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Teacher Valentine Gifts

We love teachers, and we love giving them gifts, and on Valentine's Day we are especially moved to give teachers a Valentine. As we wrote about a few weeks ago, in these tougher times, added expenses can be a burden on families, and that can make giving teachers a Valentine gift a bigger challenge.

Our suggestion was this: give teachers a break, literally, by officially giving a teacher the Valentine gift of time, but give it a holiday dressing. Instead of a collection of real flowers, which can be expensive, how about an inexpensive bouquet of crafted flowers, each of which is inscribed with the date and name of a parent who will cover the teacher's shift at recess duty?

There are so many other ways parents can give their time collectively to make a big impact on a favorite teacher. Using VolunteerSpot's simple scheduling tool makes it easy to get everyone coordinated. Dream big this Valentine's Day, and know that showing your love to a teacher or anyone doesn't ever require money.

Plan a School Carnival To Raise Money and Build Community Spirit - It's Easy!!

Manage Volunteers and have More Fun at School Carnivals

With cost-cutting everywhere, PTOs and school Booster Clubs are working harder than ever to make up for budget shortfalls and supply necessary equipment and funds for school activities. Most of us hold one or more straight up "buy this!" fundraisers like gift wrap, school photos or books, but some of the most favored events are those that bring the whole school together. Auction nights are often just for the parents but Carnivals are for everyone. 

This post proudly sponsored by Carnival Savers

10% discount on carnival supplies & prizes: Promo Code=VOLUNTEER

At my school, our Carnival took a siesta for a few years as more energy was put into the annual auction. But then a couple of our more experienced parents remembered how much fun it was and spearheaded a drive to bring it back. Thank goodness!!

I have a confession -- I'm not a person that enjoys the cost or chaos of County Fairs or amusements parks -- and I was biased against a Carnival for that reason. But with heavy arm-twisting from both kids, suddenly I'm standing in the field holding streamers of tickets looking for the next great opportunity to have fun. My favorite booths were ones that our parents and kids just made up -- there was a pen full of shaving cream and the kids sloshed around in it with some big play balls and you couldn't hear a conversation for the gales of laughter coming from the kids. Locking people up in made-up jail cells is always good, and here in Texas, cascarones are a must have (*for those of you outside the area, this is a real eggshell filled with confetti or birdseed that you smash on people or throw at them. Totally biodegradable and probably improves the soil!!)

Carnivals are really only limited by two things -- the inventiveness and the involvement of the parents -- because it takes a ton of people and coordination to make these things fly!! But with a good plan and a good volunteer coordination setup, these events can be put on and taken down in a short time window, with a major positive impact on the bottom line and the school community.

VolunteerSpot is perfect for coordinating your school carnival volunteer workforce. One coordinator can simply set up the entire schedule of volunteer tasks from preparation beforehand, to set up, staffing and finally breakdown and cleanup. It may take a ton of people, but once the job assignments and dates are in VolunteerSpot's free coordination and scheduling tool. simply pop in the parent email list and invite them to help. Shifts get claimed from each parent's email, and the coordinator can watch (in real-time) as the event gets staffed up. 2 days before each shift, volunteers are contacted and reminded where they are supposed to be (especially handy if they signed up months before and forgot!). On the day of the carnival, printouts of what everyone has signed up for and where they are meant to be can be brought to the event to help things run smoothly. All this handy coordination muscle is absolutely free, so start using VolunteerSpot today to make your school events way way easier.

Volunteer Software : Good, Strong and Free

Volunteer software to schedule volunteers is something available to many organizations, usually for a fee ranging from $99 to $395 or even more for enterprise level systems. And like many software packages, it takes orientation and training to learn to use these effectively - an especially difficult  hurdle when it may be a very part-time volunteer running the system. There may be so many bells and whistles it gets in the way of people actually using it. So a high cost plus a steep learning curve may easily deter small, more informal groups like PTAs, sports clubs, community building teams or member drive coordinators from signing on.

VolunteerSpot is different. First off, it's free. Second, it was designed to be easy to understand by any volunteers or volunteer coordinators who need a better scheduling tool. It's designed so it's easy to get up and running the first time by any person logging on to the web site looking for a way to make communication easy - even people who don't use computers for anything other than checking email. It's also extremely robust having already been put to the test scheduling all day school carnivals with 200 volunteer roles and every day, year long activities to get playground monitors to work every day across a simply 150 day schedule (that last one took an untrained coordinator just 14 minutes to set up.) and a successful get out the vote operation.

