PTA Notes from 7/2/18

Minutes

HMTVS PTA Planning Meeting

Heather Burns, Donna Mitchell, Kate Linford, Jo Ford, Kerry Taylor, Caroline Cooper,

Mat Hutchinson, Hilary Clarke and Suzanne Gaynor

Ingrid Tomlinson, Lorna Goligher, Sarah Pritchard, Sean Simmons, Shona Simmons, Claire Farrell,

Rada Ramsay, Helen Jones and Sarah Dawson

Review of items authorized to be spent via school discussed. Funds available and ready to be issued to the school as appropriate.

Outdoor classroom (now built and paid for by school in interim, to be refunded by PTA) £5000

Sensory Garden (in planning stages) £2000

Portable PA system

Mini ipads with cases £2744

Funds towards school trips, Conway trip and young voices £1425

Requested – KS1 Books to be replaced £2000

New flooring for reception

Other sources of funding – Reception rug and storage boxes – funded via Suzanne Gaynor/school improvement fund from her place of work

Presented by Kate Linford

Large amount of clothing already collected and in storage. The agreed date for the sale is Saturday 28^th April, and school hall will be made available on the Friday afternoon (27^th April) with the cancellation of celebration assembly that afternoon. We discussed whether to have the sale on Friday afternoon after school instead, to catch parents from the school at pick up. Kate is hoping to advertise on new mums of chester FB page, and catch a much wider audience, so felt that Saturday would be better.

We agreed that we could open for an hour or so on Friday to sell some things for those interested, and then open properly on the Saturday for a wider audience, to catch both groups, as the set-up efforts would already have been done.

Unsellable and unsold items can be used for bags2school collection which we will try to co-ordinate for the week after the sale. Kerry will kindly ring bags2school and ask for a collection date.

Ideally we will have a section for pre-loved uniform too.

Needed:

• Advertising – New Mums of Chester (Kate), School Facebook page (Heather or Jo), posters on main road if possible and around village (Pre-school)

• Donations – we need to ask school parents and pre school parents for donations and can be stored in Kate’s storage unit. Need to ask for donations to be clean, good condition and labelled clearly with age to help with sorting.

• Volunteers – for collecting items on the Friday morning, sorting in the afternoon and helping with sales and refreshments on Friday and Saturday.

Booked for 14^th March with Chameleon. They will provide tickets for us to print out and sell, and posters, Jo will speak to them to arrange.

Discussed a raffle and Suzanne has offered to ask at work about donations of Cadburys chocolates again, Jo will also ask Chameleon if they can donate something for the raffle.

Price of ticket to include a free drink on arrival. Suggested ticket price £3

Needed:

• Tickets/posters

• Licence/TEN (Heather to apply)

• Book glasses hire – free from Waitrose

• Purchase drinks for bar and for free drink on arrival -can we get this on sale or return somewhere? If not, wine boxes worked well last time.

• Advertising – need to put on FB page and send message out to parents. Also posters for around the village.

Booked for 21^st March, usual format of KS1 the KS2. Currently booked for 4.30 start but Hilary suggested looking at whether it could start earlier so that it finished earlier which might suit families more.

Kerry has offered to confirm date with Adam (booked last October) and to see if a different time might be okay for him. If so, we suggested polling the school to see if they would be happy to move times or whether it would be preferred at the same time.

Tickets on the door worked well last time, much less work before and need to tick people off anyway. We will need a float for the event to ensure change.

Refreshments for adults and encourage them to stay and help supervise.

Needed:

• Purchase refreshments for the kids and glow sticks for prizes

• Honesty box for adult drinks

• Approach Ali for pre-loved uniform rail

• Confirm date with DJ and decide on times, poll parents

Booked for 23^rd March and Ingrid has it in hand.

Needed:

• Prizes (check that Ingrid is getting these)

• Volunteers for the day

• Printing/photocopying – school are happy to do these, I will let Ingrid know to speak to the office for anything she needs.

None planned for Spring Term but could look for dates in the Summer Term.

We agreed that the old format seemed to work better with mixed age groups in the classrooms, so that siblings and buddies can be together.

Needed:

• Date for next one, if it can be fitted into the school calendar.

No date yet but agreed to same format as last year – entertainer in the hall (Jo to book same man as last year), teddy bear’s picnic theme and snack in a bag. Parents refreshments in the Reception Classroom.

Needed:

• Date for event

• Book entertainer

• Snack bags and volunteers to make up snack bag

• Invitations when names are known

• Volunteers on the day to help with parents refreshments and helping with the new children

Dates discussed – originally discussed having on the last day of term but it was felt this would impact on the year 6 leavers and would struggle to get as much support from parents as it would involve people taking time off work and no-one will want to help tidy up afterwards. Also may impact on those who book holidays for the night of the last day or the day after.

Suggested looking at doing it the last weekend of the Summer term – 14^th or 15^th July – but we will need to discuss this with Mrs Lyon.

It may involve the children using the school field less for the final week of school if there was a lot of residual powder, to avoid it being trampled into the school.

When date agreed, need to advertise and drum up support. We’ll need to plan a course and check distance of course, before posters done etc.

Needed:

• Discuss with Sean Simmons about planning

• Prices for medals and t-shirts

• Price up portaloos

• Prices for powders, check re safety and hypo-allergenic info re powders. Estimate how much we will need – buy a sample and assess.

• Once we know how much t-shirts and medals etc are, need to plan price of entry

• Advertising – FB page, posters etc

• Obstacles – Mat suggested PE dept may be able to help plan this

• Refreshment planning

• Things to sell eg glow sticks etc

Discussed briefly. Date agreed as 9^th June. We need to get on to prizes for the raffle, and fund matching, then start planning properly at the next meeting.

We need someone to co-ordinate the raffle prizes, as Kerry has done this for the last 3 raffles and she would appreciate it being done by someone else. This would also hopefully get more variety in the prizes. Kerry has offered to make a list of where she normally goes and any contacts she has, to pass on.

Mat reported it had been discussed at the staff meeting and there was some interest from some of the teachers. For safeguarding reasons, it would have to be led by/supervised by the teachers. If there were parent volunteers supporting, they would need DBS checks in advance.

Mat made a great suggestion to combine it with stargazing if we had a clear night.

Suggested date: Friday 26^th May

Suggested cost per child: £10

Suggested itinerary: Kids go home after school, all back for 7 or 8pm, play on field if weather okay eg

game of rounders. The film and popcorn, and into sleeping bags and ‘sleep’.

Pick up by parents 8am or similar and could offer small breakfast before they go.

Needed:

• Final decision from Teachers about whether to go ahead and if so, which year group(s). Also if they want parent volunteers

• If decision to go ahead, we can formalize final details and put out word to parents to gauge interest.

Saturday 19^th May. Suggestion is to have a street party-style event. Wedding ceremony is at midday, and we have the option of showing it on the screen in the hall.

The plan would be tables, bunting, cakes, maybe a bouncy castle, face painting. We could have a licence for alcohol if deemed appropriate.

We could poll the parents to see if there would be much interest in this event, maybe poll via FB page.

There are a number of companies who bring a pop up circus to the school field. They charge a one off fee, and we get the proceeds of ticket sales and refreshments, merchandise etc.

The idea was received warmly and we will look into companies/reputations, and dates that could be done. Autumn would be good, maybe late September with ticket sales starting before the end of the summer term.

We could look at selling tickets at other local schools if needed to fill the tents.

World cup – we decided looking at the dates of fixtures, it was unlikely to be well supported, and would be a lot of work for minimal return.