ESK PARENTS' ASSOCIATION COMMITTEE MEETING REPORT FEBRUARY 2009

Wednesday, 4 February 2009

Cindy Van Velzen, President, updated the PA Committee on preparations for the PA Committee Dinner on Friday 13 February 2009. So far, we have received approximately 120 responses and still expect a few more. Response had been positive and she felt that this was a good sign. The evening would start around 7pm with drinks and snacks. She would then take the floor and introduce the PA Committee for this year as well as outline our three main topics: Canteen, Communication and Community. PA Committee members would introduce themselves highlighting the reasons why they joined the PA. Other presentations would include, Mr. Hoyem, EuroSport and Students. The evening will end with DJs Markus Zilly and Eugene and a hip-hop demonstration. A similar presentation of the PA Committee is planned for all parents early March.

Table settings would be informal but it was important to ensure that there was a real mix of teachers, admin staff, class reps and students at each table. The dinner would be fairly simple, starting with a selection of anti-pasta and then followed by goulash soup and vegetable soup. Cindy thanked the other members of the team for their help especially Ramil Nasyrov for arranging for the Canteen to take care of a vegetarian soup, bread and ice creams, Michel Messner for organising the wine and beer and those who were going to help set the tables and decorate.

Scolarest, our new Caterers. The Canteen Committee met on Tuesday 3 February and decided in favour of Scolarest. Scolarest will provide fresh food cooked on the spot and will start after the Easter break. It was important that this information is properly communicated to parents and the March parents’ evening is a perfect occasion for this to happen with Scolarest doing a presentation. The summer term should be used to analyse student population, see which menus are successful. In order to do this there should be a control group made up of students, teachers, parents, etc. Other ideas, such as allowing non-canteen kids to hang out with their friends and specific “Try out days” should be allowed to encourage kids to join, or rejoin, the canteen as increasing numbers would help reduce costs. Flexibility should also be improved by looking into use of strip codes on the school cards and ordering over the internet. Parents should be encouraged to send in their ideas and expectations of the new Canteen.

PA Website is on the move. Sarah Winthrop has been negotiating with three web designers and has already established exactly the services and information that we as parents require from a first class website. Our decision on the preferred website design company should be taken in March depending on versatility and value for money. The PA website should be completed and on-line in time for the start of the new school year but will be on-line in “under construction” phase after the Easter holidays. In the meantime, Sarah had prepared a “noticeboard” e-mail to parents with a summary of all that is going on at the moment. This was translated into French by Blandine Aslanides and German by Elke Schubert.

EuroSport countdown. The PA Committee have financed (1000€) TACOffice marketing company to coordinate our EuroSport efforts with the school. Angela Wipper has designed a great website www.ur-o-sport.eu which will have information about the games, the teams, countdown to the event and information for host families including tombola entry ticket for a fabulous prize. This site will go on-line on the 13 February in conjunction with our Dinner.

The PA is also sponsoring an initiative by the pupils to do a “real-time reporting” of the games on the internet so that everyone in all the Europeans schools can follow the progress of their teams. INTERPARENTS have been asked to sponsor a student from their school to come to Karlsruhe and report back on their team. We hope this site will also facilitate interaction between students, promote inter-European school spirit and add a little healthy competitive spice to the games.

Finally, the PA Committee board reported on recent developments and up-coming events, including: the Inspection “Discovery of the World”, the French Inspection of Primary school, the ESK Admin Board on next year’s Budget and the Valentines day bookmark designed by Sylvia Roder to be handed out to the primary school children.

Next meeting – Wednesday 4 March 2009 starting at 7:30pm