Friends of Lethbridge Annual General Meeting 2025
Chairs Report
14[th] October 2025
The last 12 months has continued to be busy year in our second full year as co-chairs.
As the Treasurers report will detail, through our fundraising activities we have raised a total profit of £21,020.43 from events during the 2024/2025 academic year.
Our Christmas Bazaar was a huge success, raising over £1,900. Santas grotto gets bigger and better with each year and is a clear hit with all. We had some incredible prizes in our raffle with thanks to very generous donations from some amazing local businesses. A special thanks to Laura Burgoyne for arranging the hampers as always. The bazaar is no small task, and the team all do an amazing job making it look easy!
Amy continued to kick-off the Christmas spirit in arranging the annual Christmas card design event, in collaboration with APFS raising commission on orders. Thank you to the teachers and TAs who help facilitate this activity, we appreciate that it’s not always what you want to be doing in October!
The Mother’s Day event, organised by Sarah Banting, was again this year a full school event. Another real team effort at play, working till the late hours to pre-wrap &organise 500 gifts for significant female in the children’s lives.
Natasha Woolf organised a personalised card making activity for this year’s Father’s Day event. All the children enjoyed creating their special design to take home to their significant male figure in their life.
The preloved uniform continues to be a monster of a task to control, especially with the mountains of generous donations we receive, but Zoe Van Vliet and Dineke Albring have done an amazing job throughout the year with this, including the set up and running of our uniform webshop run by Dineke Albring, with an extra big thank you to Dineke for storing the uniform at home! A storage solution continues to be a significant challenge, maybe a creative solution can be found this year.
Both the KS2 and Yr6 leavers disco were held as usual and the children all fully enjoyed dancing, buying sweets, having their nails painted and making those core memories of social events at primary school.
The Summer Fete 2025 was a gloriously sunny day during which we raised an amazing £2,900! With a true team-approach, it felt incredibly relaxed for such a huge event. We really can’t thank everyone enough for all the sterling efforts put in on organising, setting up, running (and tidying after!) on the day. Thank you to Zoe and Sarah for taking on lead of this huge event! The event was opened with the return of the Fun Run for a second year running (no pun intended). The route once again snaked around Old Town Gardens and ended in the Rec creating a great energetic start to the day. Our wonderful volunteers continued to support our usual BBQ & Bar, as well as several other stalls throughout the event. The magician, Magical Mark Mayhem, continued to be a huge hit with the kids and adults alike.
This year also saw the introduction of our FoL Quiz nights which have proved to be a great success – please keep your eyes peeled for the next one which will be held in early 2026!
A huge thank you to all the team, especially Zoe Van Vliet, our secretary, and Laura Burgoyne, our hard-working treasurer & our hamper coordinator!
Other thanks include:
All the staff in the school office who deal with the mountains of requests and work we end up creating them to support our events – Thank you Pete Hellier, Jackie Messenger and Tracey Owen.
Our teacher contacts – Karen Kidd and Emily Palmer
All the teachers, TAs and other support staff who help provide/distribute and create fund raising items.
The senior leadership team, who allow us to operate the Friends group within the school and support us at every event (there are many schools who do not have such a supportive SLT!)
Last but not least the adults and children who donate their money, making all of it worthwhile.
As a final note, Amy has made the difficult decision to step-down from her role as co-chair of FoL. Having had an active role within FoL for five years - with a year as uniform co-ordinator, two years as secretary, and two years as co-chair - due to work and study commitments, the time has come for Amy to step back and leave the role in Vicky’s very capable hands.
Being part of a PTA can be incredibly time-consuming, and occasionally stressful, but organising events for FoL is always rewarding. At present, we continue to be a relatively small number of volunteers representing a large parent cohort for Lethbridge and we continue do an amazing job staying enthusiastic and dedicated to our events – we would strongly encourage new parents to come along and see what we do.
Over the last academic year, we have helped to fund over £14K of wonderful resources and events, including a new sound system for the school hall, a STEM workshop, a whole school pantomime, and a donation of £500 to each class to invest in class-specific resources.
We still have a very healthy balance in the bank and we are looking forward to funding many more resources and experiences such as The STEM workshops in this upcoming year! Here’s to a new happy and successful academic year!
Vicky Gilbert & Amy Derham – Co-Chairs
Friends of Lethbridge Lethbridge Primary School Lethbridge Road Swindon SN1 4BY Charity Number: 291895
FRIENDS OF LETHBRIDGE – TREASURER’S REPORT 1[ST] OCTOBER 2024 – 30[TH] SEPTEMBER 2025
CHARITY ACCOUNTS
The financial year for Friends of Lethbridge (FOL) runs from 1[st] October to 30[th] September. The Annual Treasurer’s Report has been compiled based on the guidelines issued by the Charity Commission. The attached supporting Charity Accounts, presented for the Financial Year 2024/2025, have been prepared on a receipts and payments basis and have also been compiled in accordance with the guidelines issued by the Charity Commission.
OBJECTIVES OF FRIENDS OF LETHBRIDGE
The main objective of Friends of Lethbridge is to raise money via fundraising events. The money raised is then given back into Lethbridge Primary School in a manner that will benefit the widest possible range of children attending the school. This is achieved by providing the school and the children with extra resources and activities which otherwise may have proved difficult to fund from the school’s own budget.
ACCOUNT OVERVIEW
The opening balance of the community account was £24,411.36 on 1[st] October 2024 and the closing balance was £16,058.49 on 30[th] September 2025. The opening balance of the premium account was £1,755.08 on 1[st] September 2024 and the closing balance was £17,004.97 on 31[st] September 2025. Total income for the year was £33,214.66 and total expenditure was £26,317.64.
