by Dolores Winchell, president@svpta.org

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a relaxing and enjoyable holiday.

BUDGETS AND AUDITS, OH MY!
It is time to get into the swing of 2003 and get re-focused on your unit's goals for the year. Take a look at your year-to-date budget, and see if you are on target. One of the first things you should do is to check to see where your auditor is in terms of completing your mid-year audit. Your treasurer needs to turn the books over to the auditor so the audit can be completed this month.

NOMINATING COMMITTEE
This month is also the time most of you will elect your nominating committee. I know many of you attended the workshop Evie Bauer, our Parliamentarian conducted in November so you know exactly what to do. For those of you who were unable to attend or send a representative, you will find all the information you need in the Toolkit. This is the committee who will submit a proposed slate of officers for your unit next year, so please make sure your parliamentarian follows all the procedures and that you, as President, do not participate in this process. This is the only committee you are not an ex-officio member of. Do remind your parliamentarian to review the term limits for your positions, to avoid any election of an ineligible individual.

SACRAMENTO SAFARI
There is still time to register for the Sacramento Safari. This is an excellent opportunity to meet our legislators and exercise a voice in educational issues. There is a registration form in the November issue of Orange Leaves. It takes place on March 25 and 26, 2003. Council is sending our legislative chairman, Dennis Walsh. Everyone from Fourth District travels together and stays at the same hotel, so please don't feel like you would be attending alone! The registration due date is January 24, 2003 and that is with Fourth District in Santa Ana.

PARENTAL ISSUES SEMINAR
The Fourth District is sponsoring a Parental Issues Seminar on January 28, 2003. Dr. Stephen Berman will be speaking on the topic of "Issues Relating to Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Teens." The pre-registration deadline is January 21, 2003 and the fee if $5 per attendee. You will find a registration form in your Orange Leaves December/January Issue.

FORM DEADLINES
February 1, 2003 is the deadline for California State PTA "My PTA/PTSA Award Applications," and the "Graduating High School Senior Scholarship." You will find these application forms in the back of your toolkit under tab 9. Forms.

SUPERINTENDENT'S FORUM
Finally, please calendar and plan on the attending the first Superintendent's Forum on January 15th. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Dolores Winchell, president@svpta.org

JANUARY 23 COUNCIL MEETING: 7:30, SVUSD Board Room ITEMS TO BRING TO THE MEETING:

• Two (2) copies of your Unit Audit (adopted)
• Any monies collected for membership dues
• Items for the Incentive Chart
• Copy of unit's 990 tax return

MARK YOUR CALENDARS...

Jan 13	Fax convention registration form(s) to Karen Edwards (or see below)
Jan 14	7:00 PM - School Board Meeting, District Board Room
Jan 15	9:30 AM - Superintendent's Forum, District Board Room
Jan 15	4:00 - 8:00 PM - Convention Registration
Jan 21	Deadline to register for Parental Issues Conference
Jan 23	PTA Council Meeting, 7:30 PM, District Board Room and Financial Training (see page 2)
Jan 24	Deadline to register for Sacramento Safari
Jan 28	Parental Issues Conference, 8:30 AM, Orange Unified School Board Room
Feb 1	Deadline to submit applications to California State PTA (see President's Message)

At this point in time you should have received: 1. Housing confirmations -Hopefully you are staying at the Holiday Inn. Any school that still wants to go can register online. Check the California State PTA web site at www.capta.org/Convention.

2. The December mailing containing convention information. Please read all the information carefully. If you did not receive it, you may get it online.

Please work on obtaining names of delegates. I know it is early, but you may complete the forms using Delegate A, B, C, etc. We will have to change them later. We must fill in the workshop choices. Choose your delegates carefully. With it being in Sacramento, make sure the people who are going will be willing to share what they learn and have a PTA job next year.

Check your home mail this week for information on the Fourth District dinner. For those experienced with completing these forms, please fax to me at (949) 888 -5907 by Monday, January 13.

For anyone who needs help completing the forms, I will be at the district office on Wednesday January 15, following the Superintendent's Forum and from 4:00 - 8:00 PM.

Upon receiving the forms, I will then send you an e-mail regarding the money you will need to bring to the January meeting.

I will send each school attending more information regarding the Fourth District dinner and will email the schools attending as I get more information.

Please email me or call me with any questions.

Karen Edwards, vp@svpta.org, 858-2545

Dinner will be provided. Meeting will continue through regular council meeting for officers other than presidents.
Please RSVP to Linda Ball, treasurer@svpta.org, 643-2888 (out of town until 1/18) by January 21.

The nominating committee has the responsibility to identify, recruit and nominate the best qualified candidate for each elected PTA position. To do this, the committee members must be committed to PTA; be willing to invest time into making it the best possible organization; and, be capable of holding frank, honest, candid discussions about the potential nominees as the committee's deliberations are confidential.

According to the bylaws of all local PTAs in California, the nominating committee must be elected. (Unit Bylaws, ARTICLE V, Section 3**a) This gives the membership the opportunity to choose those believed best qualified to recommend the future leadership of the organization. The president may not be elected to this committee and does not sit as the ex-officio member. The site administrator serves as a committee advisor. The following Nominating Committee checklist provides a quick look at the committee's election and duties.

