## Chair Person’s Report 10th November 7pm We started off our year with a spooktacular Halloween Non-Uniform Day raising £166.75 - _(note as the year progresses our non-uniform events, whilst fun for the kids are providing diminishing returns as a fundraiser and require a little bit of focus as to why the income does not match the kids attending on those days.)_ Our Halloween disco netted a reliable £644 with our only expenses being tuckshop supplies and DJ Trevor across the 4 discos, DJ transport provided by Lisa Condon. Lots of fun was had by all and we were well supported by parent volunteers making this a smoothly run and relatively easy to organise event - thank you to everyone who helped. Our successful disco event template has encouraged us to add another disco to the calendar for the upcoming year. Thank you to Rosie Dunlop for coordinating the tuckshop on this occasion. Cash for Clobber made a comeback to our fundraising calendar again with Autumn and Spring collections making the most of the seasonal fashion transitions. The autumn collection was again more successful raising £536 against the £320 for our Spring efforts. Thank you to the Bradley family once again for letting us avail of their trailer giving us the opportunity to fundraise safely without accessing school grounds for the final time. We ran a number of Christmas fundraisers last year. Lisa Condon stepped up to the plate to oversee our main event - a return of the Christmas tea towels after a 3 year hiatus. We paired these with a Glencraig Christmas Bauble providing us with £1149.30 in total. Tea towels were more profitable with a more attractive margin, baubles providing a ‘nice to have’ item alongside as a Christmas bundle! Thanks to Kerry Alexander for coordinating our first Christmas Wreath Workshop. We ran two evening events with HBGC kindly letting us take over their bar area. For the ticket price we provided mulled wine, tea, coffee and shortbread alongside a wreath workshop. Materials and tuition were supplied by Wendy Reid from Little Buds. This was a successful event and after costs (the main one being our florist at £700) we raised £727.50 for our school. Since the event there has been discussion as to whether we could run this with less outgoing costs, however this year with increased financial pressures we’ve decided to park this event and run lower ticket price events focusing on affordable family fun and promoting school community as we properly return to face to face events. Our Christmas non-uniform raised £119.80 on behalf of the IEF which they received with thanks for our continued support. December also saw the return of our annual Kildare shopping trip for the first time post-Covid. We only managed to cover the costs of this trip with £10 to spare, our coach costs increased astronomically after booking the date, in connection with extreme fuel cost hikes. However we proceeded with the trip to maintain our positive relationship with the Kildare team and hope to return to this lovely fundraiser in easier times. Thank you to Tracey Fraser for coordinating yet another special day out. We spent a small amount on Christmas crafting this year to compensate for face to face festivities still being largely absent. The children enjoyed making hot chocolate reindeers in their classrooms as a Christmas treat from the PTA at a cost of £168.62. It should be noted this amount also included two decorated Christmas trees at the front doors. Thank you to Karen Black for her help and support on this project. Additionally, the committee would like to thank David Black for his window painting, adding Christmas cheer to our entrance. In March we welcomed families back to the school with a Spring Fair. Our deadline to use the Community Grant that we had been awarded pre-Covid was imminent so we pulled together an evening of face painters, bouncy slides, crafts, football, magic and drums alongside the Great Integrated Bake Off to herald the return of families back to the school. For many it was their first time at any school event and it was warmly received by all. In May, we had a hugely successful parents quiz again in HBGC, our first since 2019! It was greeted with huge enthusiasm as always. We had 12 teams attending a sold out evening with DJ Michael Murphy as the quiz and disco master. Thank you to Rosie Dunlop for her assistance with quiz writing and helping track scores on the doors. We also ran a very successful raffle and the usual games during the evening - thank you to Victoria Stevenson and Kerry Alexander for helping that to run so smoothly and to all the fantastic local businesses that supported us again with their generous prizes. The total profit for the evening was £1459. The children enjoyed another disco in May, raising £944.66. Thank you to Tracey Fraser for organising our tuckshop for this one and Lisa Condon again for DJ transport! Again we were well supported by parent volunteers for this event - thank you to all involved. A return to a Sports Day with spectators also meant a return to honesty box tea and coffee delivering a healthy £125 - thanks Colleen O’Kane for sorting supplies and setting up. We limped to a finish with a Schools Out for Summer non-uniform day raising only £87.94! Non Fundraising event income - over the year the bank account also benefited from various donations - Signature Works Commission coming in at £1264.66, Easy Fundraising £163.63, Cash for Clobber collection from the onsite school bin totalled £64, Amazon Smile £13.48 and Benevity enhanced donations by adding £250. Expenditure on behalf of the school this year was low as a result of yet another exceptional year. We spent £540 on Leavers Hoodies for our outgoing P7 class and £300 welcoming our nursery and P1 classes with their book bags. The balance for this academic year is to be voted on and signed off at our AGM now that we can review the wish list with more clarity. The PTA would like to thank all of the parent volunteers, teachers and staff for their continued support of our fundraising efforts. We really do appreciate their help behind the scenes and at events where extra hands are required on deck. All in all the academic year ending in August 2022 was another good year for our PTA raising £11,080 on behalf of our school. COVID continued to impact our ability to run a normal calendar of events until almost the final term. As a committee we are looking forward to a more standard events programme in our next financial year, however with the awareness that the cost of living crisis will present its own challenges!