T.A.G. @ WTPL

Hi everyone,

Sorry no one could make this month's meeting. I guess it's a busy time of year!Well even though we didn't meet, I'd like to get your input on some things that are coming up.

• We're going to get a new bulletin board in the Teen area and we get to design it ourselves. Take a look at some of these designs I've put together and tell me what you think (they're numbered 1,2,3, and 4). Which ones do you like and which ones don't you? Do you like certain parts of a few that we should combine?
  
  
  (1)
  (2)
  
  
  
  (3)
  (4)
  
• I need some volunteers to work on our Summer Reading Mural next month. Anyone interested? Let me know.

• 3) Our new Teen Music Selection Committee is off to a good start. If any of you are interested in joining just fill out an application available on the website.

• 4) We have some great programs lined up for the summer. Some of the ones we're definitely having are:

Photography Workshop
Babysitting Workshop
Henna Workshop
Make up
Night
Chocolate Festival
Readers' Theater
Movie
nights
Adopt-A-Shelf
Craft nights

• Other programs that I'm looking into are: jewelry making, comedy workshop, and a self defense workshop. What do you think of these three? Are you interested in any of them? Which ones?

Are you guys interested in making our own TAG t-shirts?

• Remember last month we cast our vote for 2010's summer reading slogan and 2011's theme? Well our state library voted along with a bunch of other state libraries from across the nation and the summer reading theme for 2010 is "Make Waves @ Your Library" and the 2011 theme is World Cultures/Travel.

Please leave a comment on this blog entry and let me know what you think about the stuff I've mentioned.

Have a great day!
Mrs. Rizzo

Our next meeting is TUESDAY, June 3 @ 7:00

Hi everyone,

Here are the TAG "Meeting Minutes" for our April Meeting:

Members present: Cassie, Michelle, Morgan, Priyanka, Steven

Future Programs
April: move night during Spring Break. We'll be showing Nancy Drew on Tuesday 4/22 at 7pm. This is the movie that won the most e-mail votes a few weeks ago. Our annual Book Mark Contest is also starting this week. Check the website for more details.
May: some kind of food program. Quasadillas for Cinco de Mayo?
June: Summer Reading starts! So far we definitly have a photography workshop scheduled and a henna workshop scheduled. It also looks like we're set for a makeup workshop. What else would you like to see happen? Any suggestions?

Volunteering
Book Sale: Our annual Friend's of the Library Book Sale is set for May 2nd & 3rd. We're collecting used book donations starting now and going through the end of the month. We'll also need some volunteers to help set up the book sale on Thursday night May 1st and possibly to help at the actual sale. I'll send out an email about helping when it gets closer.

Summer Volunteers: we're starting up a new Teen Volunteer program this summer. Members will come to the library once a week for about an hour. Part of the job is to "adopt a shelf" where you get to pick a shelf in the library to be "your" shelf. It'll be your job to make sure the books are in order & straightened. Then you will also do other volunteer tasks around the library such as help with summer reading log ins and other summer reading jobs.

Music Selection Committee: we're also looking into starting a teen music selection committee to help the library pick out music to purchase. More info will be coming out about this soon.

Summer Mural
We'd like to make some kind of mural to decorate the teen area for summer reading. Either by a contest or having a whole group make a mural together.

Summer Reading Slogan
The official slogan for Teen Summer Reading this year is "Metamorphosis @ your library." Should we keep it or change it? Most of you seem in favor of changing it. But what should we change it to? We need to keep along the same theme so here's some suggestions:

Metamorphosis
Morph Into Reading
Be Transformed
Transform
Catch the Reading Bug (use VW bug)
Don’t Bug Me I’m Reading

What do you think?

We also selected our vote for the 2010 summer reading theme. Yes, 2010 is pretty far away but since the theme is voted on and then organized by librarians in 37 states we have to start early!. The general theme for 2010 is ocean/beach. We were given a list of about fifty slogans to vote on. We voted on "Rock the Boat--Read". When the winning slogan is announced I'll let you know.

Our next meeting is TUESDAY, May 6th @ 7:00

Hi everyone,

Here are the TAG "Meeting Minutes" for our March Meeting:

Members present: Cassie, Michelle, Rachel, Claire, Elizabeth S.


Read with Riley: we made posters for March 13's Read with Riley storytime/donation collection for Noah's Ark Animal Shelter. Rachel from Noah's Ark will bring her fury friend Riley for a storytime program where she will be accepting donations for Noah's Ark. A list of needed donations are available on our website. If you want to donate an item you can bring it to the library on March 13.

