MOANALUA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PTO

GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING

August 12, 2009

CALL TO ORDER:  President Lori Shimoda called the meeting to order at 6:40 p.m. in the MES cafeteria. The meeting took place immediately following the PTO Board Meeting.

VOTING MEMBERS PRESENT: A quorum of 15 members was present.

MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING: There is no secretary’s report because this is the first meeting of the PTO.  At the start the PTO’s account needs to be at zero.  The PTA budget has a balance of $43,425.  Because the PTO is running concurrently with the PTA, the PTA budget will pay for everything until we reach a zero balance.  The PTO cannot open carrying a balance of $40,000 plus dollars thus R. Taone had to work on balancing the budget.  The PTO needs to create an account.  Because we collected money as a PTA we cannot spend it as a PTO.  Whatever money is received by the PTO can be spent by the PTO.  For this reason we will run the PTO and PTA concurrently until the money in the PTA’s account runs out.

COMMITTEE REPORTS:  There are no committee reports because the reports were given during the PTO Board meeting which took place immediately before this meeting.

OLD BUSINESS:  There is no old business because we are a newly formed PTO.

NEW BUSINESS: L. Shimoda reported that since we are now incorporated we need  bylaws.  The voting officers read the proposed bylaws because they need decide whether to approve it. It is written into the bylaws that the Executive Board will be kept intact for the initial year. Also, one error was noted.  Under Article 7, Standing Committees, we will remove Fun Fair since it falls under Budget and Finance.  It is difficult to achieve quorum at meetings thus the amount required for quorum was reduced and committees were consolidated. We have nine officer positions so in order to achieve quorum and pass a measure we need six members present. It is much easier to achieve quorum at the PTO Board meeting.  We will also use proxy vote.  A vote was taken and the bylaws of the PTO were unanimously approved.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST POLICY:  The objective of the conflict of interest policy is to protect the PTO’s money and to maintain integrity.  A vote was taken and the conflict of interest policy was unanimously approved.

With the bylaws and conflict of interest policy approved the PTO can file for 5013C approval.

CHECKING ACCOUNT:  R. Taone needs $100.00 to open a checking account for the PTO.  Once the checking account is open R. Taone cannot sign any checks since he is employed by the Department of Education.  He will have to get approval from an authorized signer so please let him know in advance if you need to make a purchase.

FUN FAIR:  The Fun Fair is set for November 20.  Please mark your calendars.

FREE BOOKSTORE:  L. Shimoda thanked Kirsten Kajiwara and her family for helping to clean the PTA room.  The Free Bookstore will start collecting donated books.  The MES librarian will help coordinate and sort the donations.  We will stack the books in the PTO room.  The librarian will open up the Free Bookstore for teachers.  Teachers will be allowed to take a book from the Free Bookstore for free.  Perhaps parents will volunteer in the morning or during recess to keep the Free Bookstore open.  L. Shimoda asked for donations of elementary age, appropriate books.  The donations may include comic books.

FUTURE MEETINGS:

All future meetings will be held in the cafeteria.

WAIVER DAYS:  L. Shimoda has been discussing waiver days with other schools.  Some schools have a contractor to watch the kids on waiver days so that parents do not have to take off from work. This is something that we can discuss.

OPEN HOUSE: L. Shimoda reported that during the Open House the Big Island Candies fundraising bars were for sale.  Members commented that it tasted good. During Open House the PTA sold over 100 BIC candy bars at $3.00 each and made a profit of $204.00.  The PTO plans to bring BIC candy bars to future events.  R. Taone commented that the Open House was wonderful and went well from a teacher’s point of view.

L. Shimoda said that during Open House a comment was made about school supplies.  There are vendors who parents can contact to purchase all of the student’s supplies at one time. T. Kimura looked into the program but we were not able to participate since the school supply list was not available in time due to budget issues which caused some uncertainty as to the list.

ADJOURNMENT:  The next meeting of the PTO Board will take place on September 9.  President L. Shimoda adjourned the meeting at 7:05 p.m.

Lei Fukumura

MES PTA Secretary