2021-03-31-accounts - Barns Green Playgroup

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Minutes of 43[rd] AGM of Barns Green Playgroup

2020-2021 Academic year

Key members of staff and the Committee, along with future Committee attended the AGM. We didn’t invite parents due to ongoing covid restrictions. We combined all the usual reports and information shared at an AGM and emailed to all parents/carers.

1) Present AGM/Parents’ Evening:

No parents due to COVID minutes shared with parents. Bev Liley Victoria Baxter Philippa Berry Karen Ellis Alex Mannion Amelia Scott-Cowley Rachel McAlonan Liz King

Apologies:

Anne-Marie Nicholson

2) Minutes From AGM:

Accepted and signed by Victoria Baxter proposed by Anne-Marie Nicholson, seconded by Victoria Baxter.

3) Matters Arising:

None

4) Supervisors Report

Bev reported the following:

Once again, a disrupted year. Thank you to everyone for being supportive and patient during the pandemic. It has been quite challenging and hard work over the past 18 months, but worth it when you see the children enjoying themselves and developing as little people.

I am pleased to say most of the staff have had 2 vaccines now.

I think we managed the break from away from Playgroup well during the pandemic, maintaining contact between us and you, our families. Hopefully you found the next steps with the guidance

on how to achieve these beneficial during our closure, and hope that you had fun doing activities together. We may continue with this kind of format so you can see how we are planning to achieve their next steps and how you can support them at home.

We are busy, with numbers looking quite healthy for next year too. However, we have less funded children next term so there will be a drop in free entitlement funds. Currently the next school year only has 10 children. We will have 27 children on the register if all children begin that are booked in. Income may be reduced as 2 year olds tend to attend less hours to begin with.

The children have really appreciated being back with their friends and are very happy. It shows how important being at preschool is. They have taken part in lots of in and outdoor activities, and have really grown in confidence. We are so lucky to have such lovely surroundings for the children to enjoy experiences. We are in the process of liaising with our feeder primary schools, to make sure that children have a smooth transition despite the pandemic.

This year we have not had any visitors due to Covid. I have spoken to Nic from Technotots, he is hoping to return in September. Nic comes in once a week with a wide range of ICT equipment, including programmable toys, remote control toys, lap tops, cameras, voice recorders etc. It is very beneficial and the children love to spend time with Nic. There is a charge of £4.00 each session for this service.

Unfortunately, due to the Covid restrictions our family outing could not take place again this year. We are planning to go ahead with the party for children going to school.

Staff have kept training up to date, a lot of it is online learning at the moment. First aid still has the practical part.

We continue to offer up to 30 hours for funded and nonfunded children. If you qualify for 2 Year free entitlement, or the extended free entitlement for working parents of 3 & 4-year olds from September, then make sure

that you apply in plenty of time before the end of August. Please let me have your code as soon as possible.

From September there are changes to the Statutory Framework of Early Years Foundation Stage. The main changes are that there is an emphasis on practitioner’s spending less time doing written observations on children and more time playing and talking to children, enriching their language and understanding. We are to use our professional judgement and our knowledge about the children. I totally agree with this, as I don’t have Key children so spend quality time with all children, I rarely do formal observations, but know all the children really well. Becca and I are working out a new format for Journals, observation, assessment and planning. Your Key person will share this with you.

The other main change is promoting good oral health. We do this already by talking to the children about healthy eating, brushing teeth and the importance of going to the dentist.

I have updated a few policies to reflect the changes.

We welcome any feedback about all aspects of Playgroup. This can be verbally, written or emailed to me or a member of staff, or you can email a member of the committee.

As always, a big thank you to all of the staff for all of their hard work and commitment to playgroup. I am aware that it is a very demanding job, and has been even more of a challenge due to Covid and all of the restrictions and measures we have had to put in place. Thank you to my deputy Becca for her support, particularly during the pandemic. Amongst many things, she has updated the risk assessment countless times as things have developed with Covid. As a staffing team we are always striving to provide the best care for the children, so thank you to all of them.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone involved in playgroup including the parents, families, the committee and fundraisers for your continuing support. Special thanks to Victoria and AnneMarie our Chair and secretary, as they are stepping down this year.

5) Treasurer’s Statement of Account

Report given by Phillipa Berry:

It’s obviously been a very different year with periods of time when playgroup was closed. This meant that our income was a lot lower for these times, but we were still paying staff. We did get some help with our National Insurance from HMRC in the first lockdown and used the furlough scheme earlier this year.

As at 31st March the deposit account stood at £40075.31. This is the account we keep should we have to close playgroup, and this would be used to pay redundancies, creditors etc.

The second savings account had £35,242.76 and this is used for any big purchases and to put into the current account should we need to.

The current account had £6,245.01 in as at 31st March.

Fundraising – unfortunately, we were not able to do any fundraising this year, but we have received £920 from the Cobra team who do the mask trees, £90 from the Half Marathon and £92.70 from Diane Photographics.

Costs for wages, and insurance have risen again this year. Although, we have decided not to increase our hourly rate this September, so our rate will stay at £6.50 an hour (which is in line with a lot of local nurseries).

All other costs are in line with the previous year.

The accounts are in the process of being audited and there are a few bits I need to go through with the auditor, but in the main the final figures shouldn’t change, so we have made a profit of £468, which considering the year we have had is excellent.

I have copies of the draft accounts if anyone would like to see them and once they are finalised and signed off we can let all parents have a copy.

Thank you to all the staff and committee for all your hard work .

