P T A
Carrickmannon Primary School PTA
Annual General Meeting
Chairperson’s Report 2021-2022
I am delighted to welcome you to our Annual General Meeting of Carrickmannon Primary School Parent Teacher Association and present my Chairperson’s report from 2021-2022. An extra special welcome to those in attendance who aren’t current PTA members - it is great to have new faces at our PTA meetings and we really do appreciate your support at the AGM.
As is customary, I would like to present to you a short report on a summary of the PTA’s activities over the past academic year outlining how we have met the primary focus of the PTA through raising funds to purchase educational equipment and resources to support our children’s learning.
As everyone is well aware the last couple of years has been extremely challenging due to the COVID-19 global pandemic and so much has changed since then, however the need for additional funding to properly fund our children’s education has not. Therefore, as we slowly emerged from the post pandemic world, the PTA were delighted that we could start fundraising planning activities again, with caution, and ensure we can provide resources for school.
Our activities included our usual events such as Clothes recycling and Unhealthy breaks just before our holiday periods. We always aim to include events which the children enjoy and I know they were particularly pleased when Movie and Munch and Break the Rules was advertised, albeit within class bubbles. It’s being able to organise events like this which makes volunteering on the PTA worthwhile as there’s always a lot of chatter at break and lunch leading up to the day and especially when we see smiles on the children’s faces when we look at the photos on Facebook. A little bit of normality started to creep back in.
Much of our focus is usually around Christmas and it was good to restart the Raffle after a break of a couple of years. We also designed and sold bespoke Carrickmannon Christmas baubles which proved to be a lovely keepsake and very popular with international sales from Luxembourg even being made!
As the restrictions around COVID-19 became more relaxed after Easter of 2022, we were able to start planning in person events again, the first of which was refreshments at Sports’ Day. The tea, coffee and traybakes went down a treat, especially after the big downpour when I distinctly remember getting soaked and sheltering under a tree with Mrs Lennon and some of the P6s. All good fun!!
As a school family, we were saddened to learn that Mrs Lennon had handed her notice in and would leave us at the end of June, but this proved an opportunity for the PTA to hold our first ‘in person’ event which was as close to ‘normal’ before the pandemic. Elaine and Hubert Scott organised an excellent treasure hunt which brought everyone back to the Church Halls for a craft fair, refreshment and provide an opportunity for Mrs Lennon to say farewell, and listen to tributes on behalf of the Governors, staff and parents giving thanks to her for her service to our school and wish her well as she took up her new post.
As Jennifer will explain in the financial report, all in all, we were pleased with the income raised which is an increase on the previous year of £811.45. In 2018-2019, our income before expenses was £9500 so this is about a third of that and we are hopeful that we can build on this going forward.
The income raised was more than enough to cover our commitments to the school of paying for licences for Accelerated Reader, Mathletics, Reading Eggs and Mathseeds. The teachers have recognised the value that this has been to the whole school in raising the literacy and numeracy levels throughout the school and the introduction of the monthly certificates and Accelerated Reader party with the Principal ensures that children are recognised for their efforts and are encouraged to continue.
Our Facebook page continues to prove popular with a total of 673 likes and 735 followers, which shows around a 20% increase from last year, providing a good, instant way of communicating with the parents and sharing Carrickmannon’s ethos with our local community through sharing not only our PTA events but also showcasing classroom activities, sporting events and achievements of the school. This means of communication and promotion of events can’t be underestimated with our posts reaching a global audience. I would like to thank you for your part in this, as every like and share that you give, helps spread our reach beyond those who just like the page. The Facebook Group for Committee Members continues to be invaluable as a way of communicating and sharing minutes, updating each other on actions etc. This has proved very beneficial and ensures all members are up-to-date at the same time.
I’ll finish my report with some thank yous, so please bear with me.
I’d like to put on record, on behalf of the PTA, our sincere thanks to Laura Meharry for her work annually as our Independent Examiner of the PTA accounts. We thank Laura for her time in doing this in ensuring our accounts are scrutinised and comply with Charity Commission regulations.
I’d like to express my sincere thanks to the whole PTA team who so willingly support me in leading the fundraising activities which aims to benefit our children’s education. You are a
fantastic bunch and no matter what is asked, no one grumbles and we are all united to do whatever it takes to make our events and activities a success. You really make my job so easy, so thank you so much.
This year, we have had one of our Members leave at the end of last year, Elaine Scott, after 11 years of service to the PTA. What can I say about, Elaine. Elaine was my right hand woman (after Jennifer of course!), so capable in everything and nothing was ever too much trouble despite what she might be juggling in her work or home life. Elaine is blessed with many talents and she certainly used all of them to benefit our school whether it was technical ability in setting up lighting to create the Yellow Brick road, setting up macros to run off our Christmas ballots, showing her creativity in creating Treasure Hunts, manning 3 stalls at a Summer Fair or indeed in the kitchen making her delicious sausage rolls when we somehow pulled off a 5 star Afternoon Tea! She gave everything her all, with a very solution focussed and can do attitude which made it a joy working with her. We will miss her, but we know there are others who can and will plug that gap which has been left. Thank you, Elaine, for your considerable contribution to Carrickmannon’s PTA over the years - we will miss you!
Finally, the School and the PTA have a great relationship which we will aim to guard so that we can continue to support the growth of the school. As you all know, Miss Brown has taken up the role as Princpal and we would like to congratulate her formally on this and record that as a PTA we will continue to support her in any which we can as she seeks to take the school forward. Miss Brown has been such a dedicated supporter of the PTA over the many years she has worked at the school, so we are looking forward to her telling us how we can continue to support the school moving forward. I thank you all for taking your time listening to this report.
Thank you
Janice Cooke
Chairperson of Carrickmannon PS PTA