Reader's Theater: Margie Palatini, a children's book author, will be visiting Cucinella School in April. Our TAG group has been asked to perform a Reader's Theater version of one of her books for the students at Cucinella. We'll meet a few times in March and perform at Cucinella in early April. Check with your parents and see if it's ok if you do this during the school day. If you want to be a part of the production let me know.

Spring Break: we'll be showing a movie...but which one? Ideas??? Suggestions??? e-mail them to me.

Summer Reading: Summer seems so far away but it's coming sooner than we think! The official state teen summer reading theme is "Metamorphosis @ your library" (the kid's theme is catch the reading bug @ your library). Are we keeping this theme or changing it? Think about it and we'll talk about it in April. Think of other ideas that mean something similar. Synonyms that we thought of today were: transform yourself; don't bug me I'm reading, or something with the words escape, engage, or transform....

Thanks to Mrs. Birch for making us those delicious cup cakes for the first TAG meeting I've been back to!!!


Our next meeting is TUESDAY, April 1 @ 7:00

Hi everyone,

Here are the TAG "Meeting Minutes" for our November Meeting:

Members present: Tamara, Michelle, Elizabeth, Claire, Rachel

Photo contest with different categories (suggestion sent in via e-mail)
Everyone seemed to like this idea. Let's do it in the spring (in time for the next literary magazine?)
Category ideas: sports, nature, buildings, misc., people, food, school, landscapes, home, animals

Toys for Tots: not going to work this year

New display case!
We have a new display case in the youth services area (teens & kids) and we're looking for collections to fill it. Collections will be in the case for about a month. Collection topics are pretty open. Some theme ideas might include sports, Harry Potter, Star Wars, purses, movie photos, etc.

Fake Frosty Contest--January Contest
Make a snowman out of anything but snow, take it's picture, and enter the contest. Material ideas might be things like pumpkins, bicycle tires, baskets, etc.

Lit Mag
This issue was shorter but still about 13 pages long. Maybe due to being earlier in the year? Everyone still wants to do it. Maybe for future issues we'll just stick to once a year in the spring.

Upcoming programs
The afternoon movie (during teacher conventions) winner was Spiderman 3.
Next month: Cookies & Cards (cookie exchange & card making...big hit last year)

Talent Show @ Chester 12/7
We're invited to come watch or to perform. Is this something we should try ourselves too? (maybe in conjunction with the town or school)

Open Brainstorming (future programs, events, and activities)
caricature program--let's do it again
skip pumpkins next year
magnetic poetry in the teen area
fund raiser for Seeing Eye Dogs
Next summer maybe make a mural to kick off SRC
Jewelry making--we'll keep looking for someone
beauty night: Mary Kay makeup, maybe nails & hair too (do in the spring)
hair style workshop: different styles for different hair, how to manage your hair
Photography workshop
Genre book talks

PB Teens has a link to design our own bulletin board (see the link from the last post)
We each went to the website & designed new bulletin boards for the teen area
Common things everyone liked: stripes, dots, Hawaiian flowers, blue camo

Ideas for the Teen Area
Cafe table
re-name the area and other teen stuff to officially be "Teen Space"
throw rug (shag carpet)
arch over the entries that say "teen"



Our next meeting is TUESDAY, December 4 @ 7:00

1) Go to this website: http://www.pbteen.com/stylehouse/styletiles/content.cfm

2) Choose the 3x4 option (note: we'll be hanging the bulletin board so that 3 tiles go across and 4 tiles go up/down.)

3) Choose different combinations of tiles that would make a good bulletin board for the teen area.

Hi everyone,

Here are the TAG "Meeting Minutes" for our October Meeting:

Need volunteers to "tag/label" book reviews from the summer.
If you're interested let me know. You'd get volunteer credit for the time you work on this.

Postcards as reminders?
Seemed to work out well. I'll send them out again next month

New TAG Mascot!
Last month everyone said they wanted a new mascot. We voted on a few different images tonight and this frog was the winner!

Lots of events happening this month!
Joke Contest: submit a joke (doesn't have to be one you thought of yourself). We'll vote on them during Teen Read Week.
Caricatures: limited space for this one... make sure you sign up!
Pumpkin Carving: remember to bring your own pumpkin.
College Interview Workshop: tips for how to make a college interview successful!
Check the website for more information

What movie should we show next month?
New releases include Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Spiderman 3, Transormers
Do you have any other suggestions?
Vote on the ones above or put in new suggestions by going to our website

Literary Magazine
We don't have enough submissions yet. Put in your creative work & encourage your friends to do it too!

