17 Nov Minutes of CF Committee Meeting – 16 November 2020
Coleridge Families Minutes 16 November 2020 (by Zoom)
Present:
Andrew Day, Elizabeth Mackie, Joanna Shakhmin, Ayla Us, Alan Midgely, Andrea Voros, Challe Hudson, Cindy Dos Santos, Emma Grove, Georgia Norton, Leon Choueke, Lorraine Gerrard, Marielle Drier, Melanie Solomou, Sarah Wiley, Victoria Roberts, Katie Belkin (other parents joined later for the events portion)
Finances – update on recent income and balances
The main news is that some big donations have come through since October, making the current balances in the current and savings accounts very healthy. After taking off some authorised expenditures and funds allocated to specific projects we have unallocated funds of around £13.5k.
We’ve had around £28,000 CVF donations – these are to be given over to the school to spend on items within the charity’s objects, Leon will provide details. We’ve also had £11,600 into the Learning Enhancement Fund (a fund that pre-dated CVF and is very similar) – mostly historic, there are some parents who regularly still give to this.
The pumpkin trail tickets raised £443.43 (as well as giving families something to replace Trick or Treat).
Cookbook pre-orders – £1317.
The Givey button is also working well – £675 to date.
There are some upcoming costs:
- Website development. This is ready to launch and we will be paying £1428 as agreed in July.
- Clothes (Coleridge t-shirts and hoodies) merch to pay for to maintain stock levels – £500 again as agreed in July.
- The costs of cookbook production / cookbook costs. Lots of good human interest and culture-building in this project as the stories behind the recipes come in. It should also work as fund-raising. We have pre-orders of 100 + 12 paying sponsors. Local sponsors have also responded with enthusiasm and plan to feature the book in windows and websites. £2200 required to print 300 copies. AGREED
Andi’s merchandising project (non-standard and personalised items). This is all ready to go – she would like some help marketing it.
Banners. There is a plan to get two more CF banners. These will help parents to know who we are and what we do. It will also have the website address on, which should help. They are about £100 each and we agreed to self-fund if we don’t have an agreement with Martyn Gerrard (sponsors) in time for them to pay.
Succession sub-committee report and plans. We agreed to update to constitution to the Parentkind model at the next AGM. This model fills in some gaps in our own constitution which have been a concern recently eg the new model makes all named committee members trustees of the charity.
The proposal for succession planning when Liz steps down was discussed. It was agreed that we should advertise the vacancy for Chair widely and also the other positions that are soon to become vacant. As well as Georgia and Joanna, Ayla also expressed an interest in being a co-chair. It was generally agreed that splitting the Chair role (either into two co-chairs or chair & vice-chair) is a good idea. And also that the membership of the committee needs to be more clearly defined, with all committee members having named roles. Liz pointed out that it would also be good to have people at the meeting as attendees, without having to take up a role, so that they can get a feel for how things work and where their skills and interests fit best before volunteering for a specific role on the committee. We would particularly like the governor candidates who were not successful in the election to consider getting involved with CF.
New website launch
There is an invoice for £1.4K (see Finances). The site is going live in the next few days. It should be a much
easier way to update everyone. We should all be aware that future comms should direct people to the site. Of course, we’ll still need to try to get people’s attention through social media, school letters etc but the more we can get people to look to the website and sign up for the newsletter the better.
Sponsorship update
Sarah is in discussion with Martyn Gerrard to renew the agreement for 2020-21.
Other initiatives
These three items are about buying books and toys for specific year groups in the school. Teachers want to have a running list that is updated rather than having to submit one big list. All of the following are ways that parents can donate books.
- Amazon wish lists – Reception and Y1 so far these will go on the website.
- Book list at Waterstones/ Pickled Pepper
- Diversity books list
New event proposals, summary
- Winter Bazaar update (including Christmas promise idea)
Winter Bazaar can’t be run in anything like it’s usual form. Leon stressed that we can’t really do anything that adds extra burden on the teachers/timetable etc. Ayla has since expressed a desire to find a version of the bazaar that is viable and will be looking into that. Marielle’s Xmas Promise idea is in addition to the WB and not a replacement for WB. - Christmas trees.
Mel would like to market the Xmas tree idea now especially as there are no upfront costs or financial
risk to CF. This was agreed. - Gifted Local – www.giftedlocal.com awaiting more details from the parent.
- Y6 fundraising: leavers’ hoodies, Christmas puddings.
- Calendar idea for Xmas 2021
- Pet show / photo competition (Emma): The idea is for children to upload online videos and photos of pets for an online pet show. We would need a platform to run it on (not adult social media) and so we will put it on website. Fun – might raise
£300-400? - Victoria also has a set of good online event ideas, some of which have been tried and tested elsewhere. Mel, Ayla and Victoria will discuss.
A Day
November 2020