Artarmon Public School P&C Minutes 26th March 2014
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Artarmon Public School
Parents and Citizens' Association
Abbott & McMillan Roads
Artarmon NSW 2064
Phone: 9411 1950 or 9411 1062
Fax: 9415 1243
www.artarmon-p.schools.nsw.edu.au/community
Minutes of the Monthly Meeting of the Artarmon Public School P&C
held on Wednesday 26 March 2014 in the Library
Attendance: As per attendance book
Including Ryan Shepherd, Louise Green
Apologies: Sheila Srikanth Kallayil, Edith Lau, Ian Dyson
Chair: Karen Pearson
Minutes: Geoffrey Chin
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Meeting Opened: 8.00pm
Item 1 Attendance and apologies
Item 2 Minutes of previous meetings
Motion: That the minutes for the previous P&C Meeting held in Nov 2013 be accepted
Moved: Kali Lawrie
Seconded: Karen Pearson
Motion Carried
Motion: That the minutes for the previous P&C Meeting held in Feb 2014 be accepted
Moved: Daniel McDougall
Seconded: Rachel Yao
Motion Carried
Matters voted on since last meeting None
Matters arising from the Minutes None
Item 3 Correspondence
Noted
· Letter from Federation of P&C re: invitation to attend 2014 Annual Conference and AGM to be held on 25 July
· Letter to Minister Piccoli from Ian Dyson expressing support for reforms to the governance of NSW P&C Federation
· Letter from Artarmon Progress Association re: recent Planning Assessment Commission decision on Channel 9 development site
· Congratulatory letter from Karen Pearson to Michele Stockley Smith Canteen Manager on her winning the Healthy Kids Association Canteen Recognition Award for 2013
· Karen Pearson letter to NSW P&C Federation advising that we hope to have our Audit completed by the end of Term 1.
Item 4 Status Update on Action items from Prior Meetings
Raised / Issue / Action / Status /None
Item 5
5.1 VC Survey Results
Not discussed as Ian Dyson was not present.
5.2 Discontinue use of cheques
Shishir Marathe highlighted the administrative burden with P&C financial transactions involving cheques. Feedback from Band and Strings suggested that only 6 and 8 cheque-based transactions respectively had occurred and both sub-committees were fine without relying on cheques. Canteen confirmed that cheques were not used. All remaining cheques will be returned to Treasurer.
Motion: That the use of cheques within the P&C for financial transactions be discontinued
Moved: Shishir Marathe
Seconded: Kali Lawrie
Motion carried
5.3 Delegates to P&C State Conference, July
Karen Pearson spoke on the current state of disarray within the NSW Federation of P&C. Karen and Ian will be attending the State Conference in July. Karen invited interested parents to attend as the third delegate.
5.4 Regional Council (provided by Ian Dyson in absentia)
Following an approach late last year from David Jordan (Killara High SchoolP&C President), the Executive of the Artarmon Public School P&C expressed interest in being a foundation member of a new cooperative to provide services to P&Cs. The next step is to contribute $100 for a single share and attend the initial meeting. Once the initial meeting is held the cooperative can be registered with NSW Fair Trading.
· Insurance brokers and Allianz have been assisting to to set up a new insurance offering with a streamlined process and lower premiums.
· Banks have been prepared to offer higher interest rates on deposits and better transaction/eftpos fees and other facilities to member P&Cs.
· Initial discussions have been held to provide support for canteens, out of school hours care.
· A website is under construction, a General Manager with commercial experience has been approached, and publicity secured in major newspapers
Item 6 Treasurer's Report
There has been very minimal activity since the last meeting. However, below are the major events which have progressed since we had discussed them at the last meeting.
Voluntary Contributions
The school website has been updated to receive the Voluntary Contributions through TryBooking. We are hoping to raise AUD 100,000 this year.
Appointment of bookkeeper
Applications have been reviewed and the final interviews for the appointment of bookkeeper have been scheduled.
Audit of the previous year
The audit of the accounts for the financial year ending 2013 is in its final stages and is expected to be completed before the end of Term One.
