Pizza lunch orders due tomorrow

Pizza lunch orders are due tomorrow. If you need to, you can download and print the order form. Please send it to school with your child. Proceeds from pizza lunch support Clairlea's school improvement plan. Pizza lunch is on February 27. 

School Council meeting tonight -agenda and last month's minutes

A reminder of the school council meeting tonight - the agenda is below. The draft minutes from last month's meeting will be presented for approval.

 

FEBRUARY 2013 AGENDA:

6:45 – 7:00pm - Selling 50/50 tickets to be drawn at the end of the meeting (optional)

7:00 – 7:10pm - Introduction and voting in the past minutes (Irit)

7:10 – 7:35pm - Administration Report (Mr. McGilvray and Ms. Harroun)

7:35 – 7:45pm - Treasurer’s Report (Tina)

7:45 – 7:55pm - Fundraising Report (Karen)

7:55 – 8:25pm - Open Discussion (All)

8:25 – 8:30pm - 50/50 draw and wrap up (Irit)

 

A few dates coming up to remember...

February 25th - Cookie Dough Orders are due.

February 27th - Pizza lunch.  Gluten Free is now available. If you have paid for the year please ignore the monthly forms that are sent home.

March 1st - Spirit Wear Orders are due (see attached order form).  Samples are in the office from now until March 1st so you can have a look.  Also you can email us if you want us to arrange a fitting for your child and have us recommend a size.

March 8th - Clairlea Movie Night featuring Wreck-it Ralph.

March 14th - Fundscrip orders are due for the month if you are having them delivered to the school.

I'm afraid I am out of town and have to send my regrets once again - my sincere thanks to Wendy for preparing last month's minutes and Christina for this month's.

Introducing... Fundscrip

Support Clairlea while you shop.

Fundscrip is Clairlea's latest fundraising effort. It costs you nothing - except a bit of planning ahead. 

It works like this: you buy gift certificates for the stores that you already shop in - for example Metro, No Frills, Loblaws, Canadian Tire, Indigo, The Bay, Bath and Body Works, Home Depot, Starbucks, Swiss Chalet, Shoppers Drug Mart, Roots, Winners... the list is long!  Clairlea receives between 3% and 7% back, depending on the retailer (sometimes it's as high as 12%), and you shop just as you normally would - except using your gift cards to pay for your purchases. 

Place your gift card order online (when registering, use code MGBJSW) and pick up your cards at school council meetings or have them sent home with your child. (You can also have the cards shipped directly to your home, but there is a shipping fee that erodes the profit.)

Order schedule for ship-to-school option:

Order Deadline    Pick Up Date             Send Home Date

Feb 14 2013         Feb 20 - 7:00pm       Feb 21

Mar 14 2013        Mar 20 - 7:00pm     Mar 21

Apr 11 2013         Apr 17 - 7:00pm       Apr 18

May 9 2013          May 15 - 7:00pm     May 16

June 13 2013        June 19 - 7:00pm     June 20

And of course, gift cards make great presents! 

Message from the Chair

Below is a message from Irit Hartman, chair of the Clairlea School Council. Most of you will have received this by email - if you didn't, and would like to be on the email list, please write to clairleacouncil@gmail.com.

DEAR CLAIRLEA FAMILIES….

We are half way through the school year and we have some exciting things coming up to tell you about.  Please have a look through the information below and feel free to contact us with any questions or suggestions.  Happy New Year!

COOKIE DOUGH…

Check the backpacks for our spring catalogue featuring a variety of frozen cookie dough flavours.  Complete and submit your order form no later than February 25^th.  All cheques should be made payable to “Clairlea School Council”.  Orders will arrive on Wednesday March 20^th and must be picked up at the school from 7:00pm – 9:00pm only - during the School Council Meeting.  Due to the fact that the cookie dough is frozen it must be picked up and will not be sent home in backpacks.  Please ensure that you specify the name and phone number of the parent that will be picking up your order on the order form.  Orders cannot be stored at the school due to space issues.

SPIRIT WEAR…

Keep an eye out for our new spirit wear order forms coming home in backpacks in the next couple of weeks.  A hint of what you will see:

T-shirt, hoodies (zipped and pullover), baseball caps and metal water bottles (to support the ECO School initiative) all at reasonable prices.  To ensure you get the right fit sample sizes will be made available and fitting days will be arranged.  (Stay tuned!)

FUNDSCRIP (Fundscrip.com):

We are excited to start a new campaign called Fundscrip.  This campaign entails a wide variety of gift cards from over a hundred retailers that you can purchase from.  Each retailer has a predetermined percentage that Fundscrip will send to Clairlea School based on the amount of your gift card at no cost to you. 

For example:  If you shop at No Frills  you can purchase a gift card for $50.00 (or select a different amount) via fundscrip.com and Fundscrip will send Clairlea School a predetermined percentage of your total gift card amount, which for No Frills is 3% at no cost to you and you will receive a $50 gift card to use when you shop.  Each retailer has a different percentage and there are featured monthly specials whereby each month a few selected retailers will have a higher percentage for the month.   

The idea is to just buy gift cards for retailers where you would normally shop anyway and instead of paying via credit card or cash just use the gift cards and benefit the school with the predetermined percentage.  If you are looking for gift cards for presents this is the place to be. 

Please see attached for a full list of over 100 retailers, such as; Build a Bear, Canadian Tire, Chapters, Cineplex, Giant Tiger, Gap, No Frills, Esso, Harvey's, Home Depot, Homesense, Jack Astor's, The keg, Loblaws, Metro, Old Navy, Petsmart, Pizza Pizza, Rona, Rogers, Roots, Sears, Shoppers Drug Mart, Starbucks, Subway, Swiss Chalet, The Bay, The Childrens Place, Blue Jays, Toys R Us, Wendy's, Zellers and Winners just to list a few.

