1. August 11-13, 2000 Retreat in Amarillo
 - 4 of the 5 council members attended: Nicole Koetting, President; Keith Botello,  Vice President; Molly Cox, Secretary; Bill Matney, Treasurer (Katie Keller,  Parliamentarian unable to attend)
 - Other representatives in attendance: Robbin Buford and Jennifer Sullivan from  West Texas A&M University and Jason Cornelius from Southwestern Oklahoma  State University
 - Schools Represented at Retreat: Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Texas  Woman's University and West Texas A&M University

2. Fundraiser - Tote Bags
 - to be sold at National and Regional Conference
 - when we sell all 100 bags, we will double our money!

3. Mission Statement Formulation
 - Educate and support current and prospective music therapy students by fostering  a working knowledge of the field of music therapy while instituting a sense of unity  among music therapy students in the southwestern region of the American Music  Therapy Association fro Students.
 - Key Points: Education (Community service project and Day of Music Therapy in  February ), Support (scholarships, internships, fundraising), and Communication  (website, newsletter, participation)
 - this is just the beginning point for the mission statement, it will be growing in the  future!
 
4. Website = Long Term Project
 - address: www.angelfire.com/music2/swamtas
 - webmaster: Jason Cornelius: jcorneli@nts-online.net
 - information needs to be sent to him so that it can be put on the website!!!
 - please watch the website for important information about our region
 - this will become our newsletter and way of communication!

5. Regional Conference Activities
 - Drums Not Guns: www.drums.org   This will probably be our service project.   We will know more in the near future.  It is a non-profit organization who facilitate  community drum circles with youth at risk, encouraging intercultural dialogue through  music and movement, to stop violence.  They make presentatives and give out  donated percussion instruments to the children.  During Regional Conference,  representatives from this organization will hopefully come to El Paso and present a  program for an area school.  Our student organziation will accompany the group to  the school.  Donations: The student region goal for the Drums Not Guns project is  for each school to bring at least fifteen percussion instruments to donat to Drums  Not Guns and these will be given out at the presentation.

 - Student Focus Session - please start thinking about what each school would like  to present about.  We are going to follow the same format as last year, sharing one  session time.
 
 - Thursday, Executive Council meeting from 10AM -12:30PM, then Executive  Council and School Representatives Meeting from 2PM-4PM
 
 - Thursday night - games together
 
 - Friday lunch - pizza or subs provided by the student region

6. Regional Conference Information:
 - Dates: Thursday, March 29th, Friday, March 30th, and Saturday, March 31st
 - Held in El Paso at the Camino Real Hotel (www.caminoreal.com/elpaso/)
 - Rooms: single $85/night, double $100/night & triple $115/night
 - complimentary airport shuttle to hotel
 - Theme: Music Therapy Shining on the Border

7. National Conference Information:
 - Tote Bag Booth - IMPORTANT!  I'm enclosing a list of time slots for each school  to work the booth.  The bags will be there along with the money.  All you have to do  is sell the bags!!!  Each school is assigned to a certain number of hours.  If there is  a problem with the schedule, please contact me!  Each school please take  responsibility in assigning specific people to work, usually 2 at a time.  Feel free to  break up the hours into smaller work times.  But, I've made the schedule according  to when sessions are happening.
 - Friday, November 17th 5PM Dinner with SWAMTAS students!
 - Saturday, November 18th 8:30-9:30PM Games with another student region

Thank you for reading all of the information and making sure all students have a copy of this information.  It is very important for our communication in the region!!!!

Sincerely,

Nicole Koetting
1999-2001 SWAMTAS President
1313 Smiley St., Amarillo, TX 79106   koetting@arn.net   806-358-8357