We created VolunteerSpot because we were the frustrated part-time volunteers in school, in church and in scouts who couldn't find simple scheduling tools to make our lives easily. So we built one. We hope you try it and it helps you as much as it helped us.

Dreaming of Summer: Swim Teams Get Better Parent Volunteer Coordination Tools

With the arrival of the Phelpsian achievement, swimming will be extra huge this summer as thousands of new kids join in the sport, learn their basic strokes and start competing against their best times.

But unlike many wonderful activities of parenting, like public school, just dropping off and picking up is not an option. Swim meets are like county fairs with speedos -- so many activities, so many starts and stops, so many little pods of children that need to be sheparded throughout the event that swim teams and meets require parents to fulfill many critical roles. Swim team parents and swim team volunteers must fill spots as races timer, age group parents, even people to manage the snack bar. Often times it's not just at meets that huge crews of parent volunteers are needed, but during practices as well.

One veteran parent talked about the herculean volunteer coordination task at her swim club. "Some years there is a parents committee that tasks out management and staffing of each activity to one parent coordinator who arranges volunteers for each task. And they all sort of keep an eye out to make sure that all the parents pull their weight and work a fair number of meets -- usually 5 out of 7 in the season. But some years, the parents committee doesn't coordinate the volunteers and half of us end up working like crazy the whole season and half just sort of hide out and hope no one notices them!!"

VolunteerSpot salutes the incredible work of these parents and the hard work of the parent coordinators who work so tirelessly to try to get everyone where they need to be. Just a question though -- would it be okay if it were like 10 (maybe 20) times easier? Thought so, just look at what VolunteerSpot can do for your club this season (for FREE):

• Easily set up meet calendars, establish all the jobs and number of volunteers needed.
• Once one meet and all its volunteer jobs are set up, this can be copied for all the other meet dates in the season --  simply change the meet name and location all the jobs copy over with a simple point and click copy function.
• Put in the email addresses of all the team parents (once you do this, you can send email updates to them all season) and ask them to choose a minimum number of shifts
• Parents receive email, click in to your calendar, and start choosing their shifts.
• Coordinators can easily check to see whether parents have signed up for shifts or not and can then bug only those parents who are slacking!! or send a special thank you to those who have already picked up shifts!! or any other communication.
• 2 days before the meet, VolunteerSpot automatically emails everyone to remind them of their assignment.
• Coordinators can print out an assignment list from VolunteerSpot to have hard copies on hand at the meet to remind everyone who's handling what that day. 

Here at VolunteerSpot we are watching the icicles and shivering in our coats today and we can't wait for summer. Here's to a great swim season and to teams all over making their volunteering easier with VolunteerSpot.

Free & Easy Swim Team Volunteer Scheduler By VolunteerSpot

View more presentations from VolunteerSpot. (tags: volunteers team)

Volunteer Scheduling Made Free and Easy

Volunteer Scheduling and Coordination is perhaps the most important aspect of a volunteer event or organization's success. Coordinators burnout if they have to spend too much time just getting people to show up and volunteers burn out when it seems like the scheduling is too confusing.

The VolunteerSpot tool allows organizations to schedule volunteers across days, weeks and months -- simply and easily. There's no big learning curve or training time required -- just visit VolunteerSpot and start setting up your activities. Once you've set the schedule, invite your volunteers to claim a shift -- you can even include lots of helpful info about the job for the volunteers to see when they check out the volunteer schedule.

Software packages can cost a lot and may be warranted by large organizations with large budgets. But if you are just a frustrated PTA coordinator, troop leader, swim team coach, teacher or anyone else with volunteer jobs to fill and not enough hours in the day to call everyone, try FREE and EASY VolunteerSpot to make volunteer scheduling a snap.

Volunteer Sign Up Sheet

Save Time and Energy - Create Your Own Free Online Volunteer Sign Up Sheet

Visit our homepage and get started with VolunteerSpot today!

Innovative solutions for managing volunteers are just a click away!  VolunteerSpot's free online sign up sheets with reminders allow anyone from the school committee chair and charity board member to the team mom, cafeteria coordinator, church volunteer leader, room parent, teacher, Scout leader, you name it, manage an online volunteer calendar without the worry and stress which comes with reply-all emails, endless phone calls, constant updates to spreadsheets and clipboard schedules.

