École St. Germain PAC Meeting Minutes October 1, 2014, ESG Library Attending: Mme. Amy Haworth, Susanne Dandenault, Sharon Coughlan, Jodi Dick, Dana Forsyth, Nicole Hohner, Michelle Lagadi, Aimie Panteluk, Audra Peters, Denise Pope, Kristine Posthumus, Heike Sobkow, Jan Thiessen Regrets: Sherri Tufford Absent: Lisa Brown, Inga Sif Kristjansdottir, Kim McDonald, Nicole Medland, Marcia Neufeld, Meaghen Shangreaux Guests: Crystal Kobe, Dominik Albert, Taylor McIntyre 1. Call to Order: 7:00pm 2. Approval of October 2014 Agenda: motioned by Audra Peters, seconded by Jan Thiessen. PASSED 3. Approval of Minutes for September, 2014: motioned by Michelle Lagadi, seconded by Jodi Dick. PASSED 4. Welcome members and guests 5. Special Guest Presentation: Green Action Centre’s Active and Safe Routes to School Program: University of Manitoba Civil Engineering Students Taylor McIntyre and Dominik Albert presented a project that they will be undertaking during this university semester. Ecole St. Germain was one of the schools selected to be part of this project. The project will consist of data collected from ESG students and parents focusing on their mode of transportation to and from school. Safety concerns/barriers to active modes of transportation will be elicited from parents. The engineering students will then make recommendations based on their data collection to facilitate safe, active forms of transportation to and from school. These recommendations will be presented to the City of Winnipeg. A round table discussion ensued which included concerns over our children crossing unpatrolled intersections, inconsistent snow-plowing of St. Vital Pathway during winter months, our school has not yet been made a 30km/hr school zone, unsafe driving in front of school at drop off and pick up times. Concerns over grade 5 students safety/ability to effectively patrol were also mentioned. More information on the survey will be posted on the school website. 6. Treasurer’s Report: September’s financial statement and Fall BBQ notes were presented (see Appendix A). There was a motion by Jodi Dick to remove greening and shrubs from the future commitments, which was seconded by Sharon Coughlan, and PASSED. 7. Unfinished Business Committee sign up: Education, Environment and Fundraising Committees are all in need of a chair person. There have been no volunteers as of yet-if anyone is interested please let Susanne know! CJS Scholarship: Final paperwork has been obtained, and a cheque to our 2013-2014 recipient will be mailed out this month. Grade 8 Farewell: There will be a special meeting at the start of November’s PAC meeting from 7:007:15, in which we will discuss officially removing the financial commitment to the grade 8 farewell. To pass this motion we will need a high turnout of members at the meeting!! Art Room Clean up: On October 24th (no school-PD day), the office staff will be cleaning out the art room. They need a couple of volunteers from PAC to help figure out what can be thrown out/moved to École George McDowell. At this time we will also assess how to better organize/store PAC materials. Amy Haworth has agreed to let us store some of the larger games in one of the portables. Goals for 2013/2014: Preliminary fundraising shows we are well on our way to surpassing our conservative goal of raising $7000.00 for this school year! Suggestion was made that concerned parents should continue calling 311 to recommend that 30km/hr zones are set up at ESG. 8. Committee Reports: Education Committee-none Environment Committee-none Fundraising Committee QSP magazine fundraiser is underway. Order forms are due by October 17th. School ID number for online orders missing from forms-Sharon will work on getting this number out to ESG families. Peak of the Market order forms are in. It was a very successful fundraiser this year! Lots of orders placed for families as well as donations to the food bank. Delivery of produce will be on October 9thunfortunately POM can’t give us an exact delivery time. Our first group of parent volunteers will meet in the gym at 12:00 to hopefully begin unloading the shipment. Orders are available for pick up after school on October 9th. Fall BBQ Although the planning was down to the wire, the BBQ was again a success this year. The committee would like to thank our student volunteers form École George McDowell and College JeanneSauvé. There was a shortage of parent volunteers this year, which resulted in some parents/staff members pulling double/triple shifts-so a huge thank you to those who volunteered your time and stepped in to fill any voids! Also noted were the generous contributions of Sobeys ($100.00 gift card plus 10% savings), Real Canadian Superstore ($100.00 gift card), Giant Tiger ($50.00 gift card), and Red River Co-op (40 bags of ice). Next year’s goal would be to secure more parent volunteers. 9. New Business: Halloween Costumes-This year Halloween costumes will be allowed at Ecole St Germain! Amy Haworth requests that Halloween costumes are no maintainence-therefore children must arrive in costume and not need assistance with any costume assembly once at school. No masks or costume accessories are allowed, and the children must be able to participate in all regular school activities in their costumes (ie. Can wear costumes out to recess and in phys-ed class). Extra-Curricular Activities-Our Book Club has lost its parent volunteer, so if anyone is able to run the book club please let our librarian know. -Knitting with Mme Gnutel is again being run during lunch hours. Toques knitted are donated to shelters. -Concerns were voiced about ESG not giving the students the opportunity to join a Cross Country team this fall. With the support of parents we will aim to run a Marathon Club at ESG in the spring. Applying for Charitable Status-Applying for charitable status was discussed, with the benefit being that we could issue tax receipts for monetary donations. There was a motion by Sharon Coughlan to apply for charitable status, which was seconded by Denise Pope, and PASSED. Susanne Dandenault will begin the paperwork involved in the process. 10. Administrator’s Report: See Appendix B 11. Next Meeting: November 5th, 2014, 7:00pm 12. Adjournment: Meeting was adjourned at 8:40pm.