Chicopee Council Parent Teacher Organization

April 15-Nominations due for Merit and Civic awards

April 26-CCPTO MEETING (Bowe Library)

                Voting on accepting By-Laws changes, voting for new officers, voting on Civic Award Winner(s)

 *April 28-Scholarship applications due

*May 3-Scholarship committee meeting to decide on scholarship winners

May 11-Payment for those attending the Merit/Fitzpatrick dinner due No Later Than this date

May 17-Merit Award/Fitzpatrick Scholarship Dinner at the Portuguese American Club

*These dates only apply to those signed up to be on that specific committee

CCPTO Meeting

March 15, 2011

We had a GREAT turnout for this meeting.  Thank you to everyone who attended!  We hope to see this kind of turnout more often!

Joann Lennon came to our meeting to discuss the school lunch menu changes.  Chicopee schools have already started implementing the new nutrition guidelines in their menu.  It seems to be going over well.  She will be applying for President Obama’s healthy eating plan for schools.  If we get it, it will give us $1500 for our schools to use for their lunch program.  She is asking that we go on to the state and federal nutrition web sites to vote for certain items to remain on our menu, i.e. flavored milk. 

May 17, 2011 is our Fitzpatrick/Merit award dinner.  The venue has changed to the Portuguese American club in Chicopee.  There has been a committee formed to finalize the menu and the price for the dinner.  They will meet at Erin Biela’s home on March 22^nd.  The committee consists of Mary Como, Shannon Drake, Kellie Niemiec, Vivian Pappas, Dave Monson and Erin Biela. 

There has been interest shown in the Fitzpatrick scholarship.  We already have one application.  The deadline for the applications is April 28^th.  The reading of the applications and the voting on the winners will be done by a committee of volunteers.  These volunteers are Frank Fortini, Mindy Smith, Shannon Drake, Erin Biela, and Trina House.  We will meet at Erin Biela’s home on May 3.  The winners will be notified within 24 hours from that meeting. 

The merit award nominations need to be in no later than April 15^th.  ALL money for the people attending the dinner needs to be in NO Later than May 11^th.   We also need the Civic award nominations in no later than April 15^th.  Please write a brief blurb of why you are nominating a certain person/organization/business for the civic award.  This nomination can be submitted on paper through the school mail system (Bowe School attention Vivian Pappas) or send us an e-mail with the information This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .    The voting on the Civic award winner (s) will be done at the April 26^th meeting. 

We weren’t planning on having a meeting in April this year but due to the amount of things that need to be discussed and voted on before the dinner in May we will have to hold a meeting.  The date for that meeting has been set for April 26^th at 6:30 at Bowe School in the library. 

The by-laws have been revised and handed out at this meeting.  We will vote on accepting these revisions at the next meeting.

Nominations for the CCPTO officers were done.  Voting will be done at the next meeting.  Nominees are: President-Frank Fortini and Paula Lamarre (possible co-presidents instead of President and Vice President.  Treasurer-Mary Como.  Secretary-none yet, nominations to come. 

Rick Roque joined us again at this meeting.  He is doing amazing things in honor of his Grandfathers scholarship.  He is moving part of his banking business to our area as well as his family!  He joined the Chicopee Chamber of Commerce.   His business will employ 8 or 9 people which will also be great for our economy.  He is also working on getting the Chicopee business community involved to help defray the cost of the dinner for the scholarship recipients, which will allow us to give more money to each scholarship winner.  He personally plans on sponsoring a couple of tables at the event this year. 

The Fest of All currently has a 5k road race.  We were going to try to have one for the Scholarship around that time, but we will work on holding one in the fall.  Hopefully this will be the first of many!!  The road race will help raise funds for the scholarship and bring our community together!