9/25/10 Discussion Summary for Watermark Parents Support Group

Dear All,

During the 9/25/10 meeting, we've discussed the initial format and schedule for Watermark (WM) Parent Support Group, here's the summary:

1. Overall Schedule and Format - Once a month beginning October, generally on the 3rd Saturday of each month, but may skip or meet on a different week depending on WM and school schedules.  There will be total 7 gatherings for this school year.
   • One parent suggested to meet once every other month, but the preference of majority of  the parents is once per month, at least initially.
   • The format will be a potluck for all the WMkers, supporting young adults, and parents (detail below), follow by a parent group panel discussion on fix topics that concern most high school parents (detail below).
   • Tentative dates: 10/23, 11/18, 1/15, 2/19, 3/19, 4/16, and 5/21.
2. Potluck
   • Purpose - to provide a loving and 溫馨 family gathering atmosphere, while giving material and spiritual support to the youth, and to the young adults who have been sacrificing every single Saturday evenings for the past years to guide and mentor our children.
   • Start time - 6PM ???  (will need to check with Patrick)
   • Coordinators
   • 10/23 - JunFen, Amy Li
   • 11/18 - Rebecca, Maria Chen
   • 1/15 - Anita, Shiao-Wen, Tony
   • 2/19 - Xiuli, 許振雲 (need her confirmation)
   • Will determine coordinators for remaining months in early 2011, but please feel free volunteer if you can help with any of the unassigned dates from March to May.
   • Format
   • Everybody prepare own drinks
   • Will provide utensils, but feel free to bring your own to help with 環保.
   • Coordinators will design the menu and invite parents to sign up for specific items.  Items can be homemade or store bought.  It is recommended that parents of attending students contribute to the potluck, except for guest students and parents, as well as for families with financial difficulties, thank you for being considerate.
   • It was expressed by the youth that they are growing sick of pizzas, so please try to avoid it.  Thank you.
3. Parent Group Discussion
   • Purpose - to provide a supportive and friendly environment to parents of high school students by holding discussion panels on topics that concern many WM parents, by listening and learning from each other, as well as from the valuable experience of past Watermark parents and young adults.  We'd like to select topics that are most relevant to the WM families.
   • Time: 7:30-10 PM, while WM Bible study is in session.
   • Coordinator - Wendar Fu
   • Topics and Facilitators
     • 10/23 - Joseph Ku. How to understand and cope with the pop culture (For example, influence of sex, violence, drugs on TV and media, computer/games usage, Prop. 8, Prop 19) that our teenagers experience and face?
     • 11/18 - facilitator TBD.  How to communicate smoothly and effectively to our teenagers?
     • The facilitator will work with the coordinator to collect and organize a list of questions of concern from all WM parents on the monthly topic, invite several panel speakers from experienced parents, young adults, and sometimes experts with attention on diversity of views.  The facilitator will facilitate the flow and timing of the discussion with the collected questions.
     • Will determine discussion topics for other months as we receive more input from WM parents, but please feel free to let us know if you have any suggestion of good topics.  A good way to start thinking is to ask yourself: "Why do you bring you teens to WM?", "Why does your teen want to come to WM?", "What challenges and difficulties my children face?" , "What challenges and difficulties I have with my teens?"  We need to hear from you in order to select topics that are most relevant to the WM families.  Thx.
4. Misc.
   • Xiuli Chu has been and will be helping us with parent group email delivery.
   • Amy Li will be in charge of collecting donations and preparing Christmas gifts for the WM young adults.  Many have already contributed during the discussion meeting, $20 or more is the recommended amount per family, you can either do so now, or wait till Amy contact you in early December.
   • Please feel free to contact Wendar at wendar @ blessed-family.org for question, support and constructive suggestion.
5. Attendees - Shiao-Wen Shan, Xiuli Chu (thank you for taking notes for us), Rebecca, Maria Chen, Amy Li, Randy Bau, JunFen Ju, Anita Liao, Joseph Ku, Tony Fu, and Wendar Chen.

Thank you all for a great discussion session and your participation, we've made great progress on many major issues.  I can feel the excitement shared by many parents, and I look forward to a great year of WM!

