080211 Marketing Team

Notes of February 11, 2008 Meeting

We had a good meeting this afternoon. Several items came from the meeting that we wanted to get out right away.

Before moving forward with any work, we felt that the rest of the group should review what’s been discussed and we should be in agreement in order to proceed. We have set another meeting for President's Day, Monday, February 18, 1:30pm at Ruth's home.

Here is the summary of the marketing meeting that was held on Monday, Feb. 11th. Kirsten, Kim, Ruth, and Shannon were there. We listed a number of responsibilities that we felt that this group could focus on and then tried to determine what we felt were the priority ones. We came up with some action items and a whole list of questions for Kathy and Carl. I am writing this from memory so hopefully I remember most of it.

Key responsibilities:

  1. Market EMID to participating districts.
  2. Market EMID to potential partners.
  3. Have a representative from group attend school board meetings for member districts and form a relationship with the EMID school board members.
  4. Act as EMID contacts with the current partner districts.
  5. Study other collaborative districts to see what issues they are having and see how they have dealt with them (West Metro Integration District (Edina), Northwest Area (Maple Grove), Valley Crossing(Woodbury), etc).
  6. Public relations.
  7. Maintain contacts with local papers - Megan Boldt at Pioneer Press, Ben Goessling at Strib, Lillie papers, etc.

We felt that the first 3 responsibilities were the most important at this moment and should be our first priority.

We felt it was important to send a representative from our group to each districts school board meetings for a couple of reasons.

  1. that person could be the eyes and ears for EMID.
  2. we could act as a contact for EMID. We felt it was important to meet with and begin to form a relationship with the board member from each district that serves on the EMID board to answer questions, provide information, and act as a liason between the two boards. We would be looking for a person from each district that would be willing to do this.

We felt our biggest role and responsibility would be to assist in the marketing of EMID to our current districts and to potiential districts. We need to make these people aware of what all EMID has to offer them, why EMID is or would be valuable to them, what the benefits are , etc. In order to do this though, we all need to be better versed in what all EMID has to offer. That is why we felt the number one priority or number one action step would be to meet with Carl, Kathy, and maybe Stacy Stanley (Kathy's suggestion).

We felt that this is probably one of the groups that needs to work closely with EMID administration so that we are not just duplicating what they are already doing but enhancing it. There is no need to re-invent the wheel. We need to use our resources (time, energy, enthusiasm, etc) effectively and efficiently.

We generated a huge list of questions for Kathy and Carl. These are the questions we came up with:

  1. What other programs does EMID offer our participating districts?
  2. How are these programs and the schools marketed?
  3. Are programs only offered at the EMID schools or do we go out to them?
  4. What does EMID do to make these offerings conveneint and accessible to the participating districts - do we go out to them, do we meet at times that are convenient to them? Do we seek them out or do we wait for them to come to us? How does info about offerings get to the teachers/families/students of our participating districts?
  5. How does EMID develop the programs offered to participating districts? Are we giving them what they want or what we think they want?
  6. What districts are we looking at as potential partners(our thoughts were the Mounds View district, the St Anthony/New Brighton district)? How are we reaching them?
  7. As far as filling the schools ... are there waiting lists each year? In What grades? From what districts? Are there guidelines as to what percentage of the school is open to different districts?

We really feel that in order to market EMID effectively and efficiently we need to better understand what all EMID is besides Harambee and Crosswinds.

I did see Kathy Griebel on Monday evening and gave her a short update of this group and she said she and Carl are excited to work with this group and want our help. I think it is imperative that after we meet next Monday that a meeting gets set up with Kathy, Carl, and maybe Stacy Stanley (I think she is in charge of the office that would be working with the other EMID programs).

At next week's meeting please come with your ideas about key repsonsibilities, other questions for Kathy and Carl, and other action steps we can take ASAP.

--Kirsten Kuhnly

Next Meeting

The next meeting of the Marketing Team is on 18 February.

Announcement

EMID Families Marketing Team Meeting

Monday, 2/11
1:30pm
Ruth's House
7830 9th St. N.
Oakdale (map)

working together for great schools / info@emidfamilies.org