3 FEBRUARY 2021 / 8:30 AM / VIRTUAL MEETING VIA MICROSOFT TEAMS

MEETING NOTES

Attendees: Nicole K. (President), Lisa Foreman (BASIS Flagstaff Head of School), James Donner (BASIS Flagstaff Head of Operations), Jackie Brown (BASIS Flagstaff Auxillary Program Coordinator), Heather B. (Vice President), Kelly M. (Communications Director), Cheryl Z. (Treasurer), Autumn M. (Secretary), Caryn G., Janel S., Karen F., Marian A., Sonny K.,  Helena S., Michele L., Cindy B., Kristin I., Keiji I. & Kate S..  *Please let Autumn M. know* if your name is incorrect and I will correct it!  – Teams often displays our children’s names rather than ours! 

CALL TO ORDER & WELCOME

Nicole K., President  – Welcome and Called to order at 8:30 am

Autumn M., Secretary – Quorum certified and approval of minutes from Dec. 9th, 2020.  Moved by Autumn and seconded by Cheryl Z. that minutes be approved. All in favor, none opposed.

REPORTS OF THE BOARD

Treasurer Budget Updates – Cheryl Z.

• This year’s budget was shown. We have exceeded our budget projected income from Fry’s Rewards and most likely Amazon Smiles but have not yet reached our goals from other income sources due to inability to hold events, etc as we have in prior years due to Covid. We do not have a budget for Teacher Appreciation week. Nicole discussed insurance bond for volunteers and fidelity bond for officers with access to the Booster’s bank account. This to protect our volunteers and is included in the budget.

New Website Considerations – Nicole K.

• Boosters has a website which we are working on improving for many reasons including communication, increasing membership registration, volunteers, sign ups, events and more.  The current website can be found at: https://basisflagstaffboosters.org/.  This is our “phase 1” which is free but lacking in many areas.  We would like to upgrade to “phase 2” which would be a Business Plan WordPress site before August 1st, 2021. This would be a fully functioning, customizable site with forms, potentially other plug-ins and would be free from advertising from sources we didn’t choose. A budget of $400-$500 per year was proposed which included the $300 Business Plan and would allow for extra plug-ins if needed.  The plan is to keep a binder of work on the website so that over time as new members step in to assist with it they can easily find what has been done, etc.  This will be a long term volunteer effort.  We have a parent with experience with websites who has volunteered to help get it set up.  The floor was opened for discussion. Karen F. suggested selling advertising on the website to cover expenses of the site to keep it budget neutral. Our Membership Chair, Janel S. said it would be great to have the site up and running before the Fall.  It was proposed by Nicole K. and seconded by Heather B. that we use $500 from cash reserves to begin phase 2 of our website. All were in favor, none opposed.

REPORTS OF COMMITTEES

Trivia Night – Heather B. 

• Heather has been working with Luke Calhoun at BASIS to organize a Family Game Night type of event.  They are working on the best platform to use.  We don’t want this to be an expense since the idea is to help connect students and promote social and emotional well being. Quizlet is free but answers are jumbled so may not be the best platform. Still researching.  Heather is also reaching out to restaurants to see if any would be willing to plan on delivering to families who order that night and perhaps provide a small donation of part of their proceeds from those deliveries that night. Another cost offset might be having backgrounds of questions be sponsored.  With input from Mrs. Foreman, our target date will be in March as there is already a lot going on at school with re-opening in February and the upcoming drive-in movie night.  Sign ups to assist with this are on the Boosters website: https://basisflagstaffboosters.org/sign-up/

Teacher Appreciation – Caryn G.

• Caryn has been working on donations for the upcoming Teacher Appreciation Week.  She didn’t think we would need much from the budget.  Marian A. said she would donate $500 for teacher appreciation week. Thank you Marian! Volunteers can sign up to help with teacher appreciation here: https://basisflagstaffboosters.org/sign-up/

OLD & UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Student Movement Volunteering Upon Reopening – Lisa Foreman (HOS) 

• Thank you for all you do for the school!  Volunteers are Needed. The school hopes to have a better idea by the end of the day about volunteering details (a ParentSquare message has since been sent out).
• PicMyKid will be used for drop off & pick up. Teachers will have a laptop in the classroom and kids will be called from their classroom at pick up time. They hope to have students picked up by 4 pm (at which point they would go to Late Bird).
• Lunch will be in classrooms. Many of the Kindergarteners go home at the middle of the day. Volunteers may be needed for 1st, 2nd & 3rd grades for assistance with opening items like juice boxes and maintaining social distancing as much as possible as their masks will be off.  The school will get us lunch schedules which should be the same as they were planned at the beginning of the school year.
• Boonli – With so much going on with opening it will be easiest to just have students bring in their own lunches and St. Mary’s is in place, they will be delivering beginning February 16th.  The school would like to wait until things are ironed out before attempting Boonli lunches.  We will revisit this if there is a void and it is not a stressor on students, etc.  Nicole mentioned that we do have one lunch vendor who could provide individually wrapped lunches but by the time they were able to roll it out it would likely be the end of the school year and we typically stop doing Boonli lunches in May.

Spring Week of Giving, Corporate Donation Matching – Heather B.

• Heather has reached out to several groups to find out if the BASIS Flagstaff ATF could be their group chosen for matching donations. She is still waiting to hear back from a few and continues to reach out, however, thus far we have not been chosen. 

NEW BUSINESS

Small Fundraising Opportunities – Nicole K. 

• EPI (Educational Products Inc) – sells prepackaged school supplies and we would earn 10%.  Per the company approximately 25-40% of students place orders so we could estimate a profit of approximately $1,100-$1,700. A concern was that it might cannibalize our Amazon Smile profits from buying school supplies online.  We would need school supply lists in by May 1st for the following school year. It takes EPI about 6 weeks to get products to the school after the orders are submitted.  Volunteers would be needed, including someone to lead the program as well as for on campus distribution. Would we deliver to the school or to students’ homes?  Per Mrs. Foreman the supply list time frame should be OK and it might be nice to have one-stop-shopping for parents but some students like the experience of going to pick out their own supplies at the store.  She has had good experiences with this program in the past at other schools.  All present were in favor of this.  Heather B. volunteered to head this up.  Mrs. Foreman will get Heather the supply lists. 
• Sees Candy – We could do an online fundraiser where students send out links to sell Sees Candy. Average profit is about $3-4 per box. If we sold 400 boxes that would mean a profit of $1,200-$1,600.  Shipping begins 2/22/21 so we could start now.  The program ends 3/19/2021.  This would not require a lot of effort.  All present were in favor of this. Caryn G. volunteered to head this up.
• Heather B. has been in touch with a gentleman who has a company, Grin and Bear It.  He carves wooden log bears and has offered to donate a 5’-6’ tall carved bear to us to raffle as a fundraiser.  We would help get his company name out in exchange for the donation.  The bear should be ready next month and we can discuss details.

DISCUSSION

• Ideas needed for publishing meeting notes for all.  We may try and upload them to our website. Autumn is happy to get you a copy as well.  They are uploaded into the Boosters Drive and emailed to the board after each meeting now.
• Our next meeting will be our annual meeting either at the end of March or beginning of April. We will begin some planning for next year and elect new officers for next year who will step into their new roles 7/1/2021.
• Graduation and Senior Presentations – addressed by Karen F..  In years past Boosters has provided beverages and treats during the Senior presentations.   Will we be able to do the same this year, if not, what might we be able to do. Tabled until next meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 9:37 am.