MECS+Minutes

- establish the number of schools we have attending. - establish the number of students attending from each school - Which staff will attend? Jim Crisp, Tim Cross/Damien Ashley(TBC), Jenni Sawyer, Laraine Kuhl - Staff relief will be paid by MECS 2008 levy - Janice will coordinate - Possible that staff may also attend on the Friday, Bob is interested in taking a car load up. - Establish a group of MECSicans to drive this agenda forward and coordinate the shared learning activities which will take place Terms 2-4
 * Minutes of the MECS meeting 11.02.09 ****
 * Venue - Frederickton PS, staffroom **
 * Time: 2pm for primary student leadership **
 * MECS Primary Student Leadership Term 2-4 ** **

Host the first venue at the PCYC on Thursday June 4th - 9.30 - 2.00pm groups would come with someone from their school. Mecs will pay for the famous four to attend the first day and we would anticipate that grant funding would pay for the next few. Approximate costs are Course 40 students @ $27 (ex GST) = $1080.00 4 staff/adults @ $15 (ex GST) = $60.00 GST = $114.00 __TOTAL PAYABLE = $1254.00__ An information letter with all final details is being sent to you by email to the attending schools. [] Cascades EEC - $30 /head - Thursday dinner,supper,Friday breakfast, lunch + casual relief Bunkhouse of 18, bunkhouse of 22, 10 sleep on mattresses on floor, 2 rooms of 2 staff 3 pm for MECS meeting. Select roles for MECS for 2009 Chairperson- David, Promotions - Mick, Secretary - Garry Finance - Janice - to provide update and explain process for schools sending in Levy. - balance of approx $6000 - Janice handed out the tax invoices to all Principals present and will post the rest. Janice discussed promoting a blood drive amongst our schools and will get more informations out to us. Use school aid website to link our kids activities into. You have to go on line to register but it allows the support to be coordinated Bob provided an update on the proposed technology courses Jenny Sawyer** -"P **arenting with a Smile", free. Jenny has an outline and there is an insert for your newsletters Wednesday 25th February, 7-830 pm at Kempsey RSL Auditorium. Alison is doing a Cooperating communities unit at school and is looking for email buddies - Allison will email principals with the info and we need to pass it on to the teacher at our school who will be involved. Kinchela, Kempsey High, Willawarrin, Bellbrook are on the list. - DM concerned that our schools are not represented equally with on some of these recent funding approvals. Sue and Leo had general discussion around the make up of the list. DM will follow up with the allocations committee/PPA/AMU and find out how the decisions were made and provide feedback to the group. Some other recent programs we seemed underrepresented in included Connecting CLassrooms and the initial Best Start Pilot. Re the survey to see what our families are reading- 28 families replied. 26 read the Happynings, 22 the Observer, 16 the Tues Argus and 15 the friday Argus. Jenni is happy to collate the MECS results if the schools can get the info to her. - Action - ask Jenni to resend the survey to MECS Schools
 * AMOUNT: **
 * FINAL CONFERENCE DETAILS: **
 * Agenda items - **
 * Present: Leo, Bob, Garry, Allison, Jim Crisp, Janice, Jenny S, Lyn, Sue Hill, Rob Bourke, David ****
 * Mecs Idol ** - Lyn provided an update - Term 4 flyer - Lyn has only had 4 responses from Smithtown, West, Millbank, Kinchela, - Lyn will email us with dates and times after they check with Melville Hall availability. Yr6 can compete only if they have gone into a Public HS.
 * Victorian bush fire victims: can we help? ** - Sue outlined a suggestion for accommodating some of the families in holiday accommodation or billeting in our area. Most schools are doing their own student fundraising.
 * Principals' Wiki/WEB 2.0 Course **
 * - ** 9 people for the principals course on 25th & 26th February, we are also planning a night out with Colin (the presenter) and anticipate that this may be Wednesday - dinner at either Wombat or the Club - TBA
 * Staff Wiki Course- 11th - **Wednesday** - **12th 9 staff on thursday at this stage
 * EKPS - Surviving parenting course - **
 * Gifted and Talented activities Terms 1 to 4 ** - Leo explained his idea of a GATS program for Macrobiotica and he will flesh out a program for schools to be involved and provide it to everyone to decide if they will be involved. Streamwatch/Murder Under the microscope may also be linked.
 * School emails ie school.teachers etc ** - Bob advised to make sure you are sending your emails out on their own distribution list because if you use school.org it will also go out to everyone that has been at your school.
 * Principals Prioirty Maintenance program **
 * OD & H Contractors? ** - Bob
 * Newspaper Survey ** - Jenni has her results from EKPS