Happy New Year! Welcome to 2012.  The January Metcalfe Public School Newsletter is now available here.  And the school calendar is available here.

FURTHER UPDATE: this month’s council meeting, originally delayed due to inclement weather and tentatively rescheduled for 24 January, has been canceled due to a scheduling conflict.  The next council meeting will be on Tuesday, 21 February 2012.

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2012.

Remember that the January meeting of the Council will be held on Tuesday,  17 January 2012 (the 3rd Tuesday of the month as opposed to the 2nd) at the school.  Hope to see you there.

And goodbye and best wishes to Mr. Guido Ronci, who takes up his new duties as Vice-Principal at Knoxdale Public School starting on January 9. Also, welcome to Ms. Nancy Hartnoll, who will be taking over as Vice-Principal at Metcalfe Public (and will presumably be joining us at the Council meetings).

This will likely be the last post of the year, and it’s a collection of various items of news.

First of all, this year’s Jingle Bell Bazaar was a huge success.  We hit a new record, raising over $3100; that’s $1000 more than last year.  A huge Thank You to Jennifer Finniss, our JBB coordinator, and to everyone who volunteered, donated items or food, or just came to enjoy the day.

Second, I’ve finally gotten around to posting some of the council meeting minutes for this year; here they are:

• September Minutes
• October Minutes

I’ll be digging into my archives and posting some of the minutes from last year on the Minutes page as soon as I can; the above links have been added there as well.

Third, a reminder that the school Christmas Concert is tomorrow, Wednesday 21 December 2011, in the school gym at 9am.  Hope to see you there.

And finally, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all, from your website administrator and the Metcalfe Public School Council.

The December Council Meeting is tonight (Tuesday, 13 December 2011) at the school;  it will be a short meeting to allow for setup for the Jingle Bell Bazaar afterwards.  (Apologies for the previous post which indicated it was last Tuesday;  I thought that is what had been agreed.)  The JBB is tomorrow at the school.

Details of and the order form for the Winter Hot Lunch Program are available in the attached document.  Please return form and payment to your child’s homeroom teacher by December 16, 2011.  Cheques are payable to Metcalfe Public School Council.  If you have questions or would like to volunteer to help with the program, please contact MPShotlunch@gmail.com.

This year’s Jingle Bell Bazaar will be held at the school on December 14th. The Jingle Bell Bazaar is our annual Christmas bazaar held during the school day in the gym. Students browse through donated items and buy gifts for their immediate families. Our younger students particularly enjoy this, as they get to surprise family members with gifts that they pick out all on their own. Items are priced between $0.25 and $3 and are wrapped for your child.

To add to the festivities, there is the ever popular bake sale and popcorn. We have a raffle table as well as a potluck luncheon held by the volunteers for the volunteers and staff. And then, of course, Santa comes for a visit. To make this event run smoothly, we need your help in many ways. Please see below the attached document for more details and for a form to let us know where you can help.

1. Donations for the Bazaar
2. Donations of wrapping supplies
3. Goodies for the Bake Sale
4. Potluck dishes for the Volunteer Luncheon
5. Donate a Raffle Item
6. Sorting and Wrapping
7. Setup for the Bazaar
8. Help run the Bazaar
9. Help run the Volunteer Luncheon

If you have any questions:
Our Jingle Bell Bazaar coordinator is Jennifer at 613-821-1363.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there.

The MPS Council holds several fundraising events each year;  these include the ongoing Hot Lunch program, the Jingle Bell Bazaar and the Dance-a-thon, to name a few.  These programs raise funds which are returned to the school in support of various initiatives to aid our childrens’ education, growth and development.

For example, this year the School Council will be providing just under $800 to support the Forest of Reading program.  This brings an excellent selection of recent Canadian children’s books to the school.  Children aged 5 through 14 are encouraged to read 6 of the 10 selections available and are rewarded for their efforts by becoming judges in a province-wide event.  The program promotes Canadian authors and the improvement of reading skills in both French and English.  Metcalfe Public School has participated in the “Blue Spruce”, “Silver Birch” and “Silver Birch Express” levels of the program for the last 5 years, and the “Red Maple” level for intermediate students for the last 4.  This year will be the second year we offer “Le Prix Tamarack” to our students as well.

Additionally, every year the Council provides $1000 towards the printing of the student agendas. Due to the low response to the request for voluntary/optional funding for the agendas this year, the Council has recently voted to provide an additional $1000 towards the cost of this year’s student agenda.

The Council is currently working towards the long-term goal of replacing the existing primary play structure.  This is an expensive proposition and raising the funds for this is expected to take multiple years.

For various reasons, we need to adjust the schedule of the MPS Council meetings over the next few months.  The next council meeting will be on Tuesday, December 6;  this is to accommodate the Jingle Bell Bazaar, planned for December 14.  Meetings in January, February and March will be held on the 3rd Tuesday of each month instead of the 2nd Tuesday as usual.  Also – this year’s Dance-a-thon fundraiser is tentatively scheduled for March 9th, 2012.

Please note that the November School Newsletter is now available here.

A reminder that the next meeting of the MPS Council will be at 6:30pm on November 8, 2011 (Tuesday) at the school.  Hope to see you there.

Also please note that there may be some minor issues with the website over the next few days.  We are doing the yearly domain registration and hosting renewals and there have been some minor hiccups;  I don’t expect any interruption of service but this is just to let you know in case there is that I am working on the problem and you don’t need to bombard me with email.  You may have noted as well that the subscription boxes to the right have changed;  this is because we are investigating a new mailing service.

A reminder that the October MPS Council meeting will be held this evening (October 11) at 6:300 pm at the school.  Hope to see you there.