Friends AGM News and Fundraising Goals!

On 27th September 2022, the Friend’s of St Andrew’s PTA held its Annual General Meeting. At the meeting, this year’s committee roles of Chair, Co-Secretary (2), Treasurer, and Social Secretary were approved, alongside trustees, as well as informal Class Reps – new this year.

A financial statement was prepared and circulated by the Treasurer. We are so excited to announce that in the 2021-22 school year, we raised £4433.08! This means we smashed our fundraising goal – thank you so much to the generous school community! This money was raised from events such as regular hot chocolate or ice lolly sales, Pot Luck Supper, Quiz Night, the Winter Raffle, plus standing order contributions and apps like Easyfundraising.

Using these funds, St Andrew’s has already been able to buy shiny new digital cameras for each class teacher to document the children’s activities, plus we introduced a selection of new multilingual books to the school library and supported other events such as transport for school trips, Christmas parties and the end-of-term Silent Discos.

During the AGM, Headteacher Jayne Rochford-Smith also outlined what school would like Friends to fund this year. The school hall is in need of an audio-visual upgrade, as it currently uses an unreliable outdated projector and poor audio technology. Jayne has identified an interactive multimedia portable screen which would be perfect for ‘upgrading’ assemblies and could even be used within the classrooms when needed. Friends and meeting attendees agreed this would be a fantastic fundraising goal as school budgets cannot stretch to this.

Fundraising has already started with a festive flourish this year as many parents took the opportunity to order Christmas cards and personalised gifts at the end of September, with a proportion of sales going to Friends PTA. This term, Friends will also be organising hot chocolate Fridays, an autumn sale (including uniform and cake sales), and Winter Raffle – so keep an eye out for publicity soon!

As well as fundraising, Friends PTA is also about building a school community – there are many ways we can work together to support school and getting involved is such a great way to get to know other parents/carers! Click for more information about the Friends of St Andrew’s.