Hey, look! A new post!

Meeting! This Wednesday! We're having a meeting on Wednesday, 5/7, 7:00 pm, at the Chamber of Commerce conference room (we get the use of it for free with our Chamber membership, that's why). The Chamber is located at 1501 Corporate Circle, Ste. 100. That's right across the street from the Senior High School; you turn north beside the Washington Mutual bank, and the Chamber building is pretty much the only thing on the block.

We'll be having elections, so everybody be sure to come!

If you have any questions, contact me. See y'all then!

Cindy

Board meeting and more

At the meeting of the FOSL Board last Monday, we talked about:

1. Kidztime sponsorship
    Aileen, hard working keeper of the on-going book sale, has been paying for child care for the two or three hours a week she spends working at the library. She asked, not unreasonably, if FOSL could do something to help. I talked to Kidztime Hourly Playcare in Town Square, and they're now the sponsors of the on-going book sale. They have a sign up on the book shelf and will be included in the plasma screen slide shows.

2. We've hit a snag with the new bookshelves. They have slightly less shelving space than the shelves we have now (796" as opposed to 805", not including the black cart). I've talked to the distributor we'd be buying them from to see if we can get the shelves in an expanded configuration, i.e., adding an extra bookcase to the normal configuration. They're supposed to get back with me about that (and how much it'll cost if they can do it).
    At the meeting, the consensus seemed to be to go ahead and get the shelves, even if we can't get an expanded version. We didn't vote on it, and Aileen has other thoughts about the issue, so we're going to vote about this on Monday (more about that later).

3. We went over the library's Wish List, and decided to give them everything they asked for, and then some! That includes new bookshelves for the on-going book sale (see 2 above), a DVD & CD resurfacer, money to purchase DVDs (instead of us buying them) and a bestseller/program display stand.
    The DVD & CD resurfacer costs $2950, and will save the library a bundle of money by recovering DVDs that are now taken out of circulation (and replaced) because they get scratched. The Colleyville Library uses the system now, and someone had heard that they were upgrading. I agreed to call and find out the details. I talked to them today, and will give a full report on Monday (again, more about that later). The upshot is that I think there's another machine we should get to go along with the resurfacer, and we'll get a deal on them both.
    The Wish List had asked for $3000 to purchase DVDs. In the past FOSL has bought the DVDs and donated them, and by giving them money instead, they may be able to purchase items at a better price then we can. They'll certainly be able to keep up with requests in a more timely fashion. We've spent about $4500 a year on DVDs, so C.D. suggested giving a one time donation of $5000. We'll do that by the end of the year, and then we're out of the DVD business.
    The bestseller/program display stand is a 48" octagonal stand with riser, and will stand across from the checkout desk. It'll cost $1985. Kerry is checking into the vendor for this, in hopes that we can combine shipment with the bookcase (which looks like it's going to have an enormous freight charge, unless we decide on some alternative).

4. We're going to have a membership drive! I believe we can improve the organization by getting more people involved, so I want to get more members. We went over a number of possible ways to do that.
    Jean suggested that we try to have some kind of presence at football games at Dragon Stadium. We won't be able to do that this year, it looks like, but she's going to check to see what we might be able to do next football season.
    I suggested having some kind of activity or booth on the day of the lighting of the Christmas lights in Town Square. I'm checking on that.
    Char suggested having someone outside in Town Square during storytimes, handing some kind of small Stuff [see below] to anyone with young kids and pointing out that storytime is going on inside the library.
    We're going to get Stuff to give away. I want to have a selection of "premiums" for people to choose from when they join (or renew their memberships): pens, pencils, coffee cups, bags (of various types), and so on. We talked about having plastic bags with the FOSL logo for books purchased at the on-going book sale. Rich suggested M&M (he's going to check on that) and also some kind of really nice bookmark (maybe personalized). I'll have some prices by Monday, and we'll get going on that stuff.

