Helping out the coordinator - lots of questions!

[diva_dynamite]

Hello out there! I'm hoping that some HCW members are current or former BTFE coordinators. I'm doing the October collection for my son's school this year. Our regular coordinator is on maternity leave, and the director of my son's school is brand new, and is pretty swamped trying to figure everything out. I know I need to find out our ID from either our coordinator or BTFE, but what do I do after that? I have all of the boxtops now, and I figure I can at least start counting them. How many do you put per bundle? Do you put each bundle in a plastic baggie, or attach them to a sheet? I saw the post about the TArget bonus sheets, and will definitely do 2 for my family, since I'm turning in quite a few myself, LOL. Other than that, anything you can add would help a lot! The school has only collected a total of $55 ever, so I really want to get people excited about this program. Thank you!:encourage19:

[susanktz]

You can obtain your school ID by contacting BTFE contact us. Give them the name of the school, city, zip. This is what I had to do.... our former coordinator kinda just dropped the ball and left for another school.

You need to bundle them in baggies of 50.

You can submit the worksheets as they are if anyone submitted them with glued/stapled/taped ones.

You need to download the .pdf form for submission from the coordinator link.

And you need to have them mailed & postmarked by Oct 31. If you don't have this done, you can't get credit for them until the next mail date in March (I think). The risk of this is that many of the ones you have may expire before March 2009.

Hope this helps.

[diva_dynamite]

Thank you! :wavehi: I keep getting little handfuls, so I think we'll top our all-time total with just this submission. It'll only be about $75, but I'm still pretty excited. :giggle2:

[mama22qts]

I'm the coordinator for our school and we are at ~$150 this time around. I'm trying to think out of the box for incentives for next collection time. What are ya'll dangling in front of the kiddies?

[scentednights2002]

Our school offers a pizza party to the winning homeroom that collects the most.

[mama22qts]

I'd LOVE to do that. Our wonderful system has decided that Pizza is too unhealthy.:rolleyes24:


Plus we have one student who's grandfather works at the recycling place and he gets ridiculous amounts of BTFE. They always have the most. I'm going to recognize the top two classes. One of the moms suggested movie tickets but I'm worried that some families might not be able to afford to buy tickets for the rest of the family, and in this economy I'm not going to ask anyone for donations. If someone else on my committee wants to ask, that would be great, but I'm not asking!

I'd like to do a dress down day (we wear uniforms) but I have to run it by the principal first.

[scentednights2002]

Wow that's too bad. Maybe a make your own pizza party heavy on the veggies & low fat or organic cheese & whole wheat crust?

Or an ice cream party with frozen yogurt?

I don't think that one day of pizza or ice cream is going to kill anyone :)

[mama22qts]

I like the ice cream party idea. I personally think if it's done at the last of school it shouldn't matter whether it's pure sugar or not.

[susanktz]

I'd LOVE to do that. Our wonderful system has decided that Pizza is too unhealthy.:rolleyes24:


Plus we have one student who's grandfather works at the recycling place and he gets ridiculous amounts of BTFE. They always have the most. I'm going to recognize the top two classes. One of the moms suggested movie tickets but I'm worried that some families might not be able to afford to buy tickets for the rest of the family, and in this economy I'm not going to ask anyone for donations. If someone else on my committee wants to ask, that would be great, but I'm not asking!

I'd like to do a dress down day (we wear uniforms) but I have to run it by the principal first.

For our first party, we did a popcorn party. That's cheap and easy.

The dress-down day could be a good idea.... Do a PJ day? Do a costume day? Do a theme day? for the winning class.

That's too bad about the one kid who's parent works at the recycle place and always wins. But that is awesome for the school. And since I do the contest on HCW for my DD, her class often wins too. :poke: But the way I look at it, it is all for the good of the school. And I do try to let other classes win. We have one winning class per grade. That helps enable more winners.

You also need the support of your teachers. You can see about having an art project day or something and have the kids make a box top collection box. They have some really cute ideas on the BTFE coordinators site.

[mama22qts]

Yeah ours is going to be the top two classes in each grade. Then there will probably be an overall winner.

Hey I just thought of something -- I should SO hook up with that grandfather for inserts!!!

[susanktz]

Hey I just thought of something -- I should SO hook up with that grandfather for inserts!!!

:giggle2: :giggle2: :giggle2: :giggle2:

[doulas3babes]

I'm the BTFE coordinator for our little school. The most they've ever done is $500/yr and I contributed at least half that amount each year. LOL

You've been given some GREAT advice on how to get it all started!!!!

I'm actually getting ready to make signs for both floors of the school for our BTFE contest that will run through the end of Feb. The top class is getting a pizza party, 2nd place an ice cream party and 3rd place a popcorn party. I sold over 5000 CLFE points on ebay (we don't collect them) and I'm using that money to mail the btfe in and to buy the stuff for the parties. I can't wait!!! Last yr, the old coordinator didn't submit ANY btfe and I had over 3,000 to sort through and I ended up throwing away a bunch. Made me a little sick to my stomach just thinking about the money that got tossed.

Oh well, all the best to you!!!!

[diva_dynamite]

Thanks so much for all the great info. We are really small, so there isn't really a point to having contests. If I can just get people to bring in their BTFE's I'll be happy. At last count, I'm up to over $90. Maybe that result will be a little incentive by itself. I'm thinking of doing a little flyer telling everyone how much we earned, and telling them about the BTFE marketplace in case they shop online for the holidays. Free money is exciting!

[Debbieomi]

For even more great advice, go to the coordinator's forum at btfe.com. Once you have your schools code, you can log in as the coordinator and read away. You will literally find 100s of ideas about everything Box Tops.
There are several yahoo groups for coordinators also.
I did class vs. class contests for my first 3 years as a coordinator. I changed it to goal oriented last year and that was a hit. We collect almost ten different items so I figured different goals based on the number of students per class.
For example, this year our theme is "Cash for Trashopoly" based on a Monopoly board. I created the board on a lobby bulletin board. The first corner is the first goal, an average of 50 items per student. (i.e. 20 students means 1000 items, not that each and every student has to bring in 50 items, that would never happen.) When that goal is achieved, everyone in the classroom wins a free funky pencil-bought a dollar stores 12 in a pkg for a buck-two pkgs per classroom usually. The second corner's goal is a total of 100 items per student. The prize is a popcorn party. Our school has popcorn for .25 a bag on Fridays. Our PTO will pay for each classroom to have free popcorn(at the school's cost) as they reach this goal. Third goal is 200 items per student, averaged with a free reccess as their prize. Last year, I had 3 classes bring in over 300 items per student each, so I used that as the grand goal, final square avarage. The classes will earn their choice of a pizza or ice cream sundae party. I figure 2 slices per student, from a local pizzeria at $5.50 for a lg, one item, plus a few jugs of Sunny D. Sundaes are a gallon or so of ice cream, the usual toppings plus whipped cream, sprinkles, etc.
Our school averages $2000 a year in BTFE and almost $4000 a year total from all items collected.
Just like on here when learning about couponing, take your time and read. You have until Feb 28 for your next submission so that's a fair amount of time to gather and implement some fun and easy ideas. Good luck!!