by Dolores Winchell,

Greetings Unit Presidents,

By now you are all well into the beginning of the school year and PTA activities. It is important to remember to do the following at your first board meeting:

1. Warmly and sincerely welcome all the attendees.
2. Get your audit presented and adopted for submission to council.
3. Present your proposed budget for discussion and approval.
4. Establish goals that coincide with your fundraisers.
5. Get each and every fundraiser discussed and approved.
6. Take care not to speak in PTA jargon so you don't alienate the new folks.
7. Explain that the first meeting is usually the longest and try to make it fun.

Remember that the first meeting is your first opportunity to capture potential new members. Make it fun and interesting. If you still have positions vacant, recruit volunteers there. If you have the opportunity to attend and do a brief presentation for the kindergarten parents on the value of PTA, seize it! You should also ask to do a brief presentation if your school does an orientation for new parents.

Publish and distribute your meeting calendar, so parents and teachers can schedule the time to attend. Make every attempt to schedule your meetings at a time most convenient to the majority of your membership. Feel free to poll if it hasn't been done in awhile so make sure you are on track. With respect to your executive board meetings, sit down with your principal and make sure these meeting times are convenient for them. You need your principal's support for a strong PTA. Keep in mind that the best place for these meetings are usually the school MPR, library or teacher's lounge. Meeting there also will tend to keep the group focused on the children and PTA.

One of your goals, as president, should be to grow your PTA. You may say that is membership's job, which it is. However, it is your job on a year-round basis. If you market PTA well and give folks the opportunity to participate and have fun (because it is well organized and folks in leadership are trained), your will reap huge benefits because more folks will join and help out which will lighten the load of your existing volunteers and make PTA volunteerism enjoyable for all. Make it your goal this year to positively change the perception of PTA to those parents who are either non-members or don't help out, when you know they can. You really can make an impact on those folks by taking the time to speak to them and tell them how important their participation is for all the children at your school.

On September 18, we will be hosting our annual President/Principal Breakfast at the district board room. If you have not already done so, please invite your principal and plan to carpool. This gives you an excellent opportunity to chat with your principal about all the back to school goings on and it also gives you a chance to get a parking space in the district parking lot. Remember every PTA/PTO president and principal in the district are invited to this breakfast, and attendance is usually very high, so parking will be at a premium. I look forward to seeing every unit represented. If you cannot attend, please ask another member of your board to escort your principal to this breakfast meeting.

Our meeting on September 25 will be held at Rancho Caņada Elementary School. Rancho is located at 21801 Winding Way in Lake Forest. It is at the corner of Serrano and Winding Way and the closest major cross-streets are Trabuco and Lake Forest. For specific directions, plug in the street address into www.mapquest.com.

Don't forget that we will be conducting Membership and Reflections workshops from 9:00 to 10:00 AM in the PTA portable immediately prior to the council meeting. Like any other elementary school, you must check into the office to receive a visitor badge before coming onto campus. The office will also direct you and any workshop attendees to the proper meeting place.

See you soon. The council board and I are here to make your life easier, so feel free to call or email us whenever necessary. president@svpta.org, (949) 458-2109 Fax (949) 458-7884 SEPTEMBER 25 COUNCIL MEETING: 10:00 P.M., RANCHO CANADA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

ITEMS TO BRING TO THE MEETING:

1. Unit Board and Association Meeting Schedule for 2003-04 w/times and dates (if you didn't bring a hard copy last month) - President's Folder
2. Two (2) copies - Adopted, signed Year-end audits - Auditor's Folder
3. Roster sheets with completed grant applications for School Readiness Brochure Distribution. (This is only applicable to those of you who distributed flyers.) School Readiness' Folder
4. Two (2) copies of approved annual Budget - One copy in President's Folder and one in Treasurer's Folder
5. Two (2) copies of your updated unit rosters (for Council Directory; it is preferential that you email this information to communications@svpta.org using roster form) - Newsletter/Communications' Folder

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• Thurs., September 18 - President/Principal Breakfast, 9:00 AM, SVUSD Board Room
• Thurs., September 25 - Membership & Reflections Workshops, 9:00 AM, Rancho Canada Elementary School
• Thurs., September 25 - Council Meeting, 10:00 AM, Rancho Caņada Elementary Schoo

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I see you at the meetings
But you never say, "Hello,"
You're busy all the time you're there
With those you already know.

I sit amongst the people,
Yet I'm a lonesome guy.
The "new members" are as strange as I,
And the "Old Timers" pass me by.

But darn it, you people asked me in,
And you talked of friendship.
You could just step across the room,
But you never make the trip.

Why can't you nod and say, "Hello,"
Or stop to shake my hand,
Then go and sit among your friends?
Now that I understand.

I'll be at the next meeting -
Perhaps a nice afternoon to spend.
Do you think you could introduce yourself?
I want to be your friend.

