Welcome Back & Party Planning

It's the start of a new, busy school year - with even more excitement on the first day as the new school building was unveiled!

Last night we held our first PTFA meeting of the school year.  I think the decision to host the meeting at the pub turned out to be a good one...

On Friday 3rd October, we will be holding a "Launch Party" for the new building.  As we were unable to hold a summer fayre this year due to the building works, we decided to hold an event later in the year.  We are hoping to have all the favourite stalls and games, with food and drink on sale too. 

As usual, we will be keeping the prices very reasonable so that everyone is able to enjoy themselves.  We will be selling 50p tokens (individually or in books of £5) again, which can be used at all the PTFA stalls (including food and drink).  To reduce queues, these will be sold in the playground on the morning of the event, as well as later on at the party.

The key thing we need now is plenty of volunteers - to be able to do all the things that the children love, we need people to help on the day.  Whether that is setting up (between 1:30pm and 3pm) or running a stall (between 3:30pm and 5:30pm), or just helping to tidy up afterwards, we need your help! 

If you can give us any of your time on the day, please sign up on one of the volunteer sheets in the office or email us at cliffordbridgepta@gmail.com

Thank you!!

After the Garden Party...

  Phew, what a day!

One of our concerns when thinking about having a mini garden party was the weather, but we needn't have worried with the glorious sunshine we had earlier!  With the weather so hot, we sold out of cold drinks in record time - we'll make a note to buy more next time...

It was a hectic afternoon, getting everything set up and making sure the children knew what to do on the games stalls.  If we had more time and volunteers, we would have put more games on, but everyone seemed to enjoy the ones we went with.

Results

Total profit made from the Garden Party (including the World Cup "Golden Goal" sweepstake) was an amazing...

£472

Wow - that is much more than we expected to make from an short-notice, informal garden party!

We will put this money towards our fundraising target to buy some playground equipment.

Thank You...

A big "thank you" goes to the following helpers:

• All the year 5 and 6 helpers who ran the tattoos, splat the rat, lucky duck and tin can alley stalls.  
• Paige and Amber for creating masterpieces in  face-painting, slogging away despite the heat and long queues! 
• The mum who stepped in to help with face-painting when the queues were particularly long.
• The parents & staff who braved the heat to serve cakes, drinks, samosas and BBQ food.
• The staff members who helped to co-ordinate the children and set-up (although one teacher seemed to be having too much fun on the tin can alley!)
• The PTFA members and Mr Whale for helping to set up & put away
• and finally... to all the families who supported us by staying behind for the garden party - we hope you had a great time!

Summer Garden Party Picnic

After school on Friday 20th June 2014 we will be holding a Summer Garden Party Picnic on the school field.

Everyone is welcome to join us for a relaxed social event for all the family.

Bring along a picnic tea, or take advantage of our BBQ and refreshments stall.  Remember to bring along a picnic rug or chair to sit on!

There will be entertainment on the day for young and old, so please come along to support your school.

"Will it be sunny... or at least, just dry?!"

That is the key question we will be asking in our Garden Party Picnic planning meeting on Monday night.

Anyone who is interested in helping to put together Friday's event is welcome to join us on Monday 16th June 2014 at 6pm in the school staff room.

We will need volunteers to help with the BBQ and to serve drinks and cakes, so please get in touch if you can help out.

We also need donations of yummy cakes and treats for the stall, so please get busy in the kitchen!

Do you have any spare rugs or picnic blankets that we could use for the event?

Get in touch via cliffordbridgepta@gmail.com if you have any donations or are able to help out.

All profits from the event will go towards the school playground fundraising pot.

Happy Father's Day

Despite last night's football score, I hope everyone is having a great Father's Day today.

The winning tickets for our Golden Ticket Fundraiser were drawn this morning, with the lucky numbers listed on the Father's Day page - take a look and see if you are a winner!

Please can all winning tickets be taken to the school office, where you can pick up your prize (the wine & beer will need to be collected by an adult!).

Prizes must be collected by Friday 27th June 2014, or they will be put towards a future fundraising event.

Update...
Don't forget to check your tickets - there are still a few prizes that haven't been collected yet!

We have counted all the money now and can confirm that the fundraiser made a brilliant...

£171

Thank you to all the children who bought a special bar - we hope your Dads enjoyed them!

Get Involved!

One of the most difficult things I find as Chair of the PTFA is asking people for things...

When it comes down to rolling my own sleeves up and getting stuck in (whether browsing wholesalers for 'secret sale' items or setting up stalls at a fayre), I enjoy putting in the effort for a worthwhile cause.

 

However, when I recently had to go knocking on the doors of local businesses to ask for donations for our Father's Day Fundraiser, I found it much harder!  Perhaps this is the British way, not wanting to be seen to be asking for help?  Yet when you receive some lovely, generous items from the businesses, it does seems worth it.

The same applies when it comes to asking parents and staff to volunteer and help out at school events.  We have some lovely parents at the school who have been really positive about what we are trying to achieve, yet I'm still shy when asking them to sign up to help more.


But, with the realisation that we simply cannot raise enough money to buy the playground equipment with the small group of volunteers, we need to encourage more people to get involved in our PTFA.

All parents, staff and "friends" of the school are automatically members of the PTFA and are welcome at our meetings, whether you want to help at an event or just to find out a bit more about what we are doing.

To find out more about the different ways to get involved, visit our Ways to Volunteer page.

2014 Fundraising Planning

Last night we held a fundraising planning meeting and now have some great ideas planned for the rest of the school year.

It's easy to get carried away with planning loads of events and sales, but we wanted to get the balance right so that we aren't constantly asking for sponsorship or donations.  Ideally, we would be able to find things to sell to parents at a good price that they would have bought anyway, resulting in a win-win situation!

We will be running the usual Mother's Day Secret Sale in a few weeks' time, with some pre-wrapped gifts for the mums that the children can buy cheaply.  We'll also run a Secret Sale for Father's Day in June, although we might try something a little different this time - more details to follow a little later...
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Update June 14 - we have now launched the Father's Day Golden Ticket Fundraiser. 
Click HERE for more details!


For the green-fingered amongst you, we will be selling the usual bedding plants and hanging baskets in May, helping you fill your gardens with lots of lovely bright flowers.
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Update June 14 - sadly due to a shortage in volunteers we were unable to organise the plants this year.  

With the building works not due to complete until the end of the Summer Holidays, we won't be able to hold a Summer Fayre this year.  However, we would still like to run some fundraising events - something for families and perhaps another band night for the adults.  We'll add more details over the next few weeks...
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Update June 14 - we are planning a Summer Garden Party picnic after school on Friday 20th June 2014... subject to weather!!

Our main focus for fundraising this year will be to buy some playground equipment.  When the new building is completed, it would be great for the children to have something to play on.  With the support of the staff, parents and local community, I think we can make a real effort in the remainder of this year to raise the money needed.