What's Going On in SW Dallas County?

Altrusa International of Southwest Dallas County will partnership with our adopted school, Cockrell Hill Elementary in DeSoto, Texas this 2013-2014 school year.  Starting this August our plans are to keep students and parents involved with a service literacy project or service literacy activities every month.  We will be doing Parents Night at the school, where Altrusa will introduce a different literacy activity to be done for grades K-5^th.  A record will be kept on the student’s performance.  At the end of December and May Altrusa will give away something, for example a bicycle or a gift card to a student with the highest points.  If a tie, the names will go into a pot and one name will be pulled.   We intend to focus our effort on LITERACY!

Versie Lusk
2013-2014 President
Altrusa International Inc. of Southwest Dallas County

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Keeping Track of All Those Service Hours!

I've been keeping a record of my club's service hours for several years.  In a lot of cases, the member in charge of a service project will give me a record of the hours spent by members participating in the project.  In some cases, a project will be done during a meeting, so I get the attendance records for that meeting.   Our yearbook contains a place to record hours, also.  Some members send me monthly updates.  Periodically, I send a note to all members with the spreadsheet of hours, so members can send me upates as needed.  On the sample spreadsheet shown below, new members can be added between the two blank rows.  Service projects can be added between the two blank columns.  This allows the formulas to include the additions.  The spreadsheet indicates members with no hours (asterisk in column after the first name).  It will also exclude members who are on leave of absence for the formulas (CMEMBER  in the sample).  This spreadsheet will calculate the % of members who participated in the project.  It also includes a column for unreimbursed $'s.  The explanation of what activities should be included is shown at the bottom on the spreadsheet.  At the end of the year, the spreadsheet is sent to our club president for her year-end report.

--District Nine Past Governor Carolyn Rash

 

	Last Name	First Name			Service Project 1	Service Project 2	Service Project 3	Service Project 4	Service Project 5	Ways & Means		Service Hours Total (1)	Member Hours (2)	Other Service (3)	All Hours	$'s (4)		Leave of Absence
1	AMEMBER	A	*									0.0			0.0
2	BMEMBER	B	*									0.0			0.0			Y
3	CMEMBER	C	*									0.0			0.0
4	DMEMBER	D	*									0.0			0.0
5	EMEMBER	E	*									0.0			0.0
6	ZMEMBER	Z	*									0.0			0.0
	TOTALS		6		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	$0.00
	Reported Through May 11				Service Project 1	Service Project 2	Service Project 3	Service Project 4	Service Project 5	Ways & Means		Service Hours Total (1)	Member Hours (2)	Other Service (3)	All Hours	$'s (4)
	Counts of Participants				0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0
	Guests
	Average hour per member											0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
	% of Members	5			0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%		0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
	(1) Service Hours - spent on service projects and activities sanctioned by Altrusa and documented in the Club's minutes.  They include planning, preparation, execution, evaluation of service projects (including ASTRA and new club building), and fundraisers.  It also includes travel time to the event.
	(2) Member Hours - spent on Club, District, or International operations, not including club meetings.  Include activities such as production of club newsletter, yearbook, or website; planning and execution of leadership/training workshops; serving as International representative at Conferences, serving as delegate at Conference/Convention business meetings, etc.
	(3) Other Hours - spent by club member participating in non-Altrusa community service activities.  Examples are volunteer work in hospitals, schools, libraries, and other not-for-profit organizations.
	(4) Unreimbursed $'s