summary+of+year+2010-2011

Submitted by Betsy Kohnstamm, chair
 * __ Summary of activities taken on by the Northwest Montana Reading Council __**
 * __ 2010-1011 __**

Once again, our council has kept to our tried and true formula here which seems to be about all we have energy for at the moment. Each August we host a “Literacy Day” at the Flathead High School. This year’s keynote speaker was Ralph Fletcher, noted writer on children’s writing. His work was engaging for all. In addition the high school was filled with approximately 35 breakout sessions. The Sherrys came with their excellent book talks from Great Northern Books and there were other local exhibitors as well. About 250 teachers came from all over the Flathead County including most of the country schools as well as teachers from Polson, Eureka, and Libby. We really reached all of northwest Montana. The rest of our council time is made up of meetings every other month. We don’t attempt to have these be educational but just do the business of planning for the next August conference. This year some new initiatives were to start our own wikispace where we can share joint files related to the conference. You can access this wiki at northwestmontanareading.wikispaces.com We have a link there to your website. Maybe you could offer a link to our wikispace too. We also wrote a grant to the Montana council to connect alternative high school students with used book store but unfortunately did not get the grant. We may try to resubmit the idea next year. We struggle to get members to our meetings and to recruit newcomers to take on a more active role. I offered door prizes and food to try and lure people in this year. Distances for travel after school make meetings hard and it is the unusual teacher who can look beyond their school colleagues to becoming active in the reading council. I am delighted to have recruited a new vp to join our board this year and I hope to turn over the reins to her in a year. We have several active members who will be retiring soon and hope to try and fill their shoes – Jeri Boksich and Sue Brown. In addition, we continue to have professional rivalries within our council that are difficult to manage. I am trying to include one member who is active on a state level in more of our meetings at a local level so that communication goes better. Now we are working hard to get ready for our August 17th conference with fliers going out now to all schools to get people to register. Our guest speaker this year is another Heineman author, Linda Rief who will be geared more toward adolescent literacy but also has a writers/readers notebook published for younger kids. Michele Paine is working on filing in our grid with local presenters and our awards committee is once again choosing award winners for teacher, administrator, friend of literacy, and life award. Some things the council could help me with is an updated list from IRA of who our members are each year as I have no idea. Also, I’m not sure about the leadership workshop in Helena as I have to be in Tacoma for another literacy conference two days later and I don’t really know what the Helena days will offer our council.