Goring Primary School PTA – AGM Minutes
67th meeting – 18 March 2015
Present: Mrs Wood (Deputy Head), Mr Tim Monk (Teacher), Anna Leyland, Darren Bigmore, Kate Doornik, Lara Bright, Claire Slade, Helen Scurr, Kate Galbraith, Kerry Hughes, Amy Madsen, David Parkinson
1.Welcome and introduction – Anna Leyland
The role of the PTA is to raise money to help the School for the benefit of everyone who uses the school and assist in building a community of parents and teachers. The PTA has a committee of parents and teachers who meet regularly to discuss fundraising initiatives and organise events. There are separate sub-committees for the fete and 10K which are the major fundraising events.
2. Minutes of the 2014 AGM
Accepted by those present as a true record
3. Fundraising events in 2014 – Anna Leyland
Goring 10K
This is the school’s major fundraiser and is organized by an excellent independent sub-committee.
The 2014 10K was a great success on a lovely warm spring day. We give many thanks to Graham Lunt who had his last year as race director in 2014.
Message form Nick Slade, the current race director - The 2015 10K was a great success and sold out and received overwhelming positive feedback. It raised £18.500, which was beyond all initial expectations
The 10K committee would like to thank all the parents and children who helped. Quite apart form covering important roles, the volunteering is what gives the 10K a unique character that keeps runners coming back year after year.
The amount of money raised has come as a bit of a surprise to the PTA and school. Some of the money will be used to provide ICT equipment, however we will need to take time to consider how the extra money can be spent for the maximum benefit to the children.
School fete in June 2014 was a great success with a bumper total being raised which we hope to equalize this year. Thank you to Louisa Fawcett who has now left, and the fete committee are looking for parents from younger years to become more involved.
The fete is on 20/6 this year and being organized by Anna Roberts, Kate Kind, and Nicki Lecky- Thompson , with help from Jo Cammell , Linda Crown ,Liz Cusack, Jules Woodall and Larissa Gould
Band night end of November with bands The Spooks, The Mysteries and Damn the Torpedoes, featuring Goring Dad musicians Leigh Williams and Mark Cusack and David Caswell. Charlie Stanbury and Lindsay Derbyshire both helped with the bar, and were able to match funds raised with Vodafone contributions, making it an enjoyable and profitable night.
Other events/ fundraising activities:
Family BBQ in September organized by Linda Crown and Kate Doornik was a very popular event again, with lovely weather.
School disco before the Christmas holiday organised by Lara Bright . The children had great fun again.
Youth Tube – Goring Amenity association and the youth club run monthly film nights. Thanks to Nicola Astles-Jones
Reception parents coffee morning at the start of the year
Phil-the-bag – continues regularly – thanks to Nikki Sharman and Sarah Woolridge
Second hand children’s book sale – Jo Cammell
Christmas cards – and mugs and tea towels organized by Leigh Surman and Sarah in the office. Leigh can claim fund matching from Vodafone which makes this very worthwhile.
Cake and ice cream sales !
4. Report on school spending priorities – Tim Monk
In Mrs Wheatcroft’s absence, Mr Monk thanked the PTA for the excellent fundraising through the year, which has contributed to the costs of Forest School, running the minibus and the pantomime. Funds raised by the PTA have helped with the ICT upgrade which has resulted in one laptop per child in the classroom, plus an additional four laptops per class. Funds raised also go towards, for example, replacing the costly overhead projector bulbs. After school clubs like the tennis club and others are also made possible. In addition, £600 is put aside to subsidise school trips. The swimming pool repairs are underway utilising the funds specifically raised by the PTA. The school intends to spend more on ICT infrastructure and wireless upgrade.
5. Treasurers report and summary of accounts – Daren Bigmore
For those of you who would like to see more detail, copies of the draft accounts for 2014 are available in the room. Here is an overview of the results for 2014 and the current financial position.
2014 was a successful fundraising year for the PTA.
The total raised from PTA fundraising events and activities was £18,805. This compares with £26,861 in 2013. Although the total funds raised were substantially lower than in 2013, it should be noted that 2013 was an exceptional year, when a big effort was made to raise additional funds (mainly through the Auction Night event) to cover major repairs to the school swimming pool.