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As specified in your bylaws, all units must have a complete financial audit conducted on a semi-annual basis. Since our fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30, that means all units should have their audits complete prior to the first board meeting which most of you have in August.

For new presidents or auditors, the California State PTA Toolkit has a section under Finance called "The PTA Audit" which spells out the audit procedure step by step. If you do not have this publication, it is available from the California State PTA's website at ttp://www.capta.org/sections/communication/toolkit.cfm.

The final completed audit must be adopted by your association at a unit meeting, by way of motion, and the adoption date must be indicated on the audit.Please submit two (2) copies of your "adopted" unit audit by bringing it to the council meeting on September 25 or mail it by September 30 to Luis Alvarado, 28981 Canyon Rim Dr, Trabuco Canyon, CA 92679. Feel free to contact me with any questions.

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School principals are the most important allies of a PTA. Support from the principal is crucial-not just for individual events, programs, and fundraisers-but for the success of the overall mission of a PTA. The principal's ideas and actions can play a significant role in setting the tone and shaping the culture for the entire school. It is partly through the principal's support, motivation, and leadership that a school community can promote strong parent-school-community partnerships.

To explore this topic further, Our Children magazine asked a handful of principals to identify what has made their relationships with PTA a success. Read on to see what these principals had to say.

KEEPING IN TOUCH

Making a PTA-principal relationship click requires regular communication. Conversations between PTA leaders and the school principal can be held during one-on-one meetings and during PTA or school leadership meetings. At these regular meetings, PTA leaders can seek input from the principal, discuss concerns, resolve problems and misunderstandings, and keep principals informed about PTA business. Similarly, PTA leaders can strengthen their connection with the school administration by serving on a school leadership committee or a school management council. When PTA leaders serve the school in this way, a PTA can provide input on matters such as annual reports, school budgets, school policies and codes, schoolwide goals, and program planning.

To show their support, some principals take the time to serve on PTA boards. Others give regular updates during PTA meetings. To help ensure that principals attend PTA meetings, Rebecca Quarm, principal of Oyster Bay High School in Oyster Bay, New York, said it's essential to maintain a friendly atmosphere, particularly when addressing issues involving the principal. If "hot button" topics are to be raised at a meeting, she advises that the PTA president and the principal discuss beforehand how to handle any anger that may develop.

"This can go a long way in fostering a trusting relationship," she said. "The last thing you want to do is make the principal feel as though he or she is being attacked."

Creating an amiable relationship should be the goal whenever PTA leaders and school principals interact, whether it's over the phone, via e-mail, or in a publication. "It can't be a business relationship," said Principal Harold Beaver of Smoke Rise Elementary in Stone Mountain, Georgia. "If you have concerns, you have to work those out in a friendly way."

WORKING TOGETHER

Scott Pfeifer, principal of River Hill High School in Clarksville, Maryland, said a new PTA leader can start a good relationship with the principal by simply asking him or her what the goals of the school administration are, and then keeping these desires in mind as the PTA develops programs for the year. Problems will arise, said Pfeifer, if the PTA president approaches the relationship with a predetermined agenda.

Because a principal knows the needs of the school better than anyone else, and usually knows the successes and failures of programs and events in the past, he or she can be a valuable resource when a PTA is creating a new program or fine tuning an existing one. As principal of Rice Middle School in Plano, Texas, Carol Johnson serves the PTA by helping leaders brainstorm ideas.

"Sometimes the PTA takes surveys in the community to determine what types of programs may be desired," said Johnson. "They'll bring me the results and then we'll talk about what types of programs may be useful."

A good relationship between the principal and the PTA is not only good for a PTA and students in the school, it's also good for the community. "If the principal and the PTA can't get along, this sends a message to the community and the community won't want to work with [the school] either," explained Johnson. Conversely, she said, when the PTA works effectively with the school administration, it demonstrates to the community that working with the school is an important and rewarding activity. "The school is a microcosm of the community," said Johnson. "When the school and the community get along, people know this is a good place to be."

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Do you need templates for Microsoft Word so that you can print out your membership cards? If so, they are available now on the National PTA's website:

PTA:
http://www.pta.org/members/planning/expanding/Fill-inCard1.doc

PTSA:
http://www.pta.org/members/planning/expanding/Fill-inCard2.doc

Instructions:

The templates (PTA, PTSA) are for the NPTA Membership Cards. Form fields have been provided to fill in the National PTA Unit ID#; Name of member; Local unit name; and Date issued and Expires. No label names next to each form field identifying what to type on the line, i.e., Unit ID, etc. Because of the card design, text would compromise the form setup.

Open template and save under another name.

Click or tab to each form field. Refer to a copy of the membership card if you have forgotten which line to put the proper information on.

Fill in all 10 cards then print.

Please run a test before printing on membership card stock. If the template doesn't line up exactly as you would like, save the template under another name and then go to Tools, click on Unprotect document. You can add or delete lines in between each table. Always keep the original template in tact.

If you have further questions, please call the NPTA Help Desk, ext. 5231.