How to Sign up (It’s free):

Step 1: Go to www.fundscrip.com or just click on this link: https://www.fundscrip.com/Sign-Up.aspx?IID=MGBJSW

Step 2: Select “Sign Up Here”

Step 3:  Complete the “Sign up Form” by entering your name, email address, postal code, and password (make one up), our Clairlea school “invitation code” is MGBJSW (not case sensitive)

Step 4: Select “Sign Up”

Step 5: Check your email and click on the link in the email from fundscrip to activate the account

Step 6: Click on “Buy Cards” to go shopping

Once you have selected your cards you have two different shipping options to choose from:

1.       Ship Home – this means that the cards that you ordered will ship to the address you specify whether it is your home address or the address of the recipient you choose.  When using this option the gift cards will ship approximately 3 days after your order is placed.  You will also be charged a shipping cost up to approximately $7.00.

2.       Ship to School (Fundraising Chair – Karen Shah) – this means that the cards that you ordered will ship to Clairlea and will be available on the designated pick up dates listed below.  Each month we will have a deadline for all orders coming to the school and on the order deadline all existing orders in the system will be processed and shipped to the school.  We will then have a pick up date which will be at the monthly School Council Meeting at the school.  All orders that are not picked up on the pickup date will be sent home with your child on the following day.  You will not incur a shipping charge using this option although you will have to adhere to the schedule below: 

FUNDSCRIP SCHEDULE IF CHOOSING SHIP TO SCHOOL OPTION:

Order Deadline                     Pick Up Date                                                         Send Home Date

February 14^th 2013             February 20^th 2013 - 7:00pm at Clairlea         February 21^st 2013

March 14^th 2013                  March 20^th 2013 - 7:00pm at Clairlea              March 21^st 2013

April 11^th 2013                     April 17^th 2013 - 7:00pm at Clairlea                 April 18^th 2013

May 9^th 2013                        May 15^th 2013 - 7:00pm at Clairlea                  May 16^th 2013

June 13^th 2013                     June 19^th 2013 - 7:00pm at Clairlea                 June 20^th 2013

QSP MAGAZINE:

Don’t forget!  This fundraising campaign is still going on and will be open for the remainder of the school year!  You may simply place your order anytime online at www.qsp.ca using our school code which is 9581.  The margin return for this campaign varies on the type of magazine that is ordered but can be up to 37% of the order amount.

PIZZA LUNCH: 

We will be adding a new “Gluten Free” option to the pizza lunch order forms.  This addition will be available for the next pizza lunch on Wednesday February 27^th.

SOME CHANGES COMING UP!!!

We know that pizza lunch is a big hit with the kids and the parents.  Personally I look forward to the one day a month that I don’t have to decide what to make the kids for lunch.  We were thinking of expanding the pizza lunch for the next school year to once a week, starting in the fall of 2013.  That would mean that each month you would get an envelope sent home and you would select which weeks for that month your child will be having pizza lunch (All, none or somewhere in between) and you would put in the payment for the month in the envelope.  Also we would eliminate the snack and drink and just provide the pizza.  The rationale behind this would be to make it easier logistically to distribute the pizza lunch and also to support our ECO School by encouraging children to utilize reusable water bottles for their lunch and encourage healthy snacks to be supplied from home.  Let us know what you think about this and send us your feedback.

MOVIE NIGHT:

Our next movie night will be on Friday March 8^th featuring “Wreck-It Ralph”.

NEXT CLAIRLEA COUNCIL MEETING:  Our next meeting will take place on Wednesday February 20^th @ 7pm until 8:30pm.   Free child minding is available and all are welcome! 

FEBRUARY 2013 AGENDA:

6:45 – 7:00pm - Selling 50/50 tickets to be drawn at the end of the meeting (optional)

7:00 – 7:10pm - Introduction and voting in the past minutes (Irit)

7:10 – 7:35pm - Administration Report (Mr. Mcgilvray and Ms. Harroun)

7:35 – 7:45pm - Treasurer’s Report (Tina)

7:45 – 7:55pm - Fundraising Report (Karen)

7:55 – 8:25pm - Open Discussion (All)

8:25 – 8:30pm - 50/50 draw and wrap up (Irit)

HOW TO REACH US…

If you would like to unsubscribe to this email (we hope you don’t) or know someone that would like to be added to the distribution list please send a request to clairleacouncil@gmail.com.  We would like to hear your feedback and suggestions.  If you are not able to come to the next meeting and want to contribute ideas please email them to us or drop a note in the council box in the office and we can bring them forward to the meeting.    You can contact us via email at clairleacouncil@gmail.com, on the blog at http://clairleacouncil.blogspot.com, or have a look at our bulletin board outside the office for the latest news.

Best Regards,

Irit

Clairlea School Council

School Council meets Feb 20

The next School Council meeting is on Wednesday February 20, 7:00pm. All welcome. Childcare will be provided. Voting members, please make every effort to attend. 

Buses cancelled today - school is open

Due to the snowstorm, school buses are cancelled today, Friday February 8, 2013. School is open.

If your child will be absent, please let the school know by calling their safe-arrival line - 416-396-6165.

Movie night a smashing success

I hope everyone had fun at movie night on Friday! (Apologies for not posting the flyer here. I will do that next time.)

It was a great success, with about 150 people present. Thank you to everyone who attended and bought drinks/popcorn/candy, as well as to those who volunteered and helped to clean up. Early estimates suggest we raised more than $400 to support the school improvement plan.

The next movie night is planned for March...stay tuned for details.