2023-07-31-accounts - Dame Allan's Schools Parents' Association

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Dame Allan’s Schools Parents’ Association Charity #1137728 Report of the trustees for the year ending 31 July 2023

The Trustees of Dame Allan’s Schools Parents’ Association (DASPA) Charity present their annual report and independently examined financial statements.

As an organisation, DASPA are approaching their centenary and are an important part of the Dame Allan’s Schools community.

Our Aims

To advance the education of pupils in the schools, in particular by:

Developing effective relationships between staff, parents and others associated with the school
Engaging in activities or providing facilities or equipment which support the school and advance the education of pupils.

DASPA’s mission statement is to ‘advance the education of pupils by developing the community of parents, pupils, and staff. The goal is to engage in community activities that help provide facilities or equipment which support the school and pupils.’

We have pursued the means to achieve this mission with an extensive schedule of fundraising activities. The main events in our calendar are a Christmas Fair, Summer Fair, Ceilidh, Refreshments at drama, music and dance events, a lucky numbers club, monthly uniform sales, parties and film nights, selling Dame Allan’s supporter merchandise (like hats and scarves), selling calendars, and while this year was not a ball year, our big fundraising event a biannual ball, scheduled for 2024.

Some expenses are incurred in pursuing these events like costs for the ceilidh, while expenditure for items like refreshments, hats and scarves, cards and calendars are also made in the pursuit of a profit for the charity. All the activities which incur expenditure have made a profit.

We are lucky that for some activities like the Christmas Fair and Summer Fair that parents and carers generously donate items that we are then able to use as fundraising opportunities. We thank all parents and carers for their support.

We are also fortunate not just to have the support of parents and carers but also of the staff and school itself. The generous opportunity afforded by using the school’s payment system to sell tickets for events, fundraising items like Christmas cards and raffle tickets has meant that the charity is able to extensively explore many possible revenue streams.

The profits made by DASPA are available for expenditure by the schools. Departments and schools are invited to put forward a fundraising request before a DASPA meeting to the Deputy Head of Pastoral at the school or deputy head at the Junior School. If the amount is under £2500 it can be agreed at the meeting or if it is more than this, then it needs agreement by the majority of trustees at a separate online or IRL meeting.

At the meeting consideration is made that requests are additional and how many students would benefit from the purchase.

This year we have supported Dame Allan’s with purchases of an electronic piano for the music department. We also made considerable contributions to the OLED programme at Dame Allan’s with archery equipment, school day sacks for hikes and school waterproofs which are available for all senior school students to borrow. We also bought snails and jumping spiders for school science clubs. We bought a sewing machine for the art department and a Kiln. We also gave the school student enterprise team seed funding of £1000. We also paid for the disco entertainment at the Senior Ball. At the Juniors we bought a storage hub for the OPAL project, which enabled this play project to go ahead. We also bought a storage unit for DASPA to enable us to continue our activities. We also organised a school art project, where magnets, were designed by pupils and given to Allanian Society members and local care home residents. In total £14,559 was spent on school items.

Overview of 2022-23

What a great year 2022-23 proved to be for DASPA with not only a full normal calendar but also with some additional events. We welcomed Vicky Pitt as treasurer and thank her for her hard work but as she has moved schools, we wish her a fond farewell. We have welcomed Melissa Gaglardi as a trustee and chair of DASPA Junior and would like to formally thank her here. As co-chairs, Laura Percy and Vanessa Morrell have worked well together with the support of the DASPA committee, to help manage an extensive year of fundraising for pupils at Dame Allan’s Schools. A massive thanks to Wanwuri Akor for being a great Secretary. A big thank you to the team at DASPA Junior who report to DASPA, namely, Jen Vakharia, Sarah Johnson and Rachel Bowey. Vanessa Morrell stepped down as chair from DASPA J and we thank her for helping DASPA J for 11 years. A big note of thanks to all the active members of DASPA which enable our great events to happen. The financial statements for the year show how successful the DASPA Committee has been in raising funds for the school with a contribution of just under £15,000 .

