Elections for Boosters officers for the current school year will be held on Thursday, September 21 at 7:00 pm. At our last meeting, as some of you may recall, no nominations were accepted for the President or Treasurer positions (the two women who had been intending to run both declined, citing personal reasons). I was elected Vice President, and Cassie Kennedy was elected Secretary.
As of the last SALT meeting, I've been fulfilling the President role in my capacity as Vice President. Kathy Tucker has continued to fulfill the role of Treasurer, though her term expired August 31. If you know someone who might be interested in this volunteer position, contact Kathy (ladyfishkathy@yahoo.com).
Based on the current needs Boosters, I plan to resign as Vice President at the September meeting, and run for the President position. I'm grateful that Jackie Ham has agreed to run for the Vice President slot, which will have primary responsibility for our new school store.
Boosters has changed quite a bit this year -- no more catalogs or pizza lunches, with an emphasis on direct contributions. Consequently, the focus of our officers must change as well. Previously, the VP was primarily responsible for fundraising, and President represented Boosters at SALT meetings. The President needs to take a stronger goal-setting, team leader role. This is done in three main ways:
* Communicating our goals and accomplishments to our community (via newsletter, blogs, and in person). This kind of leadership, which involves long-range planning as well as communication, is best suited to the President slot -- even though I've been doing as the Vice President.
* Finding ways to get needs met that have been identified by those on SALT, working with the other committee heads to (a) keep down costs and (b) maximize revenues and other resources generated so that teachers and students receive maximum benefit for each dollar spent. The President and Treasurer attend SALT meetings, whereas the VP does not. So it makes sense for the President to handle this task.
The current Boosters team has been doing this. For example, SALT recently allocated $300 for a secure cabinet in the storage room for the Booster school store supplies (the cost in the Staples catalog). But we didn't just take the money and run to the store. Instead, we checked U of M supply, Ann Arbor Recycle Center, and advertised thru the South Arbor Parent distribution list to find out if there was a less expensive alternative . . . and when nothing suitable was available, we found a less expensive model for just under $200. Cassie and Kevin Kennedy volunteered to pick up the unit and set it up, so we avoided delivery charges as well. Thanks, Kennedy's!
* The President would represent Boosters to those outside the school, presenting what we need and asking for donations of money, goods and services for various Boosters events. Typically correspondence for this kind of request would rightly come from the President, not Vice President.
When I ran for Vice President, I didn't fully appreciate how important the SALT meetings would be to meet our $50,000 Boosters goal, as it involves getting all the committee heads to work together toward that goal. So . . . I decided to step up and take the President's spot.
So . . . I invite you to come on out to our next Boosters meeting (especially if you're good with numbers, and are interested in the Treasurer job!) So far we've raised about 20% of our goal for this year . . . We need all the help we can get to meet that goal!
No comments:
Post a Comment