial and physical achievement, etc.
Include a “sample rap” children and parents can use when approaching sponsors
Encourage parents to be healthy and safe, doing this with their kids not the kids alone

DONATIONS

Corporate Giving

Dawn reported that the Star Tribune no longer has a foundation or giving anymore. She was directed to Achieve Minneapolis, with whom Armatage already has a relationship. She spoke with someone at Achieve who was very generous with good advice but said they would not make a monetary contribution.

Nan will talk to Jenny Ito about devising a flyer about where the PTA money goes to help convince sponsors of our relevance

Chris pointed out that as a 501(c)3, we can issue charitable contribution receipts

There was a conversation about Impact Minneapolis that I missed

Need people to knock on doors in the neighborhood: Grid out the neighborhood.

Chris said this had been done years ago for the silent auction. She will see if she can find that information

Why should neighborhood businesses support our school? Because Armatage School is one of THE success stories in MPS, period. We are the reason that stable families stay in the city, in the neighborhood. We’re the reason that our neighborhood is not crime addled and unpredictable.

Someone mentioned a weekly e-mail service that goes to every school district alumni that we might be able to tap into called the “Weekly Hotline.” Nan will ask Pam about it.

NEXT WEEK’S MEETING: SEPTEMBER 4TH AT PARK AND REC ART ROOM
Putting together a team to attack corporations including corporate wishlist, neighborhood targets

Daena has taken on role of bean counter

MATERIALS WE NEED TO PRODUCE:

Volunteer Sign Up Sheet

Contact Local Business to Donate Goods and Money: (4)

Follow up calls to corporations regarding contributions of goods or money: (4)

Assembling Info Packets: (5)

Hand out flyers at curriculum night: (3)

Contacting sports teams/mascots to attend assembly: (4)

Writing press releases and other media contact: (1)

Raffle Coordinators: (2)

Kick off dinner decorations and set up: (6)

Walk Event Set Up: (8)

Shoes
“I’m walking for Armatage!”
Child signature, parent signature
Please cut and color and return with your Wednesday envelope

Poster For Open House
Corporate sponsor letters

Pam: Building Permit for dinner and walkathon (requires the presence of an engineer)

Check with Emily Winter, Southdale Y and GeeTeez about Tshirts