Stoke Gabriel Pre-school Committee Meeting.

19^th May 2004.

Present: Sue Stacey, Carolyn Sharp, Claire Turner, Julie Goodall, Luke Peakman

Apologies: Thomas Goodall, Sarah Bromige, Kyrie Edwards, Janet Eddy, Alex

Whate

Matters Arising from AGM

Kate Harper does not want to be vice-chair – we need to put up notices to advertise for one. If someone is interested in the job of chair then it would be advisable to become the vice-chair.

End of year accounts are now available for all to see. They will need to be audited by October.

Chairs Report – see attached

Supervisors Report – see attached

Matters Arising

We need a tick box/consent form to allow parents to agree to pre-school staff applying sun cream to the children. Parents need to supply the sun cream. Luke to knock up form.

Committee Review

Sadly due to the poor turn out at this meeting there were insufficient numbers of people who turned up to allow us to vote the new members of the committee in. In the wings, to be voted on are: Thomas Goodall – Treasurer and Amanda Bradbury-Hughes.

Fundraising

Julie has come up with the idea of an activity pamphlet complete with a range of fun family activities to do in Stoke Gabriel and with a list of events coming up. It will be useful to both local parents with children and for holidaymakers. Companies could advertise in the pamphlet bringing in extra revenue. We could post them in pubs/restaurants holiday parks and shops and mail drop them locally. The pamphlet will contain things like competitions, games, treasure hunts etc. We could have a funny face competition with pictures posted on boards around the village with £1 entry..

Also, there is an idea of having a fund-raising recipe book filled with tried and tested favourite recipes from local people. Claire and Carolyn already have recipes for contribution to this publication. People like Mrs. G could be approached for a recipe. We could sell it around the village.

Refurbishment Update

There is not too much report. OFSTED have agreed that refurbishment is needed but they are also not putting any strict timetable for us to adhere to. £2000 has already been raised for the project and funds/grants are being sought. What we need to be successful in obtaining these funds is a proper brief/price of the project from the architect, which means we need to finalise the plans. It was agreed that this refurbishment would not be completed by the end of the summer holidays but it won’t continue on forever. Architects plans have been drawn up

O.F.S.T.E.D

The OFSTED report was extremely positive about our pre-school; they loved us! The children enthralled the inspector. The full report is now available to read and a copy is available in the pre-school. The full report will also be available on the national OFSTED website. Carolyn will also ensure that the report goes on the Stoke Gabriel pre-school website. We will now not have a full educational OFSTED inspection for 3-4 years but we will have yearly OFSTED inspections to see that we are fulfilling the 12 National Standards. These are not educationally based but focus on managerial/practical day to day running issues.

Grateful thanks are hereby extended to the staff on behalf of the chair and the committee and also to the wonderfully behaved children.

There will now not be another comprehensive educational inspection for 3-5 years.

Carnival

Claire does not want to be involved in the procession but she will do the fancy dress competition. She does officially request that someone helps her with this. We will also put on a cake stall so cakes are required, all home bakers please contact pre-school. The cake stall will obviously need to be manned so we will have a rota for this on the day.

Any further ideas and offers of help will be gratefully received.

Milk Monitor

The pre-school gets their milk for free. It is approximately £100 for one bill but this money needs to be claimed back and a form needs to be filled in once a month. Sue Stacey has volunteered for this job.

A.O.B.

Claire will write a new welcome letter to families stressing the need for new committee members. Claire will also write another letter from the committee to parents saying that there are spaces on the committee and we need volunteers.

Scout hut as a new venue for the pre-school. Scout leaders thought that this was not a good idea and other staff have viewed the hut and agreed that it is fairly unsuitable and needs a lot of work to get it up to scratch. There would also not be such a free reign to change the room around and have displays etc. Storage would also be a problem and an outdoor hut/shed would need to be built to house the canoes. A lottery grant or similar would be needed and someone would need probably at least 2-3 years to see the project through. The advantages are that there is more space and outdoor opportunities so it is not disregarded as impossible but not something that we are looking into at the moment.

The year end accounts are now available to all who want to see them.

A new health and safety review is pending which Sue has in hand. New insurance documents are available.

We are still operating a first come first served basis of getting places/sessions at pre-school. This is important for parents to know in advance. Advanced bookings are also needed so that Claire knows the numbers of children present with respect to applying for funding. It is not necessary to rebook sessions if you already have them. At the moment there is no problem with spaces available.

Date for next meeting is: Wednesday 30^th of June

All are welcome and the more that come the better, we are a new committee and extremely welcoming so come and join us for a drink.

Pre-school Meeting

19^th May 2004

Supervisors Report

A big welcome to our new children; Sophie, Edward, Jasmine, Shannon and Anne-Marie they have all fitted in very well and have already made many friends.

When we come back in June after half term we will start linking the Rising 5’s with Stoke Gabriel School. Mrs Whitcher and I have already made plans for this transition.

We have had our OFSTED report and I am very pleased to say that we did exceptionally well and I would like to thank Sarah, Rachel and Carolyn for their hard work. The report is available for parents to read.

We now have a telephone answering machine on the schoolroom phone line so if a child is going to be absent or out of hours contact with the pre-school is needed then messages can be left.

One last thing, as the weather has become very hot and sunny parents need to provide sun cream in a named bottle and a sun hat for their children.

Thank you,

Janet Eddy.