Fair Lawn Friends of Music Board Meeting

A meeting was held on Tuesday, June 8th in the Fair Lawn High School Cafeteria.  The meeting was called to order at 7:30 pm by the President Lisa Ahrendt.

Mr. Watson (Superintendent of Fair Lawn Schools) opened the meeting discussing the financial situation in the Fair Lawn Board of Education.  There is a $6,000,000 reduction in state aid.  This unfortunately has caused loss of positions as well as funding of programs.  He explained the process that if staffing positions are lost, they can only re-hire if someone else in that department leaves.  He was not happy with the abundance of e-mails that he received regarding Jamie Szeinberg’s initial loss of position.  He said that his door is open to discuss any situation necessary, but would rather not be bombarded with e-mails.   He also was asked about the inability of the children to bring large instruments home.  Mr. Kafer will follow up with his supervisors to pursue whether or not this will happen.

Mr. Kafer discussed the Marching Band packet that was handed to the kids at Meet the Marching Band night (June 3).  This year there will be a $25 fee for the shirt. This is required to be handed in by June 18th.  There is also a $200/child marching band activity fee that will be used to cover costs for the Marching Band.  The Marching Band currently has a deficit of $2,000.  Mr. Kafer paid a professional to write this year’s drill and music for the show. 

Mr. Kafer proposed to have amendments added to the bylaws to allow for the above mentioned fee ($200/child).   They currently state that we cannot pay individuals for services.   He discussed the necessity of these fees to continue to keep the Marching Band operational at a level to compete with the other bands.  He needs to have staff that is consistently at the practices with the experience level necessary to maintain a nationally ranked marching band.  He discussed the fact that we need to pay this staff.

Mr. Kafer suggested that we have seven additional people added to the staff.  These include 3 full time people and 4 assistants.  Currently the Board of Education pays for Mr. Kafer and three assistants.

He also discussed that we will have a march-athon during band camps in which the children can get sponsors for the time they spend in band camp to either offset the $200 fee or reduce the amount the parents have to pay.

He also mentioned that due to budget costs, there is a high probability that the school will not be open on Sundays when we get back from competitions.  We will need a location to store the equipment.   They are looking into purchasing a trailer to store this equipment.   

In addition to the proposal of amending the bylaws for the marching band fee, we would also like to add Winterguard into the bylaws.

We discussed the gift that the FLFOM will be giving this year and it will be a marimba.

Mr. Kafer is hoping to use the profits from the summer music enrichment program to purchase new color guard uniforms and/or flags. 

We began discussion on how the accounting of the marching band activity fee will be handled.  Further details need to be worked out. 

The band camp dinner this year will have several chair people. 
Susan Mensch will coordinate with the color guard parents.  Adam Banning will coordinate with the percussion parents.  Cathy Greco will coordinate with the brass parents.  We will be looking for another parent to coordinate with the woodwinds.  Hopefully we will get a volunteer at the August meeting.

Adam Banning introduced his fundraising plan to have a list of “preferred vendors” around town.  These vendors will have agreed to donate a percentage of their profits from the purchases made by FLFOM families.  There will be a specific card for each FLFOM family that will need to be used when making purchases at each of these “preferred vendors”.   The FLFOM families will need to retain the receipts and have them signed by the place of business.  Envelopes will be provided to the FLFOM families which will need to be sent to Adam Banning.  Adam has agreed to pay for all the upfront costs of the cards and three envelopes/family and will coordinate to select the “preferred vendors”.  He will also do all the accounting to invoice the vendors for the percentages agreed upon by each vendor.  A motion was made by Lisa Ahrendt to proceed with this plan and Cathy Greco seconded the motion.  Adam will present this plan again in August.

Lisa Ahrendt will coordinate the T-Shirts for this year. 

Joanne LeGrand will be the Quartermaster.

Alice Wiesser was released as Vice President of the Board.

Lisa Ahrendt will temporarily continue as President until someone will take over this responsibility.

The meeting adjourned at 9:30 pm.