Open brainstorming time for new program ideas
How to publish a book
photography workshop

Halloween Decorations
We spent the rest of the meeting making decorations for Halloween




Our next meeting is TUESDAY, 11/6 @ 6:00
NOTE: We're meeting at 6:00 not 7:00 this month!

Hi everyone,

Here are the TAG "Meeting Minutes" for our September Meeting:

Members present: Cassie, Claire, and Elizabeth S.

Volunteers Needed
We need volunteers to create labels for our Teen Book Review Blog. Anyone interested? Yes, you would get volunteer hours for this.

Summer Reading Likes & Dislikes
Things to change for next year: change around points system (lower points needed for prizes); look into logging in points online... let me know if you think of anything else.

New stuff that we did this summer to keep for next year: online book reviews, "buying" prizes with points (but changing the points), types of prizes.

Programs to DEFINITELY do again: cake decorating, reader's theater, project runway, chocolate festival, balloon workshop, ice cream finale.

Ways to recruit more members & to encourage members to come regularly....ideas?
post card reminders (sent by "real" mail)
Can you think of any other ideas?

New TAG mascot requested (instead of the blue monkey you see to the right). We'll vote on some ideas during the next meeting.

Teen Read Week 2007 (Oct. 14-20)
This year's theme is LOL @ your library
Events:
Caricature program: an artist will be coming to draw caricatures of you!
Joke contest: We'll collect jokes during the first two weeks of October and put them up around the room. Then during Teen Read Week everyone can vote on their favorites. (the list of jokes will be available online too).
Decorations: cut out the "LOL" in different styles, sizes, and colors to put up around the teen section.

Other programs that are coming up:
Pumpkin carving: bring your own pumpkin to carve. we'll have face templates to use on the pumpkins.
Afternoon movie (Friday of November's teacher's conventions): what should we pick? Bring ideas to the next meeting...

Literary Magazine:
Submit your work & encourage your friends to do the same! Should we include anything new this time around? The theme is "LOL" to go along with Teen Read Week. All work is due by 10/10.

Program Ideas (brainstorming)
poetry read aloud night (open mic night)
makeover/ make up night (maybe as a "lock in" with hair styles, make up, nails, and project runway all combined????)

Our next meeting is TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2 @ 7:00

Members present: Claire, Elizabeth S., Priyanka, Rachel, Cassie, Elizabeth M.

Recap of we did at this month's meeting:

• created decorations for the children's summer reading carnival
  
• brainstorm about summer reading: what to change, what to keep
  Some ideas included:
  lower or change prize prices (maybe 1 point per 50 pages or 1 point per page)
  use a "map" instead of page login booklets
  
• Program Ideas:
  Pizza tasting (well liked)
  Literary magazine (we should continue it)
  Pumpkin carving
  Knitting (idea voted down)
  cookie exchange & card making (like we did last year for the holidays)
  fundraising for an animal shelter (Hackettstown Animal Shelter)
  Book debate
  International food tasting
  mock trial
  food guessing program

Sorry this took me awhile to post! It's been a busy summer so far!

August Movie--have teens vote on one of these four that we picked at the meeting:
Bridge to Terabithia
Night at the Museum
Astronaut Farmer
Clue

Harry Potter Trivia Contest
How long is too long? 40 questions? 50? 60? -- 2 pages seemed to be an agreed upon length
Should we include which books the questions belong to? Everyone seemed to agree yes.

Website update: As of July 3, we had over 830 hits on our teen homepage since the end of May and over 275 on the summer reading page!

Went over summer reading prizes; looked at how many points the prizes should be worth.

New Summer Reading program seems to be working well. In August, we can brainstorm what we want to change or stay the same for next summer.

We spent the remainder of the meeting creating posters for August 1's concert in Rock Spring Park

Next TAG meeting will be TUESDAY AUGUST 7 @ 7:00.
See you there! :)

This month's TAG meeting was all about summer reading (which starts June 20th!).

There's a lot of new changes this year in the teen summer reading program. You will be able to earn prizes by earning "Mystery Money Points."

100 pages read = 1 point
1 book read and book review written = 3 points
1 program attended = 1 point
1 hour volunteer time = 1 point

For more details on points and how the new program will work, take a look at the summer reading page on http://www.wtpl.org/teens.htm. You can also print out a handout and calendar from there.

We also looked through some of the summer prizes to decide how many points different things are worth and brainstormed more prize ideas.

The most popular prize idea for a prize drawing (if you earn over 125 points) seems to be a gift certificate of some kind.

There will be over 25 programs offered this summer for teens in grades 6 and up.

In August, we'll be forming a NEW High School book group for grades 9 and up.

