Introductions and Apologies Present: Aisling Jones, Lucinda Griffiths, Jason Rayner, Rachel Moffett, Louise Wakefield, Jackie Young, Isabel Gaiger, Sarah Shreeves, Sandra Whitehouse
Apologies: Hilary Wilcox, Katie McMahon, Katarzyna Gladk
Actions from last meeting
Paypal is set up and ready to go. Just requires Sophie’s signature.
Mrs Ballantine is happy for us to move forward with the monthly subscriptions promotion campaign whereby we ask people to make a monthly donation and has agreed to acknowledge those that sign up with a thank you letter. It was suggested in the meeting that we could reach out to older, past St Bon’s students via the church newsletter and local publications.
Finance
Current balance is just over £25,000. There are some large cheques still to clear including £1000 to the Bristol Old Vic and one for Christmas Fair expenses.
Keeping track of payments coming in is proving difficult due to how payments via SUM UP and the website are displayed on bank balance statements.
Some bank’s e.g. Lloyds offer free accounting software. Katie M is having a look at what the software can do. However Lloyds are currently not accepting account switches so we are having to wait until they are.
The cheque from the Nort Bristol food bank has still not cleared – Aisling to contact and we can arrange for the £200 cheque to be cancelled and reissued if need be.
Charities Commission trustees have been updated. Jason and Katie working on getting Gift Aid set up ideally to roll out with the monthly subscriptions. Jason and Katie to look to have an update on this by the next meeting.
We have funds for some of the playground equipment that the school has requested. Aisling to arrange a meeting with Mrs Ballantine to discuss.
Past events
Christmas Fair
The outside area was really useful and a marquee that we could access would good. Possible options discussed were buying one ourselves and storing. Range from £2000 to 5000 new but would be less second hand.
Jason to contact his friend who has a marquee business to see whether there might be an option to let them rent it out when we are not using.
1st Bishopston Scouts were kind enough to lend us the ones we used, Louise to speak to them about a possible arrangement whereby we borrow again and give them a small rental fee.
Aisling is happy for her gazebo to be kept in the under croft for use in the grotto next year.
It was felt that the one-way system and tokens worked well and should be kept post –covid.
Silent auction
All the prizes have now been claimed with £480 raised.
Christmas decorations
Left over decorations were sold at the church. Lu to return any left and money to the PTFA pigeonhole.
Aisling and Sandra to do a stock take of the stuff left in the PTFA cupboard.
Future events
· Possible idea would be to have a Krispy Krème fundraiser whereby we buy the doughnuts from them at whole sale and sell for a profit. It was suggested that maybe we could use this idea but make use of a local company. Louise to speak to Joe’s Bakery about valentine heart biscuits so that we can have “Kindness” cake sale on Friday 18th February.
· Linked to this was the idea to sell paper hearts on the Monday and Tuesday of that last week of term for students to write and then hang on the school fence. Sustainability was raised – Aisling to research biodegradable options.
· Second hand uniform sale. It was agreed that Aisling and Jackie would go through the current stock and cull any damaged items that we could then sell for 50p to £1. Going forward we need someone to take ownership of the uniform. We could potentially store in boxes in the under croft. Jackie may be able to take on this role as long as it can all be stored somewhere.
Possible future events (some are Covid dependent)
· Rock Bingo or Ceilidh
· KS2 Disco
· Sponsored read
· Geocaching – we could potentially get a company to make one for St Bon’s or alternatively there are companies that would make tailor made treasure hunts
· Shrove Tuesday – crepe machine rental
· Pizza Friday – there is a company that provide dough etc to take home to cook or we could bring in Wood fired Pizza ovens and cook prepare on site (idea for Summer Fair)
· Mother’s Day Recipe Book
· Summer Fair – date needs to be confirmed shortly
· Ice cream sales – resume the weekly Friday after school ice cream sales. Previously there was a rota and each class took a turn at buying stock and selling after school. We could look to buy tubs of ice cream from a local company and do cones. Aisling and Sandra to check/defrost the freezer when they sort the PTFA cupboard.
Requests for funding
Aisling to remind Mrs Ballantine to encourage teachers to bid for money for specific items. The school council could also be involved in coming up with ideas. It was suggested that a nice legacy for Year 6 would be for them to be involved in coming up with a project/items that we could provide funds for .
We are waiting for more information before we can get detailed quotes from the specialist playground company – as mentioned previously Aisling to catch up with Mrs Balantine about this.
Match funding
Reminder needed via the website/social media to get people to check with employers
Grants
· Aviva grant opens shortly – needs to be an ecological or financial literacy request
· Supermarket tokens
· Lots of other smaller grants available for the school to bid for. PTFA could help.
AGM
Date of AGM – Thursday 17th February 8pm via Zoom*
*Post meeting amendment, AGM will be held in March due to better availability of committee. February meeting will be a regular PTFA meeting which is proposed to be held in person subject to availability of Presbytery room.
AOB
Aisling asked about the need for the PTFA to do anything via hoodies as a lot of emails from companies are coming her way. Hoodies are sorted by the Year 6 reps. PTFA will make a funding contribution towards hoodies etc as in previous years.
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