SUMMARY OF MAIN FUNDRAISING ACTIVITIES
We were pleased to be able to arrange the following main events below:
| Term | Activity | Total | 2023-2024 Comparison |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winter | Christmas Bazaar | £1,922.18 | £1,840.51 |
| Spring | Break the Rules Day | £703 | - |
| Spring | KS2 Disco | £498.40 | £738.41 |
| Spring/Summer | Quiz Nights | £943.96 | - |
| Summer | 10K & Fun Run | £3,406.26 | £3,512.45 |
| Summer | Summer Fete | £2,932.29 | £3,279.87 |
| Ongoing | Uniform Sales | £284.51 | £90.25 |
Our regular large events have continued to do well. We introduced two new events this year, Break the Rules Day and two Quiz Nights which proved to be popular and a good source of income. We will continue these in the new school year.
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OTHER INCOME
Here is a breakdown of the other sources of income to the FOL bank account:
| Source | Total |
|---|---|
| Bags2School | £69.60 |
| EasyFundraising | £132.52 |
| Parent’s Employer Donation(Benevity) | £1,582.46 |
| ASDA Cashpot | £363.62 |
| Glamorose/LizzyBakes Cake Sales | £195.00 |
| Nationwide Grant | £8,880.00 |
We were very pleased to be awarded a grant from Nationwide Building Society to update the school hall PA system. The old one was 25 years old and will make a big difference to assemblies/events. We also benefitted from generous donations from parent’s employers, notably Nationwide who via the Benevity scheme offered to donate to each employee’s chosen charity. This raised £1,322.46. We are grateful for local businesses Glamorose and Lizzy Bakes that worked with us to provide cake sales to our parents and children, with a share of takings gifted to FOL. Regular Giving in our Barclays Premium Account has continued again this year with the £1 donation coming in each month.
Expenditure
There were a number of costs incurred throughout the year as listed below:
| Event | Total |
|---|---|
| Christmas Games | £65.54 |
| Mother’s DayWrap | £109.85 |
| Father’s DayCards | £185.87 |
| Year 6 Leavers Disco | £163.82 |
| Parentkind Membership | £162.00 |
| Misc | £586.18 |
Friends of Lethbridge were delighted to hold several events this academic year for the children during school time, namely the Christmas Games, Mother’s Day Wrap, Father’s Day cards for decorating and Year 6 Leavers Disco.
Here is a breakdown of the school donations this year:
| Event | Total |
|---|---|
| Pantomime | £1,546.52 |
| Class donations(£500per class) | £7,500.00 |
| Sound system | £4,154.00 |
| YoungCarers Pantomime trip | £259.96 |
| STEM | £662.93 |
| Total | £14,123.41 |
FUTURE SPENDING
Following the AGM, the Friends of Lethbridge Committee will take part in discussions with the school’s senior leadership team regarding the contributions to the school for the forthcoming financial year.
GENERAL
Friends of Lethbridge would like to thank everyone who has supported us in our fundraising this year. We will continue to seek alternative methods of fundraising and providing support to the children of Lethbridge Primary School.
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Friends of Lethbridge Primary School Charity Accounts Financial Year 01/10/2024 to 30/09/2025
Receipts and Payments
| Receipts Income received from Fundraising Event Activities Regular Giving (Premium Account) Regular Giving Account Interest Miscellaneous income Total Receipts Payments Donation to school for Specific Activities/Purchases Fundraising Activities Expenditure Miscellaneous exp PTA Membership Fee Total Payments Net Receipts / (Net Payments) Profit (excluding donation to school) Balance at year beginning 1st October Balance at year ending 30th September Barclays Bank Accounts Reconciliation Community Account Balance as at 30th September Business Premium Account Balance as at 30th September |
2024/2025 £21,970.05 £12.00 £201.53 £11,031.08 |
2023/2024 £24,557.62 £12.00 £25.48 £7,346.18 |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| £33,214.66 | £31,941.28 | ||
| £14,123.41 £11,446.05 £586.18 £162.00 |
£12,393.15 £12,320.13 £113.01 £153.00 |
||
| £26,317.64 | £24,979.29 | ||
| £6,897.02 £21,020.43 £26,166.44 |
£6,961.99 £19,355.14 £19,204.45 |
||
| £33,063.46 | £26,166.44 | ||
| £16,058.49 £17,004.97 |
£24,411.36 £1,755.08 |
Registered Charity No: 291895
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CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examiner's report on the accounts Section A Independent Examiner's Report Report to the trusteesl members of On accounts for the year ended Charity no (if any) 3ts1glis 2qi8qS Set out on pages I report to the truslees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity ("the Trust") for the year ended Jo O g ZOLS Responsibilities and As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation basls of report of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 ("the Act"). I report in respect of my examination of the Trust's accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carying out my examination. I have followed the applicable Directions given by Ihe Charity Commission under section 145{5)(b) of Ihe Act. I have completed my examination. I confim that no material matters have come to my attention (other than that disdosed below ') in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in. any material respect: accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or the accounts do not accord with the accounting records Independent oxaminer's statement I have no concems and have come a4Joss no other matters in connection wilh the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. Please delete the words in the brackets rf they do not apply. Signed: Date: Name: Relevant professional qualification(s) or body (if any)= Address: SbJl LÈ IER October 2018
Seciion B Dlsclosuro •le I Ihe needs to hbI m8llers CA (see CC32. examws). IER October 2018