PTA Meeting Minutes 28th April 2022

CLAREMONT PRIMARY SCHOOL PTA

PTA MEETING

28 April 2022, 7.30pm, The Claremont

Seven members constitute a quorum. See Table 1 at the end of report for full attendance and

voting record.

APOLOGIES: Candi Roberts, Sarah Seddon, Ben Dryland, Lucy Prior, Nicki Webb

1. Tonbridge Dragon Boat Race 7.45pm (Year 2 Dads attending – Seb and Adam)

The team have entered the race (4 th September) and secured the boat. Team are hoping to get

sponsored for the entry but team wondering if it could be something focused on raising funds

for something specific the school needs. E.g. IT, does the school need more iPads? Consider

promoting at Clarefest & Summer Fete – introduce the team, have a stand on the day (part of

the PTA stall). They also get a small marquee at the event so could promote PTA fundraising

Action 1 – CS to liaise with Julie Cook to ask for specific funding needs (e.g. IT / Outdoor

classroom).

Action 2 – allocate the Dragon Boat team some space at the fete / Clarefest and/or the PTA

noticeboard.

Action 3 - CS to set up a local giving page (inc. QR code) for fundraising.

Action 4 - Dragon boat team to try and get a sponsor (£500 for boat, £200 for tshirts)

Action 5 - CS to call out in weekly email for parents that work for organisations that may be

willing to sponsor and consider corporate matching for those parents that might be on the team.

2. Update from the Chair - CS

a) Scavenger Hunt £1700 raised inc. Winkworth sponsorship. Massive thanks to Kate Bourne

for all her hard work in leading and organising!

b) Easter very successful, raised £1450 (£950 profit), big thanks to LP for organising and the

team that supported, the children loved it!

3. Actions from Last Meeting (S’OM)

a) Teacher Rep - CS to follow up with interested party and CC to chase / ask internally if any

volunteers. – 17/05 update – still no interest. CC also advised that she would be stepping

down at the end of this academic year so we will certainly need someone from school

community for next year.

Action 6 – Teacher Rep: CC to keep asking within the school.

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b) Events Licence – agreed that we should discuss and review the need for this when this

comes up for renewal and decide what the ongoing requirements are.

Action 7 – Committee to review Events Licence when comes up for renewal.

Action 8 - Agreed to set up a lessons learnt / mop up session after Clarefest so learnings could

be taken into Summer Fete.

Action 9 – Cinema Club – SW to discuss with school re. potential dates and chairs (due to lack of

benches). CC to discuss with Dominic Coulson whether he can still support the tech. *Risk

Assessment and Booking Form will need to be completed).

Action 10 – Second Hand Uniform Sales – first in person sale raised £151! Big thanks to Nicki

Webb. NW to use PTA Committee Whats App group to call out for help at in person sales next

time.

Action 11- Gardening / Allotment – BD to approach school as not for PTA to decide. (o/s action

from last month).

4) Financial Update – SF

£37,136.47 in bank account. £2,277.44 income (last calendar month). Outgoings £325

photobooth, and £462 Clarefest expenses imminent.

Action 12 - NJ and SF to meet separately to go through quarterly accounts and reconcile

everything to keep up to date (inc. Paypal).

Action 13 - SF to open a Revolute account for use of dollars if ever needed.

5) Urgent matters

a) Payment system / Tokens for events - SF

Sum Up is recommended Application. £29 for the machine, through any phone and multiple

phones £120 total approved by committee (please refer to Table 1 for voting record). Promote

use of cards (in comms prior to event) but have a cash float for bar and BBQ (just in case!).

Action 14 - SF to buy 3 machines and test it prior to Clarefest on different phones and networks

(on the school field!). SF to buy tokens. NW to use for Uniform sales.

Action 15 - EB to advise SF what float is needed for Clarefest as we may need to order money.

Tokens will be paper; can buy a roll and a holder. Token stall next to the entrance. Sell them on

the playground week prior, after publicising costs. £50 to procure paper tokens approved

(please refer to Table 1 for voting record).

