Friends of St Dallan’s Annual report for period
1st July 2024– 30th June 2025
Background
Friends of St Dallan’s is the voluntary parent-run fundraising association for St Dallan’s Primary School in Warrenpoint. All parents / guardians of St Dallan’s school children are automatically members of Friends of St Dallan’s. The aims of Friends of St Dallan’s are:
• To support St Dallan’s Primary School through fundraising to provide extra resources and facilities for the benefit of pupils at the school, as agreed with the school principal.
• To foster positive relationships between staff, parents / guardians of St Dallan’s pupils and others associated with the school through organising and running fundraising social events.
Although independent and voluntary, Friends of St Dallan’s works in close conjunction with the school to agree fundraising initiatives and expenditure on projects. School pupils are consulted on project ideas through the School Council. Parents are asked for their ideas and contribution via Facebook and email, with all suggestions greatly welcome.
Chairperson’s Report
Well done to all the committee on another year of hard work and good results! Friends of St Dallan’s are back working hard to fundraise and organise family events. Our total fundraising efforts this year brought in £2250 for the benefit of our children at St Dallan’s Primary School.
New volunteers came on board our committee, bringing with them many new ideas, skills and energy.
This year we were successful in obtaining funding of £500.00 from the Warrenpoint Port Community Fund. The funding received was used to purchase audio resources for the school. These resources have already been well used by the school, improving the quality of assemblies, plays and other events. I am sure this will continue to be of beneficial use to the school and children.
During the year we developed our Facebook page further and raised our profile significantly. The use of social media to display the variety of children’s pictures from world book day to
Halloween dress up brought plenty of colour and cheer to Facebook page. The use of polls makes it much easier to gauge opinion on and availability for events or activities.
Fundraising initiatives during the year:
Street Collection
Friends of St Dallans held a street collection on 8th September 2024. The town was packed with people and We successfully collected £328.45 on the day. Many thanks to all our volunteers on the day who helped with the collection. Note that this is included under “other income” in the accounts.
Bingo
Our new initiative was to hold a family bingo night held in the school assembly hall on 8th November 2024. The event was a great success, We raised £1925.81 at this event. Many thanks to all our prize sponsors along with raffle sponsors. Also, to the school and the caretaking team for allowing us to hold the event and setting it all up.
Guess the sweets
FOSD had a fun idea to involve the P7s in our fundraising. A jar of sweets toured the school and the children got to guess how many. The winner got the full jar. We raised £307.34. through this guessing game.
Costume donation
We tried a new non-fundraising effort, a costume exchange. Unfortunately the uptake was not great and the planned exchange did not happen. Instead the costumes that were donated were donated to local charity "Home Start" who were very grateful to receive them.
Sports Day
Mrs Farrell made the sensible decision to hold the sports day earlier than originally planned, meaning that FOSD were unable to mobilise resources and volunteers for our usual coffee and cake stand. Our volunteers instead got the chance to see their children without interruption.
P7 Leaver top
During the final term of the school year Friends of St Dallan’s organised for all the leaving P7s to be provided with a leaver’s topietop displaying their school year and every child’s name. The orders were flying in and provided with P7s with a lovely memento. This year the hoodies were kindly sponsored by Kilmorey Care and JR Hygiene. The hoodies were worn with pride at sports day and on their final day in St Dallan’s on 21st June. We do not treat leavers tops as a fundraising initiative.
FOSD contribution to St Dallan’s during the year:
Audio Visual resources
We provided new modern Audio visual resources to the school, to give life to performances held there for years to come
School 25[th] Anniversary - FOSD were incredibly proud to fund the fun day held for all the pupils to celebrate the 25[th] anniversary of St Dallans Primary School.
P1 welcome pack – Prepared a small welcome pack for all our P1 parents to enjoy on their child’s first day of school. We love this way of welcoming the new P1’s to our school community and is a great way to introduce ourselves to new families to the school.
Thank you:
Thank you to all the hard working, dedicated committee volunteers who are the driving force behind FOSD. Thank you to our sponsors who have supported our events or donated prizes during the year. We couldn’t do our fundraising without their continuous support.
The year ended with a fabulous £2,700 being donated to the school. Here is to another fabulous year of fundraising ahead.
Thank you to Alice, Sinead and Niamh in the office and Mrs Farrell for your ready assistance with all the FOSD projects. Thank you to the parents, family and friends of St Dallan’s school children who have supported our efforts through the year, it is greatly appreciated. A special thanks to all the volunteers who helped us during the year. Remember, our children, our school, their future!