MONDAY 10th August 2015 Helensburgh Public School P&C Newsletter Welcome to our first P&C Newsletter. In a continued attempt to improve communications between our Helensburgh Public School P&C and the rest of the school community we have decided to create a newsletter that will come home once a month on the Monday before our P&C meeting. In our future editions we will let you know about upcoming agenda items, P&C events and offer educational tips. We hope it is informative and useful and welcome any feedback you wish to give that will help us improve these communications. In this issue Who are we What we are excited about Why get involved P&C Meetings Things that are happening in the P&C Finance Report Did you knowTell us about you Who are we? What we are excited about! There are always people happy to contribute their time and the call for volunteers is always answered. Without the volunteers, our fundraising efforts would be worthless. The P&C would like to extend a huge thank you to each one of you and your contributions. HPS parents put in so much for our kids, whether it be on P&C, working bees, baking for cake stalls, helping with the year 6 farewell, volunteering for sports activities, covering books, helping in groups, supporting fundraising drives or supporting the school. Every bit counts.Save the Date Tuesday 18th August 2015 Science Fair Thurs 10th September 2015 Grandparents Day Friday 11th September 2015 Comedy Night Science Fair Helensburgh Public School has implemented the new Science Syllabus and is holding a Science Fair on Tuesday the 18th of August to coincide with Science Week. Parents are invited to attend and participate in the experiments with their children. Watch out for a note with more information soon.How else can you help? Donate glass jars (any size) for experiments to Mrs Carter Volunteer to man some of the activitiesWe will do future fundraising for science equipment but if you wish to make a specific science donation please email pandchps@gmail.com Grandparents Day On Thursday the 10th of September we will need parents to man the bbq and cake stall. We will also be calling for cake donations. Please email samantha.neillpandc@gmail.com if you can help. Comedy for a CauseFriday 11th September 2015 - Tickets are $35 per headBook Tickets here: www.trybooking.com/ILFE If you can help with donations for our raffle please email samantha.neillpandc@gmail.comOUR NEW TOP OVAL PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT President: Sandy Szewcow Vice: Sam Neill & Naomi Burley Treasurer: Catherine Ryan Secretary: Gemma WilliamsFundraising: Therese Merchant Canteen: Bronwyn Charman Contact Email: pandchps@gmail.com Facebook: Helensburgh Public School P&C Communication List: samantha.neillpandc@gmail.com P&C Meeting Second Tuesday of the month 7pm till approx. 8.30pm in the staffroom All members of the Helensburgh Public School community are welcome and invited to attend a meeting whether it be every month, once a year or every few months. Next Meeting: Tuesday 11 August 2015 MONDAY 10th August 2015 Why Get Involved? Coming to a P&C meeting gives you an opportunity to keep up to date with what is going on in the school community. At most meetings, events that are happening in the school over the next four weeks are discussed and it helps you stay connected with what is going on. While fundraising is only a small part of the function of the P&C, it is essential. The school does not receive enough funding to pay for everything that the school community wants for its children. If you enjoy volunteering for a short amount of time at events that the school holds you can register to be a part of the Communications List by emailing samantha.neillpandc@gmail.comWe put a call out for volunteers when a special event is coming up and people just email us if they can help. P&C MeetingsDuring the meetings, we cover canteen, fundraising, finances, uniform and other current issues. At each meeting Mr. Connor gives the principals report and from time to time a guest will come and present information to parents on certain topics. Teachers often come to request funding for projects they are implementing at the school. By listening to these presentations on the new curriculum, reading programs or basic skills results, you will gain a better understanding of how the school is working to improve different aspects of our childrens education. Come once, come every month or every few months. We understand that there are people who can't make it to P&C however with more people, we can be more representative of the whole school. NEXT MEETING AGENDA FOCUS: Sports Uniform Redesign Canteen Things that are happening in the P&C Phase 2 of our playground equipment for the primary area is underway. Our target fundraising figure is $65,000 so we are really going to need your support over the next 12 months to create a fabulous playground for the seniors.People are often surprised to hear that we regularly have less than 12 people at a meeting. This is a situation that makes it difficult to make informed votes about what 350+ families want for their children. One of our new goals is to finish meetings no later than 8.30pm so that parents and teachers arent committing too much time after a busy day. We welcome any other ideas on how we could interest more parents from all year groups to come to the meetings.Finance reportThe play equipment which has just been installed carried a price tag of almost $30000, which was outside the school budget. We relied heavily on donations from our sponsors as well as the funds raised from the Spooky Carnival. Both the school and the P&C have major fundraising events planned for the coming year & a half and the proceeds of many of these events will go towards the equipment for our primary children. As a rough guide, over the last 5 years the fundraising run by the P&C raised the equivalent of $70/child/year. There are costs associated with running the P&C (insurance, P&C Affiliation, printing etc) as well as costs for running the canteen which comes under the P&C umbrella. During that same period, the P&C has also voted on and purchased many items for the school. These include: Teacher resources $3500 Maths & Literacy Resources over $9000 Library resources $7500 General items over $10000 Computers, iPads $9000 Smart boards and projectors over $10000 Contribution to the oval $10742 Peer support training over $5000 Welfare $500 On average, the profit from a cake stall is about $900 and the profit from a bbq is about $600. As you can see from the figures, we need the funds from the major fundraisers in order to keep making our school a better place for our children.Did you know? Tell us about youName (Optional): ______________________________________ Email Address (Optional): ______________________________________ What would you like to see in this newsletter? __________________________________________ __________________________________________ You can drop this newsletter back to the office and they will deliver it to the P&C with your suggestions Thank you Our canteen is one of the leaders in the Illawarra School District. The healthy eating options, traffic light systems and special days that they update the P&C on regularly are a credit to the hard work of all the volunteers that work with the team. You can keep up to date with all these successes by coming along to P&C meetings. Members of the P&C often get asked about the Voluntary Contribution. While the figure is set by vote during the AGM of the P&C, the funds go directly to the school. These funds are used to purchase essential school resources which are not covered by the departmental budget.