Project Prom 2011 meeting began at 6:35 in SWHS cafeteria.

Attendance:

Minutes: Minutes from the last meeting were made available for review in case people missed them.  The meetings are posted on the website shortly after each meeting.  A reminder email will be sent once they are posted to remind people where to find them.  For now, we will try just sending a reminder that the minutes have been posted rather than sending them out to everyone on the list.  Brent pointed out that the minutes do not require formal approval, but are distributed for informational purposes.  Any corrections should be sent to Pam Krueger. 

Whether or not to translate the minutes into Spanish was discussed. Sal will try translating these minutes to see how long it takes.  If we have a need, then we’ll continue – but so far there haven’t been any requests to have them translated.

Positions:  Brent discussed the various committee chairs and officers and said that all of the positions that currently must be filled have been.  As time goes by, we’ll need additional committee chairs, but right now we’re doing well.  Filled positions are:

·        Director:                                        Brent Favor

·        Treasurer:                                     Katrina Blair

·        Secretary:                                     Pam Krueger

·        Marketing:                                     Karen Nesloney

·        Volunteer/Donations Account:      Betty Arnold

·        Webmaster:                                  Sal Angel

·        Fundraising Event Chairs:

o   Corporate:                         Brent Favor

o   Homecoming t-shirts:       Karen Nesloney

o   Garage Sales (Jr Year):   Christine Gonzalez

o   Dinner/Auction/Casino:     Patty Blome

PROM DATE/LOCATION AND VENUE IDEAS:

Prom Date/Location:  Ms. Austin reported that they are leaning toward the 5/6/11 date, but the 5/20/11 date hasn’t been ruled out yet.  The Student Council is currently checking into about 4 different locations for the Prom.  They have a class assembly this coming Thursday (9/24) – mostly about a GearUp event – but they will also discuss Prom and see if they can’t get some feedback from the class so that a date and location can be selected.

Project Prom Location:  Brent discussed that we can’t set the location until we have the date and location of the Prom.  We want the event to be somewhat close so the kids don’t have to drive clear across town.  Two forerunners are Dave & Buster’s and Times Square.  If the Prom is on the west side, Times Square has been a very popular location.  Some of the folks asked what the differences are in the venues – Times Square is all on one floor, has more bowling and has laser tag, but fewer video games than Dave & Buster’s and is somewhat less expensive.  Dave & Buster’s has more video games and less combined rooms.  Ms. Austin said that this class talks about wanting to do something where they can all hang out together rather than being split up. 

Alan mentioned that they had a friend who went to a Project Prom for Cy-Fair at the Sam Houston Racetrack.  It was set up with food, video games, etc.  He will get more information and try to get pricing.  There was discussion about using a hotel and bringing in games, etc. – but in general it’s much easier and less expensive to go somewhere that is already set up with the entertainment and can cater the food.

Brent pointed out that we have to get the date first, then see whether the venues are available on that date.  Ms. Austin said that we’re way ahead of the game and should be in good shape – but that we need to be prepared for the deposit. 

Ideas on venues should be sent to Brent or Pam.  We will discuss more at the next meeting.

PLANNED FUNDRAISERS:

Wristbands:  Brent got the vendor to send us actual striped wristbands at no charge to replace the swirled ones – and we get to keep the swirled ones.  Sales are going smoothly but a bit slowly – have sold about $450 so far at lunches and athletic spirit item booths.  No, he won’t swap a swirled one for a striped one.

Homecoming t-shirts:  Brent stated that normally the Senior class does the homecoming t-shirts for their Project Prom, but PP10 chose note to sell them, so PP11 got the opportunity. 

Brent would normally like to bring a number of choices to the group to vote on, but due to the limited time to select a design and get the shirts ordered, they proceeded with the t-shirts.  Karen volunteered to pull together the design and chair this event. Brent got several responses from the email but no consensus.  So they took the ideas and made changes to the draft design and settled on artwork for front and back. 

T-shirts will be black with gold/white lettering.  Orders will be taken at Tailgate (9/25), school lunches, and other events.  Pre-orders will be discounted ($12 for most, $15 for XXL) until 10/11.  After 10/11, the prices will be $15 for most, $18 for XXL. Reminder to volunteers taking orders - we need to make sure that a student name is on the order form if the shirt(s) will be picked up at school.

Karen will try to get the shirts available in time for the 10/3 football game – but it might be the following Monday.  Profit will be a bit under 50%. 

We will have the opportunity to sell homecoming t-shirts again next year. We’ll probably come up with ideas and vote on a design toward the end of this school year.  Football schedules aren’t set until sometime in the summer, so we won’t know the date or the opponent until then – but we can come up with a design that can be flexible and finalize it after the schedule is set if we want.  However, we want to be ready to show the artwork and take orders at the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year.