Action 16 - EB to draft Clarefest blog with all the information (as above).

b) Annual Return – S O’M

Committee confirmed we don’t need independent verifier of accounts as less than £25k income.

Deadline is 22/6 to submit last years annual return.

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Action 17 - SF to review and populate spreadsheet and CS and S O’M to submit into the website.

c) Events / Fundraising updates

a. Easter success – as above.

b. 2 nd  hand uniform – dates all agreed for rest of year.

c. Clarefest – EB – all in progress. No major items to minute (other than covered

above).

d. Summer Fete – CS – all in hand. CR raised issues about the bar at the Summer Fete.

CS and NJ to address with CR directly. Mark Lester has submitted events notification

to the council and awaiting response. Agreed ticket price Adult £2.50 on website, £3

on the day, exc. Tokens. Kids free.

e. Discos – CC - 2 x discos Year 5/6 (27 th May) and Year 3/4 (24 th June), consider doing

Year 1/2 (17 th June) £140 for DJ. 100 children max £6 per ticket. NJ to add to website

(Year 5/6 launch first) and need 7 volunteers from 2pm. Disco 3.30-5pm.

Action 18 - CS to check with Jodi how many events tickets should be put aside for those that

might need financial support to attend events.

d) AOB

a) Various proposals – CS

- Home pizza evenings : agreed this was not going to be progressed.

- Go Goosy – quick drying onesie. Offering £1 for every item sold – agreed this was

not going to be progressed.

- Boon – run e-bay type auction. Like a marketplace between parents. % will go to PTA

on each sale. Agreed good idea to progress.

- S O’M has now updated the Charity Commission website with all 4 trustees details

(Chair, Vice-Chair, Treasurer and Secretary).

e) Next Meeting Date – Tuesday 14 th June (venue tbc)

Table 1 - RECORD OF ATTENDANCE & VOTING:

COMMITTEE MEMBER Attendance Vote – Sum Up 4 x card

machines £120

Vote – paper tokens £50

1. Claire Summers (CS) Y Y Y

2. Natalie Jolliffe (NJ) Y Y Y

3. Sara O’Malley

(SO’M)

Y Y Y

4. Sami Fotoohi (SF) Y Y Y

5. Emma Butterworth

(EB)

Y Y Y

6. Claudine Cerrini

(CC)

Y Y Y

7. Sarah Seddon N n/a n/a

8. Lucy Prior (LP) N n/a n/a

9. Sam Walker (SW) Y Y Y

10. Ben Dryland (BD) N n/a n/a

11. Candi Roberts N n/a n/a

12. Nicki Webb N n/a n/a

TOTAL 7 7 7

APPROVAL OF MINUTES BY CHAIR OF MEETING:

SIGN: C Summers

DATE: 25 May 2022

PTA After School Events for Children - ticket policy

Dear Parents, We want to clarify the arrangements for any after school events that the PTA runs for the children of Claremont, including cinema club and the discos. In particular, we'd like to explain why tickets, once purchased, cannot be transferred to another child (without exception) and to ask for your support with this rule. These events are not run by the school and are not an extension to the school day. Responsibility for your child is transferred to the PTA (remember we are a standalone charity) at the end of the school day and we take this responsibility very seriously. This is why we say the tickets cannot be transferred to another child, it’s because this is the safest way to ensure children’s safety and wellbeing during the event. We have clear processes in place to ensure that wellbeing and safety – including limiting numbers at the events and ensuring we know exactly who is going to attend and key information about each child (including emergency contacts and allergy info). Only the original child associated with a ticket can be admitted to the PTA event. If you transfer the ticket to another child we will not have the necessary information about that child and our event would not be meeting the high standards of safeguarding we set ourselves. We’re afraid we can’t process the transfers either as it is a huge administrative task and this increases the risks around misinformation on the day. So please don’t ask us – there can be no exceptions. If your child is absent from school on the day in question, you do not need to tell us either. We work with the school office to correlate any school absences to the attendance list for the event. We are sure this is the basis on which you would like to entrust your children to our care and so we appreciate your support with adhering to this rule. If you buy a ticket and your child can no longer attend then your ticket will be considered a donation to the PTA and for this we are very grateful to support all the hard work the volunteers put into organising these events. We’re sorry if this means some children may miss out but we hope you understand that this rule is in place for all the right reasons and we thank you very much for your support enacting it. The PTA

CLAREFEST - ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW!

