Last year was a fruitful fun in the garden

Our kids grew some awesome pumpkins, radishes, beans, chard, zucchinis and we had an overload of "volunteer"  kale that sprouted from our compost soil, added into the garden in the spring.

Many amazing parent volunteers kept the garden watered during the summer.

The garden committee had a really successful spring manure sale fundraiser, the proceeds of which together with a generous amount from the PAC funds went towards purchasing beautiful new garden tables.

We also received a Small Neighbourhood Grant for purchasing fruit trees and bushes. We will be planting these at our Fall Garden party. Hope to see you there!

Bulb fundraiser orders are due by This Friday

Want to add some colour to your garden and plant some spring bulbs? You could help our garden committee to fund garden improvements by ordering your bulbs through our fundraiser.

Please, submit your bulb order (extra copies are available by the school office) by this Friday! You can drop it off at the PAC table during the volunteer drive days (today, tomorrow and Thursday) or at the office.

Reminder: Please submit your child's art, poems, creative writing to the Garibaldi Annex Art Nook!

Check out the Art Nook a great place for your child to share his/her creative works.  If you are a blogger, you can post! 

Garibaldi school calendar has been updated on the blog!

Hi Parents,

I've updated the school calendar on the blog.  You can subscribe to get regular reminders by adding the calendar to your calendar.  

We will also be adding in PAC meetings, events and reminders to put in various forms, etc.  

Any questions, shoot us an e-mail at the pac address!  garibaldiannexpac@gmail.com

Happy blogging!

Kate M.

Next Week is Volunteer Sign Up Week

Starting next week your Garibaldi PAC Exec team will be around Garibaldi with the Committee and Volunteer sign up table. Volunteering with a committee is a great way to get more involved in your child's education and help build the Garibaldi Community. Look for us during the Goal Setting Conferences or during drop-off  or pick-up.

This years committees are:

Fundraising Committee:

Are you ready to put the FUN into fundraising? The sky is the limit with this committee. Work with other creative and fun-loving minds to devise and execute fundraisers designed to raise money to enhance the lives of our children during their time at Garibaldi. Events could include a silent auction, a coffee house/talent
night, an adult only party at a local venue, equipment, tree, bench or building block sponsorship, or whatever ideas come to mind. Members would be asked to come up with a fundraising goal for the year (ie. How will the money raised during the year be used?) and speak with other parent volunteer committee members to listen to their needs for funds. The more the merrier for this committee!

Garden Committee:

Thanks to the hard work of some dedicated volunteers, the Garden is thriving. Members of this committee can be involved in general garden and compost maintenance (weeding, watering, planting and digging), shed building and maintenance, or even harvest celebrations. You don’t need a green thumb to volunteer for this committee!

Communication Committee:

There are a variety of ways to help out on this committee. Whether it is setting up email lists and phone trees for the classes, contributing to the school’s monthly newsletter documenting some of the Garibaldi events through the eyes of the families, sending reminders about upcoming PAC meetings or putting together a photo collection on a CD as a form of paperless yearbook, we can all benefit from communication. (P.S. This is a committee that you can potentially do from home if you find your time at the school is limited)

Movie Night Committee:

A Garibaldi fundraising favourite! Members of this committee would be required to determine the dates, times, and movie selection shown in the Garibaldi Library. Equipment such as a projector and screen are also needed and of course no movie would be complete without the popcorn. You may also consider rallying a group of movie goers to help you clean up at the end of the evening.

Hot Lunch Committee:

As busy families, we all welcome that one day per month when we realize that we can strike “make kids’ lunches” from our list of daily chores. Of course, this fun and easy fundraiser requires a group of dedicated adults to coordinate the event. Involvement in this committee might require you to make decisions on the sort of food provided for hot lunch, determine the cost to families, arrange for order forms to be sent home to Garibaldi families and for the food to be picked up and prepared for the students. And remember, hot lunch doesn’t have to mean hot dogs…healthy choices are encouraged!

Outdoors Committee:

Interested in doing group outdoor activities? This parent group will organize and lead afterschool and weekend outdoor activities like bike rides, hikes, cross country skiing, or whatever you are interested in. It is a great way to stay physically active in a social atmosphere.

Food and Health Committee:

This committee would strive to start and maintain a dialogue amongst all stakeholders – teachers, parents and the administration – to allow all to voice their particular concerns regarding the children’s food and nutrition at school.
Based on this dialogue, the committee would formulate some basic food policy as a guideline for our school community. This proposed policy would then be presented to the teachers, administration and the PAC for comments and after appropriate amendments for approval.
This policy would be a guideline only and non-binding to the stakeholders.

Media Relations and Advocacy Committee:

Over the past 5 years, parents and staff of the Garibaldi community have worked hard to ensure that the enrolment at the school has continued to increase with the ultimate goal of remaining open to serve the diverse needs of the surrounding community. Thanks to the Garibaldi Annex Implementation Team and the Garibaldi Action Committee, the school has not only grown in its regular school day program, it has added other partners including Frog Hollow, Vancouver Learning Network (VLN), Home Learners and Partners In Education (PIE). We need to ensure that the positive messages and continued growth plans are reaching the media and that through our voices and our written words the VSB continues to hear of our successes and reasons for keeping Garibaldi open for future generations.

Program Support:

Have you read or heard about programs in our community that could enhance our children’s learning experiences at the school? Perhaps you or someone you know can be a guest to help out with a special unit in Science, Creative Writing or Physical Education or you know of a program to introduce the students to the wonders of cooking or the arts. Perhaps you would like to become a “class parent” who is available to help your child’s teacher arrange parent drivers for field trips or help decorate the classroom for a special theme or party. Work with the school staff and within the PAC budget to bring these new and unique experiences to the school.

Library Committee:

What a peaceful way to spend a couple of hours per week, sorting through books in a quiet space. Or perhaps you would like to offer your talent as a guest reader? VP Ms. Lorraine Baker is hoping to find a small number of volunteers who would like to support our school Library this year. If this idea appeals to you please provide your contact information, a day / time that is most convenient for you to volunteer and a word or two about the type of volunteer experience you would prefer to offer (shelving, reading, creating seasonal displays, etc.)

Sustainability committee:

This brand new committee would work to foster community involvement both within the school and with the surrounding community. Suggestions from parents have included setting up a book lending library, student bike share, clothing swap, potlucks, zero-waste lunches, and furthering the work of last year’s school recycling committee. Volunteers are needed to shape the direction of the school’s sustainability stewardship, and to help keep environmental and social responsibility fun.

September 2012 Garibaldi PAC Meeting Minutes

Garibaldi Annex Parent Advisory Committee Meeting

September 12, 2012  6:30 pm

Attendance

20 People

 Agenda

            •           Added by Kate:  potential donation of bicycles to school

            •           Added by Anne-Marie: potential sustainability committee

            •           Agenda adopted with additions

  

PAC Welcome

• Jen Gunasekera, Past Chair, welcomed everyone and encouraged parents to get involved.  Any contribution to the PAC helps to grow the school.  There will be a parent volunteer drive in the next 2 weeks where parents can sign up for a variety of committees.  Parents are encouraged to consider signing up for the fundraising committee, which can decide how it will operate and what it will focus on: a large party with silent auction as in the past two years, and/or a combination of other fundraisers such as manure sale, coffee sales, popcorn and hot chocolate sales, etc.
•  Joel Ronne, interim Co-Chair, encouraged all parents to feel welcome to have input into the PAC through meetings and committees, and thanked teachers for attending.

Principal’s Message

•  Encouraging to see so many parents in attendance – studies have shown that when parents are involved in their child’s school, children are often more successful at school.
•  Ms. Baker receives many messages about events in the community that might be of interest; these will be forwarded to the PAC for possible distribution to parents.
•  Terry Fox Run is coming up – more information about how Garibaldi will participate to come.
• Parent-Teacher Goal-Setting Conferences will be Sept 25 and 26 – 2pm dismissal.
• Open door policy at Ms. Baker’s office – please let her know if there is something you need.  

Communication Committee

• Last year the Committee developed a blog to tell parents about events, post information about the community, and so on.
• Visit http://garibaldipac.blogspot.ca/  if you are not already receiving emailed blog updates, and sign up there.  If everyone signs up, it will help the Committee make sure everyone receives important notices.  The goal is to go paperless in terms of notices sent home about PAC events.  Parents can post items to the blog themselves (this is the most efficient option) or send them to the Committee to be vetted and posted.  Emails to the Committee can be sent to garibaldiannexpac@gmail.com 
• Posts to the blog can only be viewed by people who have signed up.  So far, posting ads (as opposed to community notices) has not been a problem, but material is moderated and if necessary, the Committee can develop a policy to prevent inappropriate postings.

Donation of Bikes and Other Items

•  Kate’s family has 5 or 6 bikes that they are willing to donate to the school. Possible ideas are to create a bike “co-op” – bikes that stay at the school for kids to ride home (but there may be liability issues around this) or to have a bike swap.
•  There have been discussions about organizing swaps of other items too, so bike swap could be rolled into a broader swap system.
• If there is enough interest, a subcommittee could be struck to decide what to do  

 
Executive Nominations

• Required positions are Chair, Vice-Chair, Treasurer, Secretary.
• Can also create additional positions and have members-at-large on the executive.
• Duties of executive members were read out from BCCPAC Constitution and Bylaws.
• Five executive members were elected by acclamation, as follows:

• Joel Ronne was nominated as Co-Chair by Yvette Gabrielle, seconded by Angela Wong-Moon. Nomination confirmed by acclamation.
• Jocelyn Gallagher nominated herself as Co-Chair, seconded by Lisa Osoba. Nomination confirmed by acclamation.
• Yvette Gabrielle was nominated as Vice-Chair by Lisa Osoba, seconded by Caroline Troffe.  Nomination confirmed by acclamation.
• Angela Wong-Moon was nominated as Treasurer by Taslim Hameer, seconded by Sarah Boon. Nomination confirmed by acclamation.
• Julie Beer nominated herself as Secretary, seconded by Brenda Kyle.  Nomination confirmed by acclamation.

• A call for members- at-large was made, but no nominations were made; it was decided that members-at-large would be elected at the next meeting.  There was consensus that it would make sense for chairs of Garden Committee, Fundraising Committee, and Communications Committee to become members of the Executive, once selected.

 Financial Update

• Angela Wong-Moon updated the PAC on the PAC’s financial situation. Overall, it is better than the same time last year.
• The PAC Account has a balance of $2776.62. Last year, money in this account was used to pay for the teachers’ resource fund, math supplies, musical instruments, picnic tables, popcorn maker, gym mats and Hot Lunch kitchen supplies.
• The Gaming Account has a balance of $918.48.  Last year, money from this account was used for Chinese NY Lion Dance, One Woman Circus Show, Year End Beach Day bus rental, Badminton Lessons.
• There is also $300.00 available to the school in a one-time DPAC fund.
• Finally, there is $957.50 in the PAC’s Vancouver School Board account.  Money from this account was used last year for the bike rack installation, purchase of musical instruments and tennis lessons.
• In terms of profitability of different PAC events, Angela estimates that hot lunches made about $50 per lunch; popcorn and drink sales made about $80 per sale; movie nights made about $160 per night; and coffee sale made about $80. The auction evening in December last year made $6000.00.
• Angela would like to see some stricter systems put in place this year for accounting – ie. for example, movie night has been run so that snacks are purchased in bulk with cash from the last event, then some snacks are used for one movie night, some for another, so it is difficult to tell how much money is actually made from each event.  Plus, a more systematic way to process and decide upon requests for PAC funds would be beneficial.  If anyone would like to help create forms or systems for putting into place a more accurate system of keeping track of expenditures, etc, please let Angela know.

Spending Requests

• Joel noted that the PAC strongly supports the teachers and wants them to feel that the PAC is approachable and efficient at providing needed financial support to teachers.
• Amounts to be allocated to teachers for the purpose of supplementary school supplies and other resource materials were discussed. 
• Anne-Marie moved, seconded by Caroline, that the PAC should give to each of the seven VESTA member teachers (both Annex and Home Learners) a teacher allocation of $200.  Motion passed unanimously.  It was noted that a second teacher allocation could be made later in the year if finances permit.    