Twenty seven parents have already paid their VC via Trybooking. Shishir acknowledged and thanked Murugs for his significant work in setting up the Trybooking site. As some parents may not have received the VC email due to non-provision of contact details, Louise suggested a stand/table during the upcoming Welcome Picnic to highlight VC
Item 7 Reports from Principal, Deputy Principal and Assistant Principal
Louise addressed a few issues brought to her attention by some parents as well as provided some school updates.
The annual school report for 2013 will be available in May. It is due in April to the DEC and approval is needed prior to publication. Annual School reports for the previous 3 years are already available on the school website.
The online ordering at the start of the school year will only be limited to textbooks, rather than textbooks & stationery. There are no issues in using a single vendor to deal with the on-line ordering from the school’s perspective.
Some parents felt that they did not get much out of the Parent Teacher Interviews at the start of Term and requested another one to occur later in the school year. Louise sought feedback from teaching staff – general comments were that a lot of effort are put in the preparation of student reports twice a year and that teachers are always available to have parent interviews on request. Staff viewed the parent/teacher interviews in Term 1 as a positive experience as they met parents early in the new school year. Interviews also gave parents the opportunity to raise any specific issues they wanted the teacher to know about their child.
There were two quotes for the artificial grass for the Abbott Rd COLA ($36,000 and $44,000) with another one pending. A quote for water pumps obtained on behalf of the Gardening Subcommittee came in at $3,600 each – the cost is prohibitive and is not financially viable for purchase.
A new digital sign will be put up to replace the existing sign and will be installed at the same site. Announcements & messages will be displayed from 8am to 4/5pm.
Foundation laying in preparation for the new buildings has been scheduled for 2-4 April. Louise suggested that the P&C write a letter to thank Willoughby City Council for allowing vehicular access during construction.
Louise will be on leave for two weeks and Ryan Shepherd will be stepping in ad interim.
The School, P&C and Assets met to discuss the tender process for selecting a provider for out of school hours (OOSH) care. The timing is for the tender to go out during the coming school holidays. It is expected that OOSH care will be available by end of Term 2. Care will be catered for in the school hall with a capacity for 93 children.
Due to stretched resources especially with staff time, there is limited flexibility in scheduling numerous extra-curricular (EC) activities during school hours (e.g. guitars, chess, dance groups, choir, debating and PSSA etc.). Every effort is made to schedule EC activities throughout the week so that students have maximum opportunities to participate in the different activities. However, with increasing opportunities and current time constraints, parents need to consider that students may have to make choices about the EC activities they commit to each year.
Ryan Shepherd spoke on a few issues.
There will be an upcoming Easter hat parade for K-2 as well as planned event for the Anzac day service
The Regional swimming carnival was held yesterday and two students progressed to the State level.
The school website now includes an option to translate the pages into different languages.
Two letter boxes have been set up for Band (orange) and Strings (red) in the hallway of the school office. Parents are encouraged to use them to return relevant forms or communication notes to be passed on to the Convenors. A new interactive TV screen has been set-up in library. We are trialling this interactive device as a possible option for using in classrooms that cannot have a wall mounted interactive board.
Louise mentioned the use of web-based professional development course for teachers that allow them to video themselves and their classes in order to analyse their performance. An initial trial involving 6-7 teaching staff is planned. The videos can also be used as a repository for future learning by other staff members.
Item 8 Sub Committee Reports
Gardening Committee Report
1. Drop ‘N Weed and Gardening Bee for term 1 2014
Drop ‘N Weed and Gardening Bee are planned for Friday 28 March (9-10am) and Saturday 29 March (1-3pm), in time for the Welcome Picnic.
2. Raised Garden Beds Rejuvenated
Raised garden beds have been filled, fertilised, planted and mulched and are growing well. An additional garden bed will be installed near the band room.
3. Meeting with Principal
A meeting was held with the school principal to discuss various gardening initiatives with a view to seeing what support for gardening is required and what will best fit in with current projects. P&C will work with interested teachers to maximise the benefit of gardening projects. Various options are being considered and pursued.
4. Meeting with interested teacher
A meeting was held with a teacher, Mrs Woerde, who is interested in liaising about gardening projects for the school. We discussed ideas for 'greening' the school and, together with other interested staff, she will help put these ideas into action. She will prepare a roster for watering the raised garden beds, for three interested teachers from each site, which will commence from term 2.