6) Fundraiser’s Report

Unfortunately, we were not able to do any fundraising this year, but we have received £920 from the Cobra team who do the mask trees, £90 from the Half Marathon and £92.70 from Diane Photographics.

7) Chair Report

Report given by Victoria Baxter (2019/20 academic year):

Unfortunately, due to the ongoing covid-19 pandemic, we are unable to have our AGM as usual again this year. Normally we’d also invite parents in to see their children’s work and chat with key workers, but hopefully everyone has had a chance to catch up with their keyworker individually this term.

Therefore, I’m writing this report so that we can share it with you and so we can provide everyone with an overview of the past academic year (2020/2021).

This is my fourth year as Playgroup Chair, and I think it’s fair to say it’s been another unique and challenging year. The coronavirus has continued to bring with it many challenges for the staff, for parents/carers, for the committee – for everyone.

Bev the Playgroup Manager has provided a report of the day to day running and achievements of Playgroup, and Philippa a Treasurer update - but as Chair I wanted to call out a few things:

First of all, I would like to say a huge thank you to Bev and all the staff for their hard work and commitment during the past year and for continuing to put the children’s needs, safety, wellbeing and happiness first.
Special thanks to Bev for all the extra work she’s had to do in the face of covid, we’ve had to make some tough decisions and there has been a huge amount of additional planning, admin and health and safety work to complete.
Thanks to all the parents for their ongoing support and understanding.
I have continued to represent Playgroup at local community meetings, e.g. at the Village Trust meetings, linking in with the school and their PTA.
As you have already heard from Philippa’s Treasurer Report, we are in a good financial position – which is thanks to our healthy numbers, the proficient way we manage Playgroup and all the fantastic fundraising work carried out in previous years. This has provided an important buffer for Playgroup during these uncertain times.
Fundraising – we haven’t been able to do any fundraising again this year due to Coivd-19 restrictions. However, it’s important that we focus on fundraising again moving forward. I’m pleased to see a new fundraising team forming (that’s where I started volunteering) and I look forward to seeing future Playgroup fundraising events taking place. Thanks to everyone that has volunteered to be part of the fundraising team.
We welcome a new role and a new member off staff to the team – Karen – our new Administrator. This is a new role, that the Committee has created to support Bev and the Committee with administrative tasks, payroll and help keep Playgroup running smoothly. Welcome to the team Karen.
Thanks to Brenda Leonard who has helped us with a lot of the covid related administrative tasks – we really appreciate her help during such hard times.
A huge thanks to the Barns Green Cobra group who have given us donations from selling face masks. Last year they gave us £990.
Thanks to Simon Gale and the Village Hall team for your ongoing support and taking such good care of the hall that we operate out of.
Thanks to Victoria Brock for continuing to run toddler group on a Monday (when restrictions have allowed), it’s become a very popular group which is credit to Victoria. Monday morning toddler group plays such an important role for new people to the village, families with young babies and/or toddlers and is a great ‘feeder’ session for playgroup.
I want to say a special thanks to Anne-Marie Nicholson and Philippa Berry for all the voluntary time and effort you put into being playgroup Secretary and Treasurer.

And finally - Anne-Marie is going to step down from her Secretary role in July 2021, after massive 9 years of volunteering her time. Anne-Marie has played an instrumental role throughout that time and we are truly grateful for all the hard work and dedication she has given so whole heartedly. Anne-Marie was unable to attend this AGM as she had an eye operation yesterday, but I shall give her a card and thank you gift after the AGM.

I’m also stepping down from Chair as I’ve been Chair for 4 years now and I haven’t had any children at Playgroup for 2 years. I have really enjoyed the role, working with the Committee, Bev and the staff but I feel it’s time for me to give someone else a chance. Thank you for my card and gift (Anne-Marie gave it to me earlier).

Which leads nicely on to my warm welcome to our new committee members Rachel (Chair), Liz (Secretary) and Alex. Thank you so much for picking up the baton. We have some time together in a few weeks to do a proper handover, but I wanted to take this chance to wish you all the best.

Thanks for your time - I wish you all the best in the future.

8) Committee

We voted in a new Committee and team of fundraisers – details are as follows:

Chairperson:

Stepping down: Victoria Baxter New chair: Rachel McAlonan Proposed by Philippa Berry, seconded by Amelia Scott-Cowley

Treasurer:

Philippa Berry Proposed by Bev Liley, seconded by Charlotte Plowman

Secretary:

Stepping down: Anne-Marie Nicholson New Secretary: Liz King Proposed by Alex Mannion, seconded by Rachel McAlonan

Committee Members:

Stepping down: Victoria Brock New Committee member: Alex Mannion New Committee member Amelia Scott-Cowley Proposed by Bev Liley, seconded by Liz King

Fundraisers:

New team proposed by Victoria Baxter and seconded by Philippa Berry: Rebecca Lismer Amelia Scott-Cowley Charlotte Plowman Lucy Priestley Eunice Chan Amy Clarke Elle Johnson Christina Ayres (from January 2022) Danielle Limmer (from January 2022

9) Any Other Business

The policies adopted: Introduction & Admission Policy Settling In Policy Fee Paying & Free Entitlement Policy Emergency closure Use of Camera & Mobile Phones Policy Health & Hygiene Policy Food, Drink & Healthy Eating Policy Health & Safety Policy

Education Programmes and Activities Curriculum Planning Policy

10) Date of Next Meeting

44[th] AGM – 28[th] June 2022.

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