 

 6 Great Reasons to Use VolunteerSpot’s Free Online Signup Sheets

1. Easy to set up ● schedule jobs, shifts and things to bring like food and supplies

2. More parents/volunteers sign up to help ● online 24/7 and smart phones too!

3. More parents/volunteers show up to help ● thanks to auto-reminders

4. Clipboard compatible ● make assignments for parents and volunteers without email

5. Flexible ● invite by email or a speedy link in a newsletter, website, or facebook

6. Time saver ● VolunteerSpot does the busy-work, you do the meaningful work!

 

Watch a quick overview of VolunteerSpot and see how free online sign up sheets with automated reminders can save you time and energy!

 

Take a tour, Try a demo & Register Today: www.VolunteerSpot.com

Super Simple (and free) Parent-Teacher Conference Scheduling & Reminders

I'm looking forward to parent-teacher conferences - I get my childrens' teachers undivided attention to review work, ask questions, and gain helpful feedback to share with my kids.  If your school is like mine, however, getting parent-teacher conferences scheduled is a HASSLE!  Between back-and-forth email messages, clipboard signup sheets, and backpack-couriered messages, it takes DAYS to finalize the schedule.

With VolunteerSpot's automated scheduler, the teacher makes a master sign up sheet for all the available conference times in MINUTES ....and invites parents to sign up via email - no registration required - it's that easy!

Parent-Teacher Conference Scheduler - month view

 

Parent-Teacher Conference Scheduler - day view

 

Our free online software makes it point-and-click simple for parents to view the entire schedule and select a spot that works for them.  As parents need to shift their schedules, they can make changes right on the VolunteerSpot calendar in real-time, so it's always current. Teachers have the option of assigning conference spots at any time, helpful for documenting verbal arrangements. To make things even easier for our Teachers, VolunteerSpot sends out automated confirmation and reminder messages, helping parents keep their commitments. 

Watch our quick video to see how easy it is to schedule your parent teacher conferences with VolunteerSpot >>

Save on Your Taxes with Volunteering

Are you getting all the deductions you're entitled too? Are you ready to save more on your taxes this year? I'm in the middle of collecting all my tax related documents to do the best job possible on my taxes, and maximize deductions -- and there are a number of ways to save on tax by volunteering. These areas of charitable deductions were created in the tax code to encourage and reward community and charitable service, and it's our job to take advantage of them!

One of the easiest and most often overlooked areas on which we can claim back a little is on mileage deductions to our volunteer activities. For example, if you work 2x per week in your child's school, which is 6 miles from your house, you can claim 24 miles per week on the volunteer mileage deduction. In the course of the 40 week school year, that adds up to a deduction value of $67.20.

Sadly, it's only 14 cents per mile as a deduction for volunteering, versus the 50.5 cents you could claim for early 2008 for business miles, but hey, it's something. And when you have regular activities (all of which you probably noted in your family calendar) such as boy scout trips, church volunteering, art docent work or Little League coaching, you might find it adds up to more than you think.

The other big area that people sell themselves short is on donations. We are all asked for donations for church and school supplies, to support a friend running a marathon and raising money for charity, things for the local library, plants for the school garden -- all of these are charitable donations, and all of them can be deducted off your taxes. Even museum memberships are mostly tax deductible donations -- just check to see how much is regarded as the value of the entrance fees -- in many cases its a minor amount and the rest is just a donation.

Donations of supplies also has a deductible value. What if you did a big print job for your kids sports team car wash? Deduct the value of the ink and supplies used to print the flyers.

Can everyone deduct this stuff - no, and only your tax professional can tell you for sure. But if you deduct, this is probably an option that could save you a little on taxes this year -- and as we know, this is the time to try to save money any way you can think of it!! And if you use your family calendar to backtrack all that you've done, save that along with your other tax records as proof of your charitable claims.

Finding the Greatest Teacher Gifts

At VolunteerSpot, we LOVE teachers.  Personally, I feel anyone who is willing to greet my children with a smile each day, guide their learning, inspire them, and help them navigate the challenges of growing up, is a SAINT!  If I had a million dollars, I'd be sharing with our teachers.  Since I don't - we keep VolunteerSpot free for teachers and parents to schedule and coordinate classroom help, fundraisers, exam proctors, and extra free time.

