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2024-03-31-accounts

Chaddlewood Pre-school Committee

AGM

13[th] November 2024

19:30

Zoom/Bungalow

Attendees:

Bungalow - Michelle Hay (MH), Jane Bartlett (JB), Lauren McLay (LM), Sara Ellis (SE), Sarah Crook (SC), Samantha Chant-Seeley (SCS)

Zoom - Gareth Cooper (GC), Charlotte Tucker (CT), Tamara Allen (TA), Sarah King (SK), Alison Green (AG), Claire Kerswill (CK), Victoria Methven (VM),

Apologies:

Chloe Parsons (CP), Kelly Tomlinson (KT), Claire Dunstan (CD), Bex Sandercock (BS)

Apologies:

1. Welcome

Welcome from MH. Thanked all attendees for joining.

2. Matters arising from previous meetings’ minutes.

Agreed for minutes to be signed.

3. Chairpersons’ report

Thank you all for joining us this evening, your support means a great deal to us.

As a reminder, this meeting is our AGM and covers the period of 1st April 2023 – 31st March 2024.

Just as an introduction for those who don’t know me, I’m Michelle, Chair of the committee and I have been in post since 2022.

This year, has been another year of change. At the end of March 2024 we said goodbye to Lyn Heliwell, our business manager, who was venturing into retirement, Lyn had been with us for over 25 years and had been a great asset to the organisation and I’d like to thank her for her time with us. Victoria Methven has now taken over the position.

In addition this year we expanded our Woodies offering. In December 2023, I updated our Ofsted registration to 80 children. This is used only for Woodies due to space restrictions in the Hut and Bungalow, and we are able to offer the increased places with thanks to an agreement with Chaddlewood Primary, thank you to Sarah King for enabling us to do this and Matt Stace. Kelly has introduced an online booking system in addition which has helped add more flexibility to our offering.

As a committee, we have continued to support management with updating policies, fees, wage rises and other matters as they occur. We have attended the Chaddlewood Primary fair events at both Christmas and the end of Summer term raising vital funds for resources for the setting.

Our struggle with recruitment has continued through this period, although we have had new members join us in recent times which I send my thanks to. This needs to be one of our continued focus over the next period.

I would like to pass on my thanks to all the staff for their continued hard work and dedication to the setting and making it the wonderful place that it is.

No questions for MH.

4. Finance report

From 1[st] April 2023 – 31[st] March 2024 we made a profit of £37,727. This was at first unexpected as in the previous financial year we had made a loss of £5,909. When the accounts are looked into further, we can see some indications of where this has come from. Our income increased by £17,369 from the previous year. This in-part was down to an increase in funding from the local authority and an increase in revenue from our out-of-school club, Woodies.

When looking at expenditure the key area where money was saved was with our wage bill (and accompanying charges such as NI and pension); this decreased by £22,221. This can be explained by the staff restructuring that took place when our deputy manager left during this period.

This £37,727 ‘profit’ bucked the trend of the past few financial years and I am conscious that we do not get complacent and expect this to be a new trend. We are faced with difficult issues in the coming year with the rise of employers NI contributions and the increase in the minimum wage and we are yet to find out if the local authority funding rates will rise accordingly.

To help analyse this further I have changed the way that I report and record the daily finances. This will allow a further depth of analysis this time next year to hopefully get a clearer picture of our situation at that point and how we got there.

SK – question for VM:

Is there a plan for what happens with these profits?

VM – We have made a loss in previous years, and we like to keep a buffer of 3 months salaries for all staff in case of any emergencies that may arise. We are now nearing having that figure with the help of this profit. We don’t want to become complacent that this is the norm, and our aim is to not make a profit. We don’t expect to make a profit of that size in future years.

MH – It would be good to look at finances again at the time when we are reviewing fees/wage increases with the NMW increase in the new year. It may be that this profit could be used to mitigate as much of a increase of fees for parents in April 2025.

5. Managers’ report

This year we have continued to offer preschool provision to children and expand our breakfast and afterschool provision. We are looking forward to the changes regarding funding announced in the budget for 2-year-olds being able to access 15 hours funding from April 2024. We are hoping that this will make a difference to usually a slow start at the bungalow in September 2024. We continue to offer 15 and 30 hours funded sessions to children aged 3 and 4.