WHAT’S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT?

- CLAREFEST is a fun family day of music and entertainment for all the families of the school. There will be awesome bands playing TUUUUNES, bouncy castles, “Last Man Standing”, face painting, a dance workshop, circus skills, photobooth, festival merchandise, sweets and even ice cream!

HOW’S IT GOING TO WORK?

- On the day you will enter from Claremont Road and show your ticket at the gate. Once you’ve entered you’ll be given a CLAREFEST 2022 wristband which you will need to wear all day and use to re-enter.

- Within the festival, you’ll have the opportunity to buy food, drink and partake in the entertainment on offer.

- We will have toilets and rubbish facilities available (although we welcome you taking your rubbish home with you – bags will be available on the day).

- Entertainment stalls will be operated using a TOKEN SYSTEM (they will not accept cash or card payments). 1 token can be purchased for £1. Each stall will be marked with how many tokens you will need to use e.g. 1 token for a 5 minute jump on a bouncy castle. See the image at the bottom of this blog for full list

- Tokens can be purchased in advance (from the school playground during pick up the week before the event) or on the day (from the token stall near the entrance gate).

- We will be accepting – for the first time ever (hello 21st century) – CARD PAYMENTS at the Bar, BBQ and Token Stalls. The use of cash is being discouraged so please support us making this a cashless event.

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO NOW:

- Buy ENTRANCE TICKETS for all those wishing to attend before the day. Tickets sales will end at 12pm on Friday 20TH May . We have already sold nearly 700 tickets and only have 900 available so grab yours up from here before they’re gone!

- PLEASE VOLUNTEER your time to help set up on Friday afternoon / for part of the event on the Saturday / clear up on Sunday if you can. The more volunteers we have the more fun everyone can have! Please email Emma Butterworth if you can offer any time. Even 30 minutes on the day itself will make a difference.

BEFORE THE BIG DAY:

- CHECK THE WEATHER: We have put in a special request for sunshine and are keeping our fingers crossed but you may want to have wellies and waterproofs at the ready, as well as sun hats and sun cream!

- STOCK UP ON TOKENS which will be for sale from the school playground w/c 16th May during pick up. See image in this blog for the list of what stalls you will need tokens for on Saturday. These stalls will only accept tokens so buy yours in advance to save queuing on the day.

- You can also pre-purchase slots (£5 each) for the DANCE WORKSHOPS from the team in the playground at the same time.

The workshops will be

For years 2 - 6; 2.45pm - 3.15pm and 4.15pm - 4.45pm

For pre-school - year 1; 3.30pm - 4pm (under 4's will need adult supervision)

With a performance @ 5pm - 5.15pm

WHAT TO BRING ON THE DAY:

- Appropriate clothing (once you’ve checked the weather),

- Something to sit on/under…a picnic blanket, camping chairs, umbrella, you may even want to bring your own gazebo if it’s looking like it’s going to rain all day.

- Something to drink out of it... e.g. a plastic cup, pint/wine/prosecco glass if you have one to help us minimise waste.

- Your contactless payment cards to help us run this as a cashless event for the first time ever!

Please do not bring your own food or drink (unless of course you have a specific dietary requirement) as a variety of food and drink offerings will be available to purchase and every penny raised from their sale, will go towards the PTA.

WHAT TO DO ON THE DAY:

- If you’ve done all the above then all that remains is to turn up and have fun!

- Please be your usual responsible and respectful selves. We are grateful to the school for lending us their grounds to host this event and intend to leave it as we find it.

- Help us by taking your own rubbish home with you. Rubbish bags will be available.

Thank you for supporting the PTA and we hope you have a wonderful time!