I asked a dozen teachers to list their personal favorite gifts of appreciation - ALL said, "getting a personal thank you note."  Wow - that's easy!  I'm going to step it up and I invite all you parents out there to join in the small satisfying gesture of sending an email message or a hand-written thank you note to your child's teacher. Think about saying Thank You the next time you son or daughter comes home with a cool project, an improved test score, or even continued challenges that your teacher is helping overcome. 

For those wanting to go the extra mile - we'd love to hear your ideas: What are the GREATEST TEACHER GIFTS?   We're putting together a free eBook filled with ideas for Teacher Appreciation and Recognition.  Here are a few to spark your thinking:

• Back to School: Welcome Basket - each parent brings one small item to stock the classroom and keep the teachers out-of-pocket expenses to a minimum:  e.g. pencils, markers, tape, tissue, hand sanitizer, stickers.
• Thanksgiving:  So Thankful or our Teacher - share the thanks by donating a turkey dinner in your teacher's name to a family in need.
• Winter Holidays: Winter Break Package - approach local theaters, attractions and holiday productions and ask for free tickets or discounts to share with your teacher.
• Valentine's Day: Virtual Box of Chocolates - scan a photo of each child's face and paste onto a photo of a large heart-shaped box of chocolates.
• May Day: Class Bouquet - each child brings one flower for the teacher, collectively making a gorgeous bouquet.
• Teacher Appreciation Week - Plan small gifts and little surprises for Teachers throughout the week.  (e.g a packet of seeds - "Thanks for helping our children grow!") Hold a raffle for some bigger gifts like shopping cards, a free car wash, and pedicures.
• End of School - Summer Reading Collection - ask parents to each donate one of their favorite gently used books.  Add a beach towel and sunscreen for a relaxing summer gift.

What are your ideas for the GREATEST TEACHER GIFTS? Please respond by scrolling down to the COMMENTS window below.  We're looking for all kinds of ideas -- simple, involved, low-cost, crafty, single-family and class or school collaborative ideas.  (please add your first name and city for recognition)

Family-Friendly Service Ideas for King Holiday

“Everybody Can Be Great Because Everybody Can Serve”

-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

President-elect Barack Obama is calling on Americans across the nation to participate Monday, January 19 in the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. Communities are gearing up for organized service projects - look in your local paper or online at Service Nation to find a project near you.  

For families with young children, a day off from school is a wonderful opportunity to introduce our kids to service and what it means to give back and help others.  If a formal service project isn't for you, please consider participating with your family in less structured way − helping neighbors in need, or in the words of the late Coretta Scott King,  “sharing individual acts of kindness”.
 
We've created a FREE online eBook to help spark action and invites families to join together for this affirming holiday. The new eBook - Family Friendly Volunteering: Ideas from A-Z - is packed full of original and inspiring ideas that are sure to bring families together in a new positive tradition on King Day.

EXAMPLES OF FAMILY-FRIENDLY SERVICE

Stuff new, warm socks with water bottles and granola bars to give to the homeless on street corners

Make Valentine’s Cards and care packages for soldiers overseas or nursing home residents

Shovel snow for an elderly neighbor

Decorate reusable grocery bags for the food pantry

Pick up litter and scrub graffiti at your local park

Click here to download this eBook: Family Friendly Volunteering: Ideas from A-Z
Service ideas for Families, Students, Youth Groups and Scouts


What ideas do you have for family-friendly service?

Becoming a Bunco Benefactor

For a little social and comic relief, some friends of mine started up a Bunco group. We’re really pathetic, can never remember the rules from month to month, forget the dice, but we get together, get to know each other and our new guests as they come, have a little wine and a little food, roll some dice and laugh. It’s awesome.

When the group started, one of our lead organizers suggested that rather than keep our winnings, we consider giving them to charity. For a $5 buy in, rather than possibly walking away with $50, you just walk away, smiling and content from a good evening, but no richer.

Last time we played, I brought up a group that I thought was incredibly worthy and under served, a local high school that serves our lowest income community where everything is a struggle because the needs are so great. I had spoken to their vice principal about ways to help, and she said they needed books for a reading group. The words were barely out of my mouth that the entire Bunco group said. “Yep, we’re in.” Of course, they were feeling generous, it was the week before Thanksgiving. I took the money, thanked them and the books were purchased.