We have had management shuffle due to Tracey Hill leaving us at the beginning of March 2023. We now have Claire Kerswill, Sarah Aubury and Kelly Tomlinson who have all moved from role as room leaders to deputy managers to support me in my role. We have also seen changes of staff long standing member of staff Lorraine Jones and Lyn Helliwell retire (at the end of this month). We have also seen Kirsten Owens and Rachel Hayes leave us to seek new roles. Victoria Methven has also stepped into Lyn’s role as

business manager from the beginning of April 2024. We have recruited Frances Airton to step into Victoria’s role.

We have secured with the help of Mr Stace and Chaddlewood School, a growth in our Woodies Provision and therefore offer a more flexible approach to the parents of preschool and Chaddlewood School. Flexibility has been key to this move as parents can book via our app and therefore remove our waiting list. Mr Stace has offered the use of the KS1 hall to allow us to expand to 80 spaces per evening (40 children in each space) The KS1 has is used for children leaving us at 4.30pm and the children that leave up to 6pm will be in the preschool building. We have also encapsulated our younger children by extending this for children from the age of 2 years old. I am sure Kelly will update you with more news in her report.

We continue to offer performances of the nativity and presentations day for children in the hut. Sports day is also a big hit each year alongside the bungalow staff holding a Christmas craft event. The end of each academic year we continue to offer a trip to parents and children which was again at Stoggy Park this year for a picnic which always seems to be well received.

We evaluate our practice and on feedback and with the change of lockdown rules, we plan to get together to improve transitions to school as this was an area which was mentioned. This will be in conjunction by the new PPC initiative on the online transition portal and Chaddlewood Primary School. We have managed to fundraise at various events this year hosted by Chaddlewood School, the sale of cakes at presentation day and also our raffles.

I would like to thank all staff for their continued help this year and look forward to the forthcoming year.

No questions for JB.

6. Woodies Out of School Club report

We have a few fantastic changes since our last meeting. We were giving a extra capacity space from the school, were we are able to use the KS1 Hall for Woodies Breakfast and Afterschool club. We have had a few teething problems when using the Year 1 door - the radius was too far which affected our use of the bell for parents collecting and dropping off, we also felt like we were often in the way for school club and general morning set up. After speaking with Mr Stace and raising our concern we changed to use the KS1 library doors otherwise known as the cake sale doors. Which works fantastically, I know a lot of the KS2 Children ask to be door monitor and help us ladies. At present we are currently only using one building the hut and have been since July due to staffing however we will be going back in January 2025.

With the big move to hall we also moved to an online booking service called school comms, this has again had it teething problems however is working well since myself and Victoria have been working closely together. Moving the booking online has allowed the parents to have a lot more flexibly and control of their bookings. Parents have been very happy with the new system apart from the odd booking issue and payments issues. Feedback from most of our parents on a whole have been happy with our changes.

We still need a member of staff to help at Woodies but I have offered this in house first but Jane and Victoria are also recruiting for preschool which will be used as a cross over too.

We employed two members of staff Lauren and Shona due to the demand of children we have. We are extremely busy at present and it is looking very promising for the next year with more parents registering with us.

No questions for KT.

7. Nomination of Committee Members

All existing committee members step down (Michelle Hay, Chloe Parsons, Charlotte Tucker, Alison Green & Claire Dunstan).

MH had communication from CP that she will not be re-standing as both her children have moved onto Primary School (Boringdon).

MH also had communication with CD apologies that she is happy to re-stand.

MH/VM also have had communication from BS about joining committee. MH to contact BS

CT – I will be re-standing as in January 2025 our moving schools due to our location change.

MH – thanked CP & CT for their support over recent years.

Election of new committee members:

All elected unanimously.

MH thanked all for standing and supporting the setting.

8. AOB

VM – Constitution Update

MH – As discussed in our previous meeting on 2[nd] October 2024 we had adopted the 2008 Model Preschool Constitution as provided by the Pre-school Early Years Alliance, however, there is a newer 2011 version which we reviewed.

As discussed, and reviewed in out last meeting can I have everyone’s agreement that we agree to adopt the 2011 Model Pre-school Constitution. VM will update the Charities Commission.

All agreed

VM to update the Charity Commission and the Early years Alliance about the constitution.

SK – Replacement of Hut Building

Could we please add to the agenda for the next meeting a discussion around planning ideas for replacing the Hut Building. As a school we submit a bid in Jan/Feb time and each year we add replacing the Hut building to it, it would be good to discuss ways that we can get more traction with WEST to replace it. i.e. letters from children, staff, parents etc.

MH to add to next agenda.

9. Date of next meeting

Election of Oficers 27[th] November – 7:30pm Zoom/Bungalow

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