And we talked about a few other things:

C.D. is providing electronic copies of the minutes of all the meetings since April, and they'll be accessible on the FOSL website (with a password or possibly a magic decoder ring) as soon as I get around to it. If you want to see them before that time, let me know.

Jean suggested raising the prices for the on-going book sale. We discussed a number of options, and tentatively decided on 50¢ for regular paperbacks and small kids' books, $1 for trade paperbacks and $2 for hardbacks. Aileen has a different opinion about this, and will be calling board members over the weekend to plead her case. We'll vote on it on Monday.

In fact, we'll vote on all this stuff (since we didn't actually vote last week) on Monday. Which brings me to...we'll be having a meeting of the general membership this Monday, at 7pm at Central Market. Char said that she would help, and I'm going to be putting the touch on some other people to help make phone calls. We'll call all the members, just like last time, to try to get people to come to the meetings.
    But this time, as an added incentive, we're giving away Stuff! (I'm telling you, people like Stuff!) At the end of the meeting, we'll draw names and give away:

• $10 gift card for Home Depot
• $10 gift certificate for Red Hot & Blue
• $10 gift card for Buca de Beppo
• 2008 Entertainment Passbook

If anybody else is willing to make phone calls, please let me know ASAP. We've invited the extremely helpful Library Board members, and will contact Shelly and Kimberly, who won their memberships as prizes in the Summer Reading Club. Please let me know whether or not you'll be there.

I'll see y'all on Monday!

Thanks!

Thanks to Kim, Elaine and Rita, who have graciously agreed to work at the ticket booth on Saturday. I really appreciate it!

We'll be having a meeting in the next few weeks. Stay tuned for more info!

Looking for a volunteer (or two)

We need some kind soul to work at the Oktoberfest ticket booth this Saturday. The Southlake Chamber runs the booth, and they need a volunteer from 2pm to 7pm (or several volunteers for part of that time each; we just need to cover that time period).

I'll be there that whole time. Can anyone do it? I worked last year, and it's actually pretty fun.

I'll be emailing everybody. Please, somebody, step up!

We bought lunch for the library staff

The "Summer's [Finally] Over Lunch" went well last Friday. Red Hot & Blue (a big SRC sponsor) delivered barbeque at 11am. They set up the food in the workroom, and the library staff ate throughout the day, as their schedules and workload allowed. Jen even planned to drop by, on her day off from the Irving Library (she's still part-time at the Southlake Library), to join in the party.

I dropped by to make sure everything got there okay, and to deliver the card.

The staff members who had lunch while I was there seemed to enjoy their lunch. Char was nice enough to bring everybody thank you gifts (I believe they were biscotti), and they all appreciated it.

I'm glad we did this! It was a nice gesture to a group of hard working people.

Raffle results

Sorry about the lengthy post! There was a lot to cover.

It's finally over! The winners' names are listed on the website, www.fosl.org.

Totals:

We sold 582 tickets; not exactly the 1,200 we were hoping for, but not bad. Losing the Independence Day booth hurt us, but we still did pretty well.

It's hard to calculate what the exact total will be, because we don't yet have the amount taken in at the library. The cash for the tickets they sold there would have been entered under FOSL in the library's cash register, like the proceeds from the book sale are, and they'll send us a check for that amount. According to my calculations, they sold about 70 tickets, and taking the 'five for $20' thing into account, there should be somewhere around $280 coming.

I deposited $1,945 on Thursday, plus $280 from the library, and C.D. has another $40. We should have, then, about $2,265, or just about half of what the bookdrop costs. Not bad, all things considered!

So you'll know who to congratulate, here's what everybody sold (I did a little better keeping track of some than others, so a few are only estimates):

• Kim..................85 tickets
• Circ desk.........70 (est.)
• Bethann...........62
  
• June.................50
• At the event....50 (est.)
  
• Cindy...............44
• Rita.................41
• Lori.................40
  
• Char................40 (est.)
  