Our Bunco squad just met again – a few new faces and some returning favorites. Again we played (worse than ever… explain Baby Bunco again?), laughed a lot, and declared a winner. Everyone immediately suggested we give the money to the high school again. I protested, saying it was up to the winner – no, no, no she said – give the money to the school, get them more books.

And so here I sit, content from my monthly evening out, with another parcel of cash to dole out to a good cause. I partied, I gambled, I gave. It’s a good feeling to be a Bunco benefactor.

The BEST Valentine's Gift for Teachers in a Tough Economy - TIME!

Valentine's Day is an ideal opportunity for us to tell our teachers how much we love and appreciate all they do for our children! Giving the gift of time resonates with both parents and teachers, especially when budgets are tight.  With VolunteerSpot, classroom parents sign up to share some of their time to supervise at recess, bring the teacher lunch (or a family dinner) or anything else parents think of, turning an individual small gesture into a collectively generous gift.

 

Recognizing our childrens' teachers with a gift from the class is a Valentine's tradition at our elementary school.  Each classroom typically takes up a collection and presents the teacher with a gift card, spa treatment, or restaurant certificate. (yes, I realize this is very generous).

This year, given the economic crisis and being sensitive to family budgets, our PTO has directed homeroom moms NOT to collect money for teacher gifts. I applaud this move - in our district, we have several parents who have recently lost their jobs. 

Consider giving teachers a daily break by taking over recess duty.  Simply set up a recess monitor schedule using VolunteerSpot.com and parents sign up to take turns supervising kids on the playground each day.  With a class of 20 kids, it turns out to be about one day a month per family. Moms and dads can both participate (even us working moms -- c'mon it's less time than a lunch break and we need the Vitamin D!) - and your teachers will LOVE their new found free time!

Another thing the class CAN do together is set up a Thank You Meal Schedule with VolunteerSpot's automated sign up sheet.  Parents sign up online to send lunch or a take-home-meal one day a week. If the parent is available, (s)he can also offer to bring the teacher lunch and supervise the class for 30 minutes while the teacher gets a well-deserved break. Of course, if you want to slip in a restaurant gift certificate when it's your turn, I'm sure it would be welcome.

What’s even more wonderful about setting up a meal or recess schedule, is your child’s teacher can enjoy this gift ALL YEAR!  This Valentine's Day, show your teachers how much they are loved, and give them the Gift of TIME!

What ideas do you have for celebrating teachers on Valentine's Day?

Keeping Your New Year's Resolution to Make Life Easier

I've had computers for years now and I'm pretty proficient. I email, excel, google, you know, the most common of the computer verbs. I tend to fall short when it gets to things that -- however simple and effective they are once they are set up -- take just a little set up time. Outlook: tried, stopped, now I just capture addresses in my phone. Quickbooks: should be keeping our balance sheet up to date but I'm still stuck in the stone age with my paper checkbook.

So my New Year's Resolution is to make life easier by putting the time into my technology tools up front to get the productivity assist that I need to make my life run more smoothly. The plan went into effect over the long holiday break: I popped a DVD in the player, plopped my kids in front of it, and finally got the books into the computer books. I'm gonna pass on the Outlook for now; the phone system is actually working out pretty well.

But there's one thing left -- one problem that you may share with me, that you're still doing so old school that you tear your hair out. You know, I'll give you a hint, it's the reason we write this blog in the first place? Yes, that's right -- it's contacting your volunteers and coordinating your volunteer schedule and activities.

You're still making a lot of phone calls, aren't you? You're still getting a ton of reply all emails, aren't you?

And perhaps you've had lots too many people volunteer to decorate for the party and none on cleanup, and then it's your job to write or call back to all of them to try to straighten it all out?

And your free time is limitless and you love torturing yourself like this, right?

You know I'm right -- I know I'm right. And that's why, right before I wrote this article -- about 20 minutes ago, I plugged in my most complicated volunteer activity -- the every week, four different crews, 6 month long schedule of 40 different people -- into VolunteerSpot. It was really, really, REALLY easy. It took just 20 minutes. I'm kind of embarrassed I waited this long, because now, for the rest of the year, I'll know longer have to remember to send out remember notes to this week's work crew -- I already did it -- 20 minutes ago. My estimate is that the 20 minutes I just spent on setting up my schedule will save me a minimum of 10 hours over the next 6 months - time well spent, don't you think?

So are you ready to finally give yourself permission to make your life easier -- and make your volunteering more fun? Jump in -- the water's fine.

And Happy New Year!!