Garage Sales:  Fall Garage Sale is set for Saturday 10/10, which is coming up very soon! Christine will need volunteers Friday 10/9 starting at 6 pm to sort and label items for the sale.  She said it would help a LOT to pre-sort items – for example, put men’s shirts in one bag and ladies’ shirts in a separate bag and label them, sort kids clothes by sizes, etc.  Volunteers are needed for all day Saturday – starting at 7 am going until 4 pm.  Christine will have a flier to hand out to kids during lunches reminding them to donate items and to volunteer time.  Ms. Austin will announce the Garage Sale and the PP2011 website to the students during the assembly this Thursday (9/24).  She will also send a reminder to the teachers and faculty. 

Reminder – we have set a requirement for each student to have 20 hours of volunteer hours or $300 in donations in order to attend the event for free.  Any family member, friend, student can work the Garage Sale and receive credit toward this requirement. 

Christine will send her current flier to Pam, who will add some info on the volunteer hours/donations requirements.  Pam will then send it to Iris to approve to be included in the TigerFlash.

Dinner/Auction/Casino Night:  This event will be Senior year – no report at this meeting.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Tailgate 9/25:  We can have a table at the Tailgate this Friday if we have volunteers. Should take homecoming t-shirt orders and sell the wristbands.  If no volunteers, then Brent can have the wristbands sold with the spirit items. 

Linda Peterson and Christine Gonzalez volunteered to run a table at Tailgate 9/25.  THANKS!

Other options were discussed such as tattoos (temp) and facepainting. Christine said that she has most of the stuff available if Karen can do it.  Brent will talk to Karen to see if she’ll be able to do this.

Garage Sale (10/10):  See discussion above.

Tigerfest (10/21):  Brent explained to those who aren’t familiar with Tigerfest – it is part of the Homecoming week activities.  On Wednesday, there are numerous floats for various organizations at the school.  They parade through the nearby neighborhoods and return to campus for a party.  He said that the attendance is about triple what Party on the Patio gets.  Various groups are already set up to sell food and drinks.  Betty asked if anyone was selling pizza and Brent and Ms. Austin said they didn’t think so.  We agreed that we should look into pizza.  Brent thinks he can get pizzas donated and we can sell for $1/slice – but we’d need 5-6 volunteers to make it work.  Betty said she could be there and thinks she can get one more.  Diego said he should be able to be there.  Alan might be able to do it.  We will need to get more volunteers confirmed soon.

Tully Games:  Wristbands are being sold at the spirit items table at Tully games. We need additional volunteers at upcoming games to help out – 9/25, 10/3, 10/9, 10/17 and 10/23.  Please see Brent if you can help.

NEW FUNDRAISER IDEAS:

Pizza at Tigerfest  See discussion under upcoming events.

BBQ Cookoff:  Brent reported on the PP2010 BBQ cookoff event that was held this past weekend.  They don’t have the final tally yet but believe that it was a successful event. Mr. Max Huerta does not have a child in the class of 2011 but he would really like to see this become an annual event. They charge $125/team to enter the contest and sold dinner plates for $5, sno-cones and other food and drink. It was fairly small and Ms. Austin said that many of the teachers didn’t know about it until the day before.  She thinks it would be much more successful if it were advertised more.  Brent will get more details and discuss at our next meeting.

Sleeping Pants:  Christine had a flier that came through the middle school for plaid sleeping pants.  She doesn’t know much about the cost or the sale price but wanted to pass on the info. Brent will look into it and we’ll need to poll the kids to see if this is something they’d spend money on. Tabled until the next meeting.

TREASURER’S REPORT:

Brent pointed out that until now, we haven’t had much money coming in or a need for an account.  However, with the homecoming t-shirt sales, we now have a need to open an account. 

Brent checked with Bank of America to determine what is required to set up a non-profit account.  They need either by-laws or a resolution stating the intent of the organization to open the account and who the signees would be.  Brent proposed that we make a resolution on the bank account.  The following was proposed:

Be it resolved that Spring Woods High School Class of 2011 Project Prom (PP11) open a small business account at Bank of America as a non-profit association under the envelope of the Spring Branch Independent School District id 1-746001379-4 with signees on the account as follows:

·        Brent Favor, Director

·        Katrina Blair, Treasurer

·        Pam Krueger, Secretary

All present voted in favor of the resolution.

Brent and Katrina will work together to develop the format for the treasurer’s report to be presented at future meetings.  He wants to make sure that we track all expenses and profits, including sponsorships.  He thinks it’s very important to show the additional profit obtained through donations and sponsorships.  This information should be provided to future classes to help them make decisions regarding fundraising efforts. 

NEXT MEETING:  Several dates were discussed.  Because of Garage Sale (10/10), TigerFest (10/21) and Homecoming (10/23), it was decided that the next meeting will be Monday 11/2 at 6:30 pm in the cafeteria.

Meeting was adjourned at 7:35 pm.

Pam Krueger, Secretary