We also started making decorations for summer reading. We can't hang anything on the walls this year (because of the new paint) so the decorations can only go on the windows, bookcases, doors, or hung from the ceiling. Any ideas? So far we're hanging question marks.

I'll be at LVMS some time next week to talk up summer reading to some of the classes. So I might see some of you then!

The next TAG meeting will be Tuesday July 3 at 7:00. I know it's right before a holiday... please let me know if you'll be able to make it or not.

Thoughts??? Ideas??? Comments??? Use the comment link on the top left of the page!

TeenThink is almost ready! We're up to about 36 pages this time (last issue we had 16)! So it's taking me a little longer to put it all together. Sometime next week I will need some volunteers to help me edit. Anyone interested? Let me know.

Summer Reading starts next month! Since the official state/national theme for teens (YNK@ your library....or ..... You Never Know @your library) hasn't seemed to be much of a hit with you all, we need to vote on a new theme. The ones we have to choose from are: Mystery Mania, Mystery Madness, Mystery Mayhem, Ask it, or YNK/You Never Know. So e-mail me your votes A.S.A.P. (or by next week) so we can decide on our theme. Next meeting we can start working on decorations for the summer!

What do you think of the new website? What else do you want to see on it? What do you want to be able to get to from the teen page? Can you think of other links for the "webstuff" page?

The library is co-sponsoring a summer concert with the Rec. Department. TAG has been asked to help with the advertising. So, in July we'll be making posters for the concert on August 1st.

Are any of you Star Wars fans? Know someone who is? Well this year is the 30th anniversary of the first movie so we'll be doing a Star Wars event in June and showing the original movie. The movie will be open to all ages so tell your favorite Star Wars fan about it!

We also went over the programs that are already planned for the summer and talked about more programs that we might have.

Ideas? Thoughts? Questions? Use the "comment" link on the top left of the page!

Our next TAG meeting will be Tuesday, June 5th @ 7:00

• 3 new members joined us (yay!)
• During April we'll be having our annual National Library Week Bookmark Contest. This year there are new teen categories added: grades 5 & 6, grades 7 & 8, and high school. The contest will run throughout April for people to submit their entries. Then during the month of May, anyone who comes into the library can vote on their favorites. There will be 2 winners from each age group and they will be announced in June. The contest rules can be found online & at the library
• Any ideas for what movie we should show next?

Summer Reading

• It seems that most of us do not care for the name "YNK" or "You Never Know" which is the official name for the Teen summer reading program this year (it's a mystery theme). We brainstormed other possible names which included: Mystery Mania, Mystery Madness, and Mystery Mayhem.
• Programs we want to do this summer: project runway, card/game day, murder mystery night, and ______
• Summer reading prizes: candy, books, ice cream certificates, how to draw books, book weights, and ______

This month

• April 11th...Movie @ 3:00
• April 30th...Teen Taco Night! Sign ups start a week before time

TeenThink

• So far we have: 2 short stories, 1 serial story, 3 poems, 2 photographs, 1 drawing, books recommended by you, Harry Potter art contest winner.
• We could still use a few more submissions. Those who came to the meeting signed up to submit different types of creative work. Others would be welcome as well.
• We could use: book reviews, drawings, more creative writing (all types), more photos on our theme, any other stuff.
• So far in the "Books Recommended by You" section we have: Harry Potter series, Snow by Tracy Lynn, The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia by Megan Walen Turner, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (series), Tamora Pierce: The Circle of Magic & the circle opens, Uglies, Pretties, Specials....are there any others that you want to recommend?
• The new deadline is Friday, April 20th.

Website

• I'm still working on our new one. I hope to have it up and running soon!

Other Stuff

• Other suggestions that were made at the meeting were to have an end of school party for T.A.G. members and to do some type of birthday board where we put up people's birthdays or birthdays this month...

The next meeting will be TUESDAY MAY 1ST @ 7:00....cookies next month!

Post your comments by clicking on the "Comment!" link to the right!

Here's what we did at the March 6th meeting:

Made & ate pizza bagels (they were really good!)

We talked about what teen programs we should have in April & May. The big favorites were some kind of taco night, cake decorating, and DDR.

Other suggestions included: cooking/food type programs or contests (such as food around the world), science day, and scavenger hunts.

Everyone also seemed very interested in running a program for kids.

The movie Eragon is coming out at the end of March. Perfect timing to show during Spring Break!

Summer Reading is coming! (yes...already!) The "official" theme is "YNK@ Your Library" which stands for "You Never Know@ Your Library" It's a mystery theme. Do we like it? Should we alter the catch phrase somehow?

