WILTON YOUTH COUNCIL BOARD MEETING NOVEMBER 15, 2011

Transcription

1 WILTON YOUTH COUNCIL BOARD MEETING NOVEMBER 15, 2011 Present: Nan Merolla, Mimi Houska, Maria Wilcox, Connie Cobb, Joanna Copley, Colleen Fawcett, Carol Ball, Nancy Gany, Dann Pompa, Kathleen Davis. Meeting called to order at 11:05am. Secretary s Report Motion made by Maria Wilcox; seconded by Connie Cobb to approve the minutes of October 11 th Approved. President s Report Nan reported the annual appeal letter went out as scheduled. Wilton Magazine will be doing a comprehensive article about the post graduation party. Vice President s Report Discussion of logistics of 12/13 board meeting. Nana has again graciously offered to host a holiday luncheon for board members at her house. Please Mimi to contribute to the meal. We will also be collecting donations for fuel for the Wilton Food Bank. Class Projects 2016 Have steering committee in place but no chairs yet. Website and are set up. Movie Night was Nov. 16 th. Will be trying constant contact as a way of communicating No chairs in place. Have a Dec. 8 th meeting coming up. Are co-hosting with 2013 a parent social at Pearl restaurant Parent party Friday Nov. 18 th at Ambler Farm Theme is Game Night Recently had a Parent Event PGP committees are set up. Chairs are Elena Baggio and Anne Nash.

2 Treasurer Maria presented the information she collected on the issue of sales tax and nonprofits. The WYC accountant believes we should pay sales tax on items we sell. Other sources Maria spoke to say we don t need to. She very clearly explained both sides of the issue and gave her opinion that we do not need to pay the tax and still be in compliance with the tax laws. The board agreed. Maria will be in contact with our accountant to express the board s decision and ask for further guidance. Maria proposed the board take $25,000 from our available cash and put it into a money market account with Webster Bank to get a better interest rate. Seconded Mimi Houska. Approved. Nominating Following Board positions are still open: President, Vice President, Assistant Treasurer, Fund raising, Marketing, Publicity and Website. Information about positions went out in the Miller/Driscoll and Cider Mill PTA newsletters. Information has not gone out yet in the Middlebrook and WHS PTA newsletter. Joanna will be submitting the information soon. Grants Barbarajean ed the following report: Submitted a second year proposal to Fairfield County Community Foundation for $8,000 to cover the costs of operating Youth to Youth Middlebrook. She submitted a request a few days prior to this to the Wilton Women's Club (through Stacey Savas) for $5,000 ($2,500 for Y2Y and $2,500 for C.O.D.E.S). Barbarajean does not feel hopeful about this proposal as they wanted to fund only programs that were in "dire" need right now. They also had a concern that we did not just charge the parents something for this program. Barbarajean did give a history and full explanation about our being associated with Middlebrook and why we can't make it solely funded by parents etc. It was decided that we would focus on Rotary inquiries for the Spring rather than now. Barbarajean doesn t know exactly when FCCF will get back to us but it should be shortly. She is hopeful that they may fund us for one more year and then we will have to discuss options going forward.

3 Youth Services Congratulations to Colleen for being named One of the 50 most influential people of Wilton. Colleen reported she had just come from a Greater Norwalk List meeting. This organization works with kids that are at risk or already in the juvenile system. State representative Gail Lavielle was at the meeting to speak about the new anti-bullying legislation. Also at the meeting was JoAnn Freiberg from the State Dept of Education. She feels that children/teens who feel connected to school do better. Connection to school is related to: 1. Child feels they have an advocate in the building. 2. Child is generally happy to be at school. 3. Child feels like they belong in school. 4. Child/teen feels that the adults in building treat students fairly (not necessarily equally, but fairly). Website where there is good information on school climate is: Colleen was very excited to report that she has hired Margaret Creath to fill the position of Youth Services Program Manager. Margaret is graduating from Fairfield University in December and will start in a few weeks. C.O.D.E.S retreat is this weekend kids from Wilton, Ridgefield and out of state will be attending. Task Force Surveys were successfully completed last week at Middlebrook. The WHS surveys are being finished this week. Parents surveys are going out this week via . Once the information is compiled the Task Force will discuss how to disseminate the results to the community in the spring.

4 Website Lynn Philbrick has agreed to maintain the website through January at which time we hope to have her replacement ready to take over. Website data below was compiled by Lynn Philbrick between Oct. 15 th and Nov. 14 th. Visits Returning - 85 New - 75 Total unique visits Most unique visits in 1 day - 8 Average page views % Average time on site - 2 min 16 sec Youth To Youth Tanya Leonard reported via that TJ, her husband will be taking over meetings while she is on maternity leave. Red Ribbon Week was a success with over 500 students pledging to be drug and alcohol free. The Friday before Halloween they took 50 students to Lake Compounce and all had a great time! They are also in the middle of their Halloween Candy Drive for DCF. The candy will be used to help the local DCF plan and hold a holiday party for teens. Y2Y plan on taking 3 ski trips the month of January to continue their winter "drug free fun" activities. Parent Connection/Fathers Forum Nancy reported that she just came from the library book discussion Getting to Calm: Strategies for Parenting Tweens & Teens moderated by Susan Bauerfeld. About 20 people were in attendance and 10 people attended the previous night.

5 The next event at the library is on Dec. 6 th.from 7:00 8:30pm. Barbara Greenberg will be discussing Connecting with Your Kids: Learning the Language of Teens. PeerVention Dann Pompa reported Training for the first group of PeerVention volunteers will start the week of Dec. 5 th. He would like to see the group do something with the freshmen. Socks for Soldiers has mailed 9,940 to date. In the future they will be dying tube socks as a fundraiser. Several PeerVention students participate in the Bon-ami group which helps new students become more comfortable at WHS. Miscellaneous Nan relayed to the board a discussion she had at a PGP meeting about the current state of the hut which is in need of much repair. A possible option is to donate any extra funds from the 2012 PGP to the repair of the hut. Meeting adjourned at 12:45pm