• Wanda............30
• Brenda............20
  
• Rich.................15
• C.D. .................10
• Elaine..............5
• Jean.................5
• Kerry...............5
• Aileen..............5

And this is how the different packages fared:

• Dinner & a Movie............161 tickets sold (or 80-1/2 for each package)
• Wine tasting.....................146
  
• Sparkle..............................90
• Italian Feast.....................52
• Grooming & Beauty........30
• Family Fitness.................23
• Beach Reading 1...............22
• Skin Care 1........................16
• Skin Care 2........................15
• Sweet & Sassy...................14
• Beach Reading 2...............13

Other Assorted Raffle Info:

We obviously owe a big thank you to Farpointe Cellar for the Wine Tasting Party gift certificate. We don't owe any thanks to Harkins Theaters, since we had to purchase the gift cards than went into the Dinner and a Movie packages, but the Cheesecake Factory gift certificates did help, so thanks to them, too. Char will be sending thank you letters to all the sponsors this week.

N.B. — Char and I had a miscommunication of sorts (i.e., I misunderstood), and we had a donation of a night at the Hilton that never got put in a prize package. We received it kind of late in the process, too late to build another package around it, and I thought we could use it for another fund raiser later on. Char got worried about not using it for the raffle, since that's what she told the Hilton people it would be for. The upshot of this is that it'll be added to the Sparkle package (that was the first possibility we had discussed, weeks ago). I apologize for the confusion (mostly on my part)! We're covered, legally speaking, by the fact that the lists of prizes showed the Sparkle package as having, "…and more." It was just a whole LOT more, as it turned out. (Sorry, Aileen! I know you wanted a night at the Hilton. Good luck with the adult SRC grand prize!)

The Raffle Procedure:

For those of you who weren't there, these are the mechanics of the drawings. We drew the winners at the Back to School Bash, right after Super Dave and Ern's show ended. I had separated the tickets in advance according to which prize they were for, and put them in eleven envelopes (one envelope for both 'Dinner and a Movie' prizes). During the show, Elaine and her daughter Margaret went through all the tickets in each envelope to make sure they were sorted correctly. About five minutes before the end of the show, I told Jesse I would be asking him to pick three kids from the audience to help us, and asked that he not pick little tiny kids (there was a glass bowl involved, and I was afraid for very small kids to handle it). As the show ended, Jesse asked for volunteers to raise their hands, and picked three kids (who were really good and very helpful). One held the bowl, another emptied the tickets from the envelopes into the bowl, and the third drew the winning tickets.

We tried to be as diligent as possible to avoid any appearance of hanky-panky with the results. If any questions should come up, I have the now sealed envelopes of tickets, with the winners stapled to them, and anyone who wants to look at them is welcome to.

That's All (Finally):

Whew! That's over, and we came out ahead. Thanks to everyone who sold tickets, especially the masters Kim, Bethann and June! (If any of these women ever ask you to buy anything, you might as well say yes; resistence is apparently futile.) We'll try to have a complete report on the finances of this project, including expenses and so on, at our next meeting.

On to the next project!

Ticket totals so far

I picked up the raffle ticket stubs from the library today. I also had Rich's, most of June's and my own. If anyone wants to calculate the odds, here are the number of tickets for each drawing, so far:

• Winetasting - 41
• Dinner and a Movie - 49 (there will be two drawn from this group)
• Sparkle - 21
• Italian Feast - 13
• Family Fitness - 8
• Grooming/Beauty - 6
• Beach Reading #1 - 4
• Beach Reading #2 - 4
• Sweet & Sassy - 2
• Skin Care #1 - 2
• Skin Care #2 - 2

Somebody please, please sell some tickets for the Skin Care packages. Right now I'm a shoo-in to win both of them (I bought all four of those tickets)!

Keep selling (and point out the great odds on some of those packages)! I'll be picking up tickets from the library each morning. It's almost over...!

Does anyone want to help with the drawing Thursday? I don't think there's going to be a whole lot to do, but I could use some moral support.