NOMINATING COMMITTEE CHECKLIST - VERIFY DATES AND FIGURES IN YOUR UNIT BYLAWS

_____ Committee elected at an association meeting at least 60 days prior to the annual election in __________________ (month)
_____ Number of committee members ______ and alternates ______
_____ Eligibility of committee members verified
_____ Membership verified
_____ Service on previous nominating committee checked

Committee Meeting schedule
_____ Parliamentarian arranges date
_____ Principal included as advisor
_____ Alternates called if elected member not able to attend

Committee Meeting
_____ Instructions given by parliamentarian (stays only if an elected member.)
_____ Committee chairman elected
_____ Review officer positions and duties (Bylaws and Standing Rules)
_____ Membership list available (with list from feeder school if appropriate)
_____ Slate prepared
_____ Calls to potential nominees (chairman or other committee member)

Close of meeting
_____ Follow up meeting scheduled if needed
_____ Reminder to all that all discussions are confidential

After Meeting
_____ Notify chairman of responses of potential nominees
_____ Final slate prepared, including any unfilled positions
_____ Committee members sign slate
_____ Membership notified of nominees at least 30 days prior to election

For additional information, please consult California State PTA Toolkit. PTA Management Section, 2.2 - 2.2.5

MY PTA/PTSA Application for units and councils. Must be received in California State PTA Office for

• Membership Creativity
• Your Outreach
• Parent Involvement
• Teacher/Staff, Administrator Involvement
• Student Involvement Award
• Allied Agency/Community Involvement

Refer to the Toolkit - "Scholarship & Grant Application Deadlines"

Want to purchase your PTA supplies online? Stop by the California PTA's new online store! www.captastore.com

Welcome to the 2002-2003 Saddleback Valley PTA Council. Be sure to visit our website at: www.svpta.org

Since we have committed our professional lives to supporting creativity, why not begin there, by looking at what separates creative leaders from the others? Malcolm Knowles, writing at the University of Queensland in 1983 in his book The Adult Learner, A Neglected Species described the eight tenets of creative leadership.

• The Creative Leader makes a different set of assumptions (essentially positive) about human nature. Creative leaders have faith in people, offer them challenging opportunities, and delegate responsibility to them. When people perceive the locus of control to reside within themselves, they are more creative and productive, and the greater their achievement.
• The Creative Leader accepts as a law of human nature that people feel a commitment to a decision in proportion to the extent that they feel they have participated in making it. Creative leaders, therefore involve their artists, audience and communities in every step of planning.
• The Creative Leader believes in and uses the power of the self-fulfilling prophecy. They understand that people tend to come up to other people's expectations for them. The relationship between positive self-concept and superior performance has been demonstrated in numerous studies.
• The Creative Leader highly values individuality. The sense that people operate on a higher level when they are operating on the basis of their unique strengths, interests, talents, and goals than when they are trying to conform to some imposed stereotype and tightly defined set of assigned responsibilities.
• The Creative Leader stimulates and rewards creativity. They understand that in a world of accelerating change, creativity is the basic requirement for the survival of individuals, organizations and societies.
• The Creative Leader is committed to a process of continuous change and is skillful in managing change. They understand the difference between static and innovative organizations, and aspire to make their organization innovative.
• The Creative Leader emphasizes internal motivators over external motivators. They understand that achievement, growth, fulfilling work, responsibility and advancement are essential and that organizational policy, supervision, salary, status, are non essential to high performance.
• The Creative Leader encourages people to be self-directing. They sense intuitively what researchers have been telling us for some time-that a universal characteristic of the maturation process is movement from a state of dependency toward states of increasing self directedness.

To even attempt to be a creative leader one must put to rest the myth that great leaders are born. The ability to be a leader is the result of a lifetime of effort constantly improving communications skills, reflecting on personal values and aligning one's behavior with those values, learning how to listen and appreciate others and their ideas. Individual discipline and organizational progress go hand-in-hand. As the leader develops and evolves, so does the organization. Organizations do not move forward on their own. They may move, but with little promise that the momentum will be toward the vision.

John Kao, director of the Idea Factory and author of Jamming, The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity, argues persuasively that for individuals to feel they are truly responsible for their own decisions, they must be imbued with a "Creativity Bill of Rights": 1. Everyone is Creative.
2. All ideas are welcome and deserve hearing.
3. Creativity is part of every job description.
4. Premature closure and excessive judgement are cardinal sins.
5. Creativity is about finding balance between art and discipline.
6. Creativity involves openness to a wide range of inputs.
7. Experiments must be encouraged.
8. Noble failure is honorable, poor implementation or bad choices are not.
9. Creativity involves mastering a process of continuous change.
10. Creativity can, and should be managed.
11. Creative work is not an excuse for chaos, disarray or sloppiness in execution.

It's quite simple, really. Form follows function. We work in support of creative people and our job is merely to be creative and insist others do the same.