5. ‘Ready, Set, Grow’ Council Program in 2014
The school are investigating participating in this program run by the council to provide plans and support for the existing programs within the school.
Band Committee Report - Rachel Yao
The Committee held a general meeting on 4 March and discussed the need to replace existing wind instruments and purchase new ones.
Motion: That the P&C approve the purchase of musical instruments at a cost of $15,000
Moved: Rachel Yao
Seconded: Kali Lawrie
Motion carried
String Committee Report – Edith Lau
Both Senior and Junior Strings are running well so far. All ensemble fee are paid except one family hasn’t paid and Mr Shepheard has assisted to trace it. Both Senior and Junior Captains are elected.
There are 11 Y5 and Y6 students from Senior Strings group were selected to the Opera House ensemble after the audition on 4 March, they will perform in the Opera House Acacia Concert on 23 Jun. Parents are appealed to help in the 19 May Croydon Public School Rehearsal and 23 Jun the full day rehearsal in Opera House.
Training Strings rehearsal will commence in term 2. We have 36 students this year in the training strings group thus we have asked one more cello teacher, Heather Suh, to assist in conducting the group. Edith and the treasurers will work out in the budget to determine if we could afford two conductors, i.e. Adrian and Heather, to run the training strings group; Otherwise, Heather will only attend the rehearsal during term 2 in order to look after our new 14 cello and 2 double bass students.
The 1st meeting of the Strings Committee Meeting held on 18 March. We all agreed the following events in the 2014.
1. Mother’s Day Breakfast Concert – Thursday 8 May 8-8:50 am at the School Hall, only Senior and Junior Strings will perform.
2. City of Sydney Eisteddfod – Thursday 19 June at The Concourse, Senior Strings involved.
3. Annual Strings Workshop – Sunday 17 August at APS. All Strings members are involved.
The Strings letterbox is in use now, located in the Hallway of the Office, all correspondent documents or forms are advised to put into the letterbox. Thank you for Mr Shepheard’s opinion and assistance for putting it up for us.
APS 2014 Strings Committee:
Convenor: Edith Lau
Senior Strings Coordinator: Erica Lamming
Junior Strings Coordinator: Robyn Louey
Training Strings Coordinator: Mary McCarthy
Hire co-ordinator: Atsuko Porman, Anney Huang
Treasurer: Lane Lou, Jane Lin
Secretary: Catherine Williams
Librarian: Melida Rodrigue
Workshop Coordinator: Mary McCarthy
Uniform Committee Report – Catherine Gyles
No report
Canteen Committee Report–
The Canteen is still looking for a volunteer to be involved across the range of canteen activities by being convenor. There are a large number of volunteers who are currently keeping the canteen running behind the scenes (thank you all!) so the convenor role is not a huge workload. In fact, it is 1 of only 2 positions that require up to (and sometimes more) than an hour a week. It would be a very rare week where it would be more than 2 or 3 hours in the week. If the P&C knows of someone who love to be involved in both the canteen and the P&C, please email the canteen
Our Canteen Manager, Michele Stockley-Smith won the Healthy Kids Association award for 2013 and was presented with a small cash prize for herself and a $500 cheque for the school (please see attached).
One of the reasons they gave for her winning was involving the students and the parents (through the gardening committee) in growing fresh vegetables for her to cook.
Well done Michele for all of your amazing efforts across the last 7 years.
Multi-Cultural Committee Report – Sheila Kallayil/ Gwyn Denton
Drop and Chat
We had our first drop and Chat of the year on 21st March 2014. It was attended by around 65 parents. We had quite a few previous attendees along with new Kindie and OC parents. Mrs Learmonth and Mr Shepherd were there to show their support. Mrs Learmonth welcomed the parents. Karen Pearson, the president of the P&C, explained the importance of the voluntary contributions to the school. This was followed by Coffee/Tea. Many parents showed their interest in volunteering at the welcome picnic, canteen and the uniform shop. It was great to see such a good response.
Traffic Committee Report– Ian Dyson (in absentia)
In 2014 the eligibility for free bus passes has been enforced more strictly than before. For children entering Year 3/4/5/6,if you live within 1.6km of the school a free bus pass won't be issued. CrossingArtarmon Roadat the traffic islands is considered safer than previously.