Christmas Fair

We finally held our Christmas Fair back at the senior school. The footfall was over 350 people and we raised over £4000 for DASPA. The fair was very successful, and the sixth form helpers really enhanced the event. We had stalls for our own fundraising, from local businesses, fundraising from pupils and stalls for local charities. There was a great sense of community and atmosphere at this fair. Many thanks to the Christmas Fair subcommittee of Vanessa Morrell, Laura Percy and Vicky Pitt. With special thanks to James Percy who played a key role at this Christmas event!

Uniform Sales

Our regular monthly uniform sales (alongside a coffee morning) at St James and St Basil’s Church, have proved to be a great way not only to raise funds but also make friends and support the parent community. It is with heartfelt thanks that we take this opportunity to thank Rev James McGowan and his team at ‘Js and Bs’. Thanks to, our brilliant senior

uniform subcommittee (Laura Percy, Vanessa Morrell, Vicky Pitt, Bronwen Deane, Stephen Davies, Julie Brazier and Jill Davies) who enable these sales to happen, with special thanks to Bronwen who makes everyone extra welcome with her homemade cakes.

Refreshments

Our refreshments at concerts and performances have proved very popular and a great money raising activity. The main school performance of The Addams Family was very well attended and our refreshments for the three-night run were welcomed by all. Thanks to Laura Percy, Vicky Pitt and Annelise Kopko for managing this activity. All monies raised are given to Drama, Dance and Music funds.

50/50

Many thanks to Anneliese Kopko organised the 50-50 lucky numbers club, we raised a great amount of money from this. It’s been fantastic that the competition has been reinaugurated to such great success. Raising over £720 for school funds.

Family Ceilidh

We were thrilled to be able to hold our Family Ceilidh. Our own school ceilidh bands and Irish dancers entertained us to music from the British Isles. The tickets quickly sold out. A new addition to this ceilidh were pizzas that were shared by family which we’ll be exploring in more detail at our next event. Thanks to Vanessa Morrell, Laura Percy, Vicky Pitt and Anneliese Kopko for their organisation of this important event.

Senior Parties

The year 7 and year 8 parties were well attended. It was only the completely supportive teaching and no- teaching staff that enabled these parties to happen and the committee and we’re sure pupils were all extremely grateful. Many thanks to the subcommittee of Vanessa Morrell, Laura Percy and Sarah Johnson in organising these events.

DASPA- Allanian Magnet Competition

DASPA supported the school by holding a magnet design competition with prizes for each class, where students were invited to design a picture for a calendar. These magnets were then donated to Allanians and local care home residents. Many thanks to Laura Percy who manages this activity.

Junior School

It is with great pleasure that we can report that the Junior School offered a full range of DASPA activities this year. Four parties, three film nights and a summer fair. The fair had over 400 attending with welcome additions being miniature ponies and a bouncy castle. The regular Halloween, Christmas, Easter and Year 6 party all went extremely well, ably led

by Mrs Needham and most of the children in the year attended these events and they also all now know how to play party games!

We also organised a reindeer visit for pupils, a Santa visit with small gifts for EYFS and a colouring competition with popcorn and candy floss for EYFS pupils too.

The uniform at juniors has been changed so we anticipate our usual income stream from sales may dip below normal levels for a short amount of time. We have however invested in a container to keep all our junior items and uniform.

DASPA Juniors made just over £9500 this year.

Fundraising items

The calendar, hoodies and Christmas card fundraising activities were other successful activities that helped DASPA fundraising objectives.

DASPA supports the junior school providing prizes for the annual bauble competition and easter egg competition which also contribute to income streams with a cost of entry.

We have also continued to raise money through DASPA merchandise items like supporter scarves and hats.

Yet, we have not only supported the school in raising funds and organising events for the Dame Allan’s Schools community but we have also supported the school at open days and jump in mornings.

Year Ahead

We hope in the year ahead to be able to offer this extensive range of activities and are getting ready for an exciting ball in 2024 and we hope to be able to help fund additional resources and opportunities for pupils at the school through a good variety of participative fundraising streams.

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