The fundraising events during the year raised the following amounts:
Event / 2014 / 2013Goring 10k / £8,861 / £7,698
Summer fete / £5,603 / £4,004
Band night / £1,257 / -
Christmas cards / £1,198 / £836
Family BBQ / £799 / £593
“Phil the Bag” (clothing donations) / £579 / £919
Auction Night / - / £10,464
Quiz night / - / £1,866
Other / £508 / £481
Total / £18,805 / £26,861
The Goring 10k run was the principal source of funds in 2014. There were again over 1,000 entries and significant sponsorship was attracted. Our sincere thanks go to all the sponsors and volunteers who make the event possible.
The School Summer fete had a record year. As with prior years, major contributions came from the raffle and the food and drink stalls, but most of the fundraising was generated from the plethora of smaller individual stalls spread throughout the school. As ever, the fete committee is keen for new faces to join the team.
The Band Night in November was enjoyed by all who attended, and raised over £1,200.
There was no Auction Night in 2014, the team feeling that it was better to only run an event of this scale every few years.
The Family BBQ took place for the second year in succession and raised £799.
The Christmas Card initiative was run again in 2014. The huge number of cards ordered ultimately raised the whopping total of £1,198.
“Phil the Bag” – which has been running since 2012 – raised £579. We plan to carry on running Phil the Bag garment collection days, raising funds as you de-clutter your wardrobes.
Other income in the year came from the Children’s disco, the 2nd hand book sale, classroom sales, the film club and on line fundraising through www.thegivingmachine.co.uk.
Expenditure
Most of the money raised during 2014 was spent during the same year.
Activity / 2014 / 2013IT Equipment / £12,275 / -
Forest School for reception class / £2,829 / £1,998
Minibus running costs / £1,001 / £761
Sports coaching / £820 / £745
Pantomime performance / £520 / £505
Whiteboard bulbs/IT Equipment / £493 / £148
Other (admin/NPTA subscription etc) / £130 / £91
Contribution to Lego Club / £83 / £235
Science Event/Puzzle Event/Workshops / - / £1,375
Swimming pool repair / - / £2,730
Contribution to school trip fund / - / £600
Other / £310
Total / £18,022 / £9,396
The largest individual contribution during the year was for IT equipment. This included spend on laptops etc for classrooms as well as core infrastructure for the school’s IT network. This expenditure should help refresh dated equipment, as well as providing a greater pool of assets to support all classroom IT activities. This spend included £5,000 which had been committed in 2013, but was not actually spent until 2014.
In addition to the IT equipment, the PTA continued to fund a range of on-going activities, including Forest School, various sporting activities, educational events and other items as required.
In order to maintain these levels of on-going activities, the PTA needs to raise at least £10,000 each year.
The PTA remains committed to funding major capital projects as they arise. During 2015 it is anticipated that once most routine funding requirements have been met, the balance of all funds will be spent on additional IT equipment. There continues to be a significant need for additional IT resources, not least to support curriculum changes which place greater emphasis on IT teaching at primary school.
Reserves
As at 31 December 2014, the PTA had accumulated reserves (in effect, unspent cash) of £27,000. Of this amount, a notional minimum amount of £20,000 has been set aside to cover the anticipated cost of repairing the school swimming pool.
The swimming pool was originally expected to need to a major overhaul in 2014, and consequently significant fund-raising activities took place in 2013 to fund this work. Although the fund-raising target was met, in the event, we were able to defer the major overhaul by undertaking some minor repairs. These repairs are only temporary, and so the PTA remains ready to fund the major overhaul as soon as it is deemed necessary.
We are optimistic that if the levels of parent and local community support shown in 2014 are repeated in 2015 then we should be able to maintain a consistent level of support for the on-going activities, events and equipment that the PTA has been funding over the last few years.
Thank you again to everyone who supported the PTA during 2014.
The accounts for the year were approved.
6. Planned fundraising events – Anna Leyland
Next date for your diary is the wine tasting night and disco 25/4 organised by Mairead Herlihy
We always welcome new ideas
7. Election of the New PTA committee
Anna Leyland is due to step down as PTA chair pending a replacement volunteer, we will advertise for new members next term
Current Committee
Daren Bigmore [treasurer]
Angela Wheatcroft [ head teacher]
Miss Chester [ teacher]
Nick Slade [ 10K subcommittee]
Anna Roberts [ fete committee]
Anna Leyland [chairperson]
Mairead Herlihy [events]
Chris Murphy [events]
8. AOB
The school governors, represented by Helen Scurr and Claire Slade, also thanked the PTA for making it possible for the school to provide many extras which would not be covered by normal funding. They pointed out that Goring Primary received government funding of £3,642 per child, which is £800 less than the average for Oxfordshire and the country. The school plans to lobby the local MP and county councilors to increase the school’s share of funding.