The next issue of the literary magazine is coming soon. Encourage people to submit work!

We also looked at possible design ideas for changes to our website.

Next month we're making s'mores at TAG

I'd like to be able to use this blog as a discussion about what's happening with T.A.G. as well as a place for you to come to find out what we did at our meetings.
I will post about the programs & events that are happening as well as the T.A.G. meeting minutes. I invite you all to "comment" on the posts that way we can see what everyone thinks about what's happening even if you can't make the meeting (but please do try to come!). This blog is not quite fully functional yet (but it will be soon!). To comment on a post you DO NOT NEED TO "SIGN IN" or create a user name/password. Instead (once the link is working) you can just click on the "comment!" link on the top right corner. This will send your comment directly to me and I'll add it as a comment to the post. Since this feature isn't working yet you can just email your comment to me (rizzo@main.morris.org). Once this blog is fully up and running I will send out an email and there will be a link from our website.
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Here's what we did at last night's T.A.G. meeting:

We brain stormed different things that we might want to do at TAG, ways to recruit more TAG members, and things that would encourage people to come to meetings:

• Everyone liked the idea of writing a mission statement for TAG. We looked at a few TAG mission statements from other library TAG groups and found some good ideas but those were a bit on the boring side. So before the next meeting I will write up a few different ideas and we can vote on them at the March meeting.
• We also talked about TAG running some programs either for kids (such as maybe a craft) or for teens.
• Another idea that everyone liked was to do something fun/different at each meeting. For example, this month we made chocolate covered pretzels & marshmellows (which were really yummy!). Other ideas included pizza night or a fiesta night. These last two ideas would not necessarily have to be at our regular Tuesday night meeting. We could have "TAG sponsered" events. Or at a Tuesday meeting we could, for example, have pizza at 6:30 and then have a shorter meeting from 7:00-7:30.
• Encourage your friends to come with you to TAG meetings.

There's about a week and a half left to enter our Harry Potter Fan Art Cover contest. Entries are due Friday 2/16. So far we haven't had any entries so encourage any fans of the series that you know to enter! We'll put up the entries around the teen section and the winner will go in the next edition of TeenThink. There's also a couple of prizes...
Rules & details are posted on this blog.

We have a new teen scrapbook! It's not ready to go out on display yet but if you come by the library & I'm here I'll show it to you. Right now it's on my desk.

What did you think of our first issue of TeenThink? Any thoughts on what we should change or add for the next issue? Some thoughts at the meeting were that we need more illustrations, drawings, and/or photographs. Another idea was to include a few easy to make recipes.

Do you have any movie suggestions for us to show? Email me with them if you do.

What do you think of http://www.bookcrossings.com/? The idea of the site is that people take paperbacks versions of books they really like and leave them in public places (such as doctor's offices, train stations, etc.). The idea is that someone else will then pick up the book and read it. Then they will leave it somewhere for someone else to read. Before they are left, the books are labeled with a tracking number from http://www.bookcrossings.com/ and instructions on what to do. Then when someone picks up the book they can log the tracking number into http://www.bookcrossings.com/ and you can see where the book has been. Is this something TAG would be interested in doing?

What would you like to see on our website? Some ideas for links include: places to volunteer, book review links, book lists & "what to read next", author links, fun stuff (games, interesting websites, etc.), homework help, surveys, etc. What do you think? Check out the survey I sent out by email.

Reader's Theater starts this month! Sign up if you want to come! (check your e-mail for more info!)

TeenTech Week is the first week of March. What do you think about a teen business card making workshop? You can make your own business cards for babysitting, pet sitting, computer help, etc.

Next TAG meeting is Tuesday March 6th @ 7:00

Design a cover for book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Contest Rules
--> This contest is open to all teens in grades 6 & up who live in Washington Twp.
--> Your entry must be your original work.
--> Cover designs may be hand drawn or created by you using the computer
--> Include a short (one page or less) written description of your cover (such as what you drew & why, which characters you included & why, symbolism, etc.)
--> Prizes will be awarded based on creativity, originality, and thought behind the cover design & description.
--> Winning covers will appear in the next issue of TeenThink and will be on display at WTPL.

To Enter: Submit your cover design and description to Mrs. Rizzo by e-mail (rizzo@main.morris.org) or by dropping it off at the library by Friday 2/16.

INCLUDE your name, age, grade, email, and phone number on your cover description AND on the back of your cover design.

What if you lived in an underground city with a failing power source and no way to get out?
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

What if you lived in a world where your family could only have two children but you live in hiding as an illegal third child?
Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix