Blake High School PTSA

A Planning Meeting for the Silent Auction will take place next Monday night, March 8th, 2010 at 7pm in the Blake HS Career Center. The Silent Auction is now a mere 2 months away on May 7th, 2010!

The Auction Committee will discuss IMPORTANT next steps in the areas of:
Publicity and Marketing, Auction Dinner, Online Auction & “Night-Of” Logistics.

Blake families should be receiving an Auction letter this week, detailing this year’s event, along with a donation form.  We have already collected almost 100 donations from the business community who received letters earlier this February.

This is the PTSA’s largest fundraiser for our Blake students, staff and school. The Committee is deeply in need of Volunteers to help us support our school!  Please feel free to contact us at: auction@blakeptsa.org or either:
Dawn Dolan: (dtdolanATverizonDOTnet) or Maureen Hill-Gross (mhillgrossAThotmailDOTcom)

For more information see all posts for the Silent Auction on this web page.

Due to several circumstances, including the severe weather in February, the PTSA has cancelled Comedy Night 2010 on March 12th. However, we are trying to reschedule it in April. We will keep you posted through the PTSA web site and Eubiemail on any new date for the event.

Currently, Comedy Night is a committee of two parents who have been tied up with the Book Sale and other PTSA projects. We welcome parents and students who would like to help us get it going—even an hour or two will help. We especially need parents to act as judges for comedy try-outs during the school day and/or after school, and students to help us set up on the performance night. If interested, write Orit and Beth at: vp@blakeptsa.org.

Blake’s 2010 Used Book and Media Sale
Place: Cloverly Shopping Center (742 Cloverly St., Silver Spring, Md.)
Dates: February 19, 2-8 pm; February 20, 10-8 pm; February 21, 11-5

Other dates:
We will also be moving books from the school storage shed to the store on Tuesday afternoon, Jan. 26 after school. Anyone who can help load or unload the truck would be greatly appreciated. Students too.

Our first book-sorting party will take place this Thursday, January 28, from 4 to 7 (and later, if anyone wants to keep going) at the store in Cloverly Shopping Center (742 Cloverly St.). If you have a folding table you could loan for that day or for the month, please bring it along–we should try to avoid having to bend over too much to sort the books. Please pass the word along to family, friends, people you see on the street, etc. We can use all the help we can get.

Also,  we’ll be collecting books, DVDs, CDs, and other media at the store on Saturday, January 30, from 10 to 1. All you need to do is pull up in your car, and someone will take your boxes and bags out for you.

Volunteer and SSL opportunities: This undertaking offers many SSL opportunities for students, particularly on drop-off days, during the sale, and immediately after the sale. Have your students contact Ms. Rigney at school or Orit Lowy Chicherio (oritilATyahooDOTcom) if they’d like to help out.

The next 11th Grade Parent-to-Parent meeting is on Thursday, January 28th, from 7:00-8:30 p.m. in the amphitheatre.
 
Mr. DuBoyce will present information about the upcoming Fall registration, the February 26th ACT/SAT opportunity, summer school, the May AP schedule, and more.  There’ll be time for questions and answers to keep you in the loop as well as a chance to provide input for topics at our April meeting.
 
Please join us and spread the word to other 11th grade parents!
 

If you’re wondering what to do with all the books, movies, and music you had to clear out to make room for your guests and new stuff, we have a perfect solution! Stash all those things away for the 3rd annual Blake High School Used Book and Media Sale. After the first of the year, we’ll be collecting your donations for this worthy PTSA event, which raises money for scholarships for our students. The sale will take place on February 19-21. Please contact Orit Lowy Chicherio if you have questions or donations (oritilATyahooDOTcom).

“Potluck and a Project”

NAACP Parents’ Council December  Meeting
Wednesday, December 16th
6:30 – 8:00 p.m. - Blake HS,  Cafeteria

In the spirit of the holiday season, please join us for the NAACP Parents’ Council Meeting on December 16th as we share with those who are less fortunate.  We will be having a Pot Luck dinner and would ask families to bring a dish to share – main course, sides, and/or desserts.

In addition, we are asking families to bring items to donate to the Greentree Shelter, a transitional home for homeless families, primarily children with single mothers, that provides the basic support systems necessary for families to rebuild their lives.

Contact Bobette Banks at threebmeATaol.com or Sharon Mosley-Ramsey at alljazz105ATaol.com for more information. All are welcome!

For more events and event details, see our PTSA Calendar page.

The first After Prom committee meeting was held on Oct. 5th. Watch this space for announcements about future After Prom committee meetings and events.

The committee is in charge of the After Prom, which will be held at Dave and Busters on May 15th. Committee member positions include Decorations, Fundraising, After Prom Activities, Prizes, T-shirts and others. In addition, the committee raises money to support the After Prom through such events as dine-outs at local restaurants and after-school pizza sales on Tuesdays.

If you were not able to come to the meeting but would like to help in any way please contact Maura McMullen (McMullens2ATverizonDOTnet) or Diane Bush at (dbush10892ATverizonDOTnet).

Be sure to check out our new online calendar, which gives you a whole year’s worth of PTSA and related school events. You can access it from the Calendar button on the left.

Because the calendar is through Google, it offers several useful features:

• You can click on an event and get more information. For instance, after-school pizza sales begin on Sept. 8th. If you click on the link, it offers this description: “Pizza is sold after school on Tuesdays during the school year, starting Sept. 8th, to benefit After Prom.” [Note: we'll add more details as events near and as the school year proceeds.]
• You can print off a calendar for each month, using the Print button at the top.
• If you have a Google account, you can import this calendar into your personal Google calendar. Click on the Google Calendar icon at the bottom right of the calendar, sign into your Google account, and when prompted “Would you like to add calendar: PTSA Calendar?” click “Yes.”
• You can also add individual events to your personal Google calendar by clicking “copy to my calendar” at the bottom of the description of the event.
• For events where there is an address given, such as After Prom, you can click on the Map link to see a map of where the event is taking place.

If you have an event that you would like to add to the PTSA Calendar, please contact Beth Blevins at: vp@blakeptsa.org.