 PAC Committees

• Volunteer signup will take place the week of September 25/26 – at least two or three mornings, plus during teacher conference times. Home Learners do not start classes until September 25^th so special attention will be paid to making sure they are given opportunities to get involved.
• Parents should feel free to suggest new committees to be created.  Last year’s committees included Recycling, Movie Night, Hot Lunch, Fundraising, Bike Rack, Garden, Program Support, Communications, Library, and Media Relations/Advocacy.   

Next Meeting

• October 10, 2012 at 6:30pm.  Yvette to arrange childcare for meeting

Minutes of June 2012 PAC Meeting

• Anne-Marie moved that the minutes of the June 2012 PAC meeting be adopted as circulated. Caroline seconded. Motion passed unanimously.   

Adjournment

•  Jocelyn moved that the meeting be adjourned. Motion passed unanimously.

Toy & Clothes Only Market for Children @ Hastings Community Centre

Toy & Clothes Only Market for Children  Hastings Community Centre
Saturday October 13th
10am  to 1:30pm
$25/table ($15 for table rental and $10 clean up deposit)
Free admission

Buy or sell used children's toys, clothes & Furniture.  New merchandise and commercial businesses are not permitted. Tables will be assigned in the order of registration. Register at the office.  Donations to the food bank gratefully accepted

For more info call Alice at (604)718-6233

Oct 13th Garibaldi School Garden Harvest Party

Mark your calenders for Saturday October 13th when we are having our Harvest Party in the school garden. Come have some warm apple cider, hot fresh Garibaldi garden pototes and popcorn. Starts around noon and goes till 5 pm. We will also be planting our fruit and berry plants and having a plant exchange from our divided perennials.

Garibaldi Garden Update and Harvest Party

Coming home this week will be flyers for our first annual Bulb Sale. Please feel free to collect orders for yourself and your neighbors. Please make cheques payable to Garibaldi Annex School. Half of all sales com back to the school! Please have your orders in by Noon Sept 28th or drop them off at the PAC table on Sept 25th and 26th.

Pandora Park Harvest Festivial This Sunday

PAC Meeting Reminder: 6:00 pm Wednesday Evening

Come join other parents in supporting our school. 

Come enjoy the sushi. Child care is provided.

What: Garibaldi PAC meeting
When: Wednesday, Sept 12 at 6:00 - 8:00 pm (child care provided) 
Were: Garibaldi School Library (on the 2nd floor)

Meet our Principal, Bob Bodden, this Friday Sept 14th during Lunch Break

Bob Bodden Principal of Sir Matthew Begbie and Garibaldi Annex will be visiting our school on Friday September 14th during lunch break (12:10 pm). All parents and caregivers are invited to drop by during the lunch break for an informal chat.

Garibaldi PAC Meeting, Wed Sept 12, 6:00 pm

What: Garibaldi PAC meeting
When: Wednesday, Sept 12 at 6:00 pm (child care provided)
Were: Garibaldi School Library (on the 2nd floor)


A warm welcome to all the new and returning parents. The first Garibaldi PAC meeting will be held on Wednesday September 12th at 6:00 pm in the school library located just past the office and up the stairs. The first half hour will be a meet and greet with sushi appetizers with the regular meeting starting at 6:30 pm and ending by 8:00 pm. If you can not make the full meeting please feel free to stop by for just the sushi. Child care will be provided in the gym.

Agenda:

1. Welcome New Members; Ann-Marie, outgoing PAC Co-Chair (10 min)
2. Introduction from our school VP; Lorraine Baker (10 min)
3. Using the Garibaldi PAC Blog; Kate Mulligan (10 min)
4. PAC Executive Nominations (10 min)
5. Financial Update and Budget; Angela Wong-Moon (10 min)
6. Teacher Allocations, other spending requests; Joel Ronne (10 min)
7. Class liaisons; Joel Ronne (5 min)
8. Committee Discussions (15 min)
9. Policy Discussion (10 min)
10. Next PAC meeting and Adjournment

This is a great opportunity to meet your fellow Garibaldi parents and staff and to find out how you can become more involved in supporting Garibaldi. So bring your ideas and I look forward to seeing you at the meeting.

Joel Ronne, Garibaldi PAC


PS: PAC agenda requests are encouraged, please email them to garibaldiannexpac@gmail.com