Love, Joy and Peace,
Wendar

Watermark Parent meeting - 9/25/10

Dear Parents,

Due to email delivery failure issue, I have to sent this message one more time.  If you have received this email earlier, go ahead ignor this one.  Both emails has the same information.  Thank you so much for your understanding and support.  Looking forward to seeing you tonight.

Hi, Parents,

Thank you very much for all the food and drink you brought in last Watermark night. We have a few more young adults and new high school kids join in the group. This also means we have some new parents in the group too.

Last Saturday night after dinner, a few parents plus couple of board members had a brief and productive discussion on the activities for the Watermark parents:

(1) The young adults and kids originally planned to have dinner time together once per month.  Since the young adults sacrifice every Saturday evening to lead our teenagers, and they have been expressing hopes to see parent providing more support and presence, so we thought it might be a good idea that we can have monthly potluck to include parents, teenagers, and young adults.  We just request something simple and hopefully that won't become a burden to our parents. The first date is tentatively set on October 30th.

(2) We have also discussed about having monthly topic discussion for parents after the potlcuk. We all agreed that it is very important to communicate wisely and effectively with our teenagers, so we may know and help them better through their high school years.  Some topics have been brought up, like  "How to help our kids balance their school works and extra curriculum activities", "How to equip our kids for the college life", just to name a few.  We believe a lot of experience and knowledge can be shared by the young adults, current college student parents or applicable professionals.  And there must be be some questions or concerns that we parents care about or wish to find some solutions or suggestions.

We really wish to hear your opinion, and also have an idea on how many parents wish to support the Watermark and the young adults once a month, so we can plan the potlucks and the discussions accordingly.  Please come to the Watermark Parent Support Group meeting TONIGHT (Septembe 25th) 7:30 PM at room #2 after you drop off your teenager at Watermark.  This is a short notice, so if you cannot make it and wish to provide your suggestion, please feel free to e-mail us; every opinion is valuable.  Thank you very much and hope to see you Saturday.

May God bless us,
JunFen   junfen_us @ yahoo.com
Amy  mimihli  yahoo.com

Watermark Room Parents

Quick update of the initial WM parent meeting

Dear Patrick and all the Core parents:

We all sincerely appreciate all the effort WM provided to our kids.  We also all strongly willing to support WM.  Initially, we have 11 basic core members signed up as listed below.  And we will meet once a month on the third Sat to have Parent-Child potluck at lower church.  In October, we will have the potluck on the 30th instead of the 16th due to a wedding that most people will go. 

11 core members:

     古偉業 Joseph - Default facilitator unless otherwise announced

     祝俊芬 Junfen - Coordinator

     甯秀麗 Xiuli - Email person

     廖桂嬌 Anita

     龐蔚文 Rebecca Lei

     付典端 Tony

     陳雯達 Wendar

     李慧君 Amy Li

     勞文成 Vincent Lau

     單曉雯 Jenny 陳偉 Wei

We will meeting on the following dates for parent-child potluck and 餘興節目:

     10/30/10

     11/20//10

     12/18/10

     1/15/11

     2/19/11

     3/19/11

     4/16/11

     5/14/11

To support WM, we are gong to:

     1.  provide snack (Suggest children bring water bottle for GO GREEN reason)

     2.  provide ride and chaperon when it's needed

     3.  present during WM session, minimum once a month

Proposed topics for WM parent's gethering (not limited, and tentative to change)

     1.  how to build up close relationship between parent and child before enter college

     2.  family faith sharing/praying

     3.  list of preparation before college (DOs & DONs)

          a.  managing 零花錢, when to give kids credit card, setup bank account, balance check book, etc...

          b.  how to deal with insurance after accident

          c.  peer pressure, roomate, drunk, privacy...

     4.  YAD experience sharing

     5.

     6.

     7.

Most of the gethering will stay within our community members.  If there is appropriate speaker, we may invite.  We always invite friends invite friend to join us. 

Core parents:

Please add/delete/correct the above info.  Please let me know when and what to send to all the WM parents as announcement.  Thank you very much.

With GOD's blessing and unconditional love, I believe that is going to be relaxing, closer, fun, and faithful 7-session gethering. God bless YAD, WM and their parents.

Xiuli