Friends of the school
The Friends of West Jesmond School are our school parents' organisation. They do a fantastic job in supporting our school.
All parents and guardians automatically become members of the FWJS when their child joins the school. Staff and governors are also Friends and membership extends to interested members of the local community.
Friends support the school all year round by organising a variety of social and fundraising events for children and adults during the school year. The Friends’ aim is to ensure parents and guardians have a chance to socialise and have fun while raising money for the school.
FRIENDS OF WEST JESMOND PRIMARY SCHOOL
Minutes of meeting 4th November 2009
Present: Sue McDonald, Suzanne Armstrong, Val Lyons, Louisa Hicks, Julie Wilkinson, Cathy Howe, Wendy Osborne
Apologies: Dianne Sanderson, Sheila Whitehouse, Emma Peach, Anne O’Brien, Sarah Rowlands, Sarah Clemmentson, Clare Armstrong, Dee Pass, Kate Mills, Alison Duncan
An update of recent activities was provided:
Continuing success of Friday cake stalls, most raising between £130 - £190
The 2nd second hand uniform sale raised £77.00.
Macmillan coffee morning held on the same day was a great success with many parents attending and raised £125.
Discos were a success and generally worked well with discos back to back, c.77 children attended from years 3 & 4 and c.86 from years 5 & 6, average numbers for year end disco.
Christmas cards were ready to go home to parents. Quality of design of cards is fabulous. Friends will raise £1.25 per pack sold. This is clearly marked on order forms.
Christmas shopping evening plans are progressing well. Julie and Wendy volunteered to help with raffle and Louisa with the bar.
Christmas Fair – notices to be sent out closer to time. Gazebo needed – (since meeting - Mrs Hainsworth has been asked and is happy to offer her Gazebo), also currently we do not seem to have been able to find a FC for grotto. Elaine Whetstone to be asked to ask for raffle prizes for the fair.
A watercolour picture by Nick Broome was shown. He had given it to Suzanne to see if we wanted to make any cards from it or any prints. Interest was expressed but it was decided not to do anything with it.
Book fair on for the full week Monday 16 – Friday 20 November, Julie and Alison to run.
Julie said that she had spoken to Margot re previous wine tasting evenings organised and Margot always swapped providers each time she organised a wine tasting.
Air Ambulance Collection (similar to bags to school) has been organised by Clare Armstrong and the collection date is 25 November. There was some discussion that we give back funds raised to the Air Ambulance.
There had been enquiries as to the date of the next ‘cluny do’. Suzanne to speak with Anne O’B. Anne then to arrange date for next ‘do’, if band happy to perform again.
It was felt it would be great to get parents from all ethnic backgrounds included in activities in school including friend’s events, in particular at this point in time, to be included at the Christmas fair, perhaps running a stall themselves.
(since meeting Ann Edwards has arranged with parents of her pupils to hold a coffee morning on Friday 27th November at c.9am, Suzanne is to attend, Nancy also as EAL parent and friend, any other friends welcome to join them to help and talk to the parents)
Heddon on the Wall car run – plants being collected for sale at Christmas fair. Louisa offered, if required Stewart could go up on Sat. AM. Jenny to be contacted to see if you she can do collection.
Next meeting – date not arranged, but any activities where we are using school premises next term, out of school hours i.e. after 6pm or at a weekend need to be booked this term.
Friends' of West Jesmond News
New Dates for your diary-Autumn Term 2009
There will be more detailed information to follow about each of these events. This is the chance for you to save the dates.
Christmas Fair
Saturday 12th December. 11am.-1.00p.m.
Previous Events- Round-up
Second-hand Uniform Sale-Autumn 2009
Thank you very much for all the donations of uniform. The recent sale (Friday 16th October) raised £77. We still have some items of good quality uniform left and will be holding another sale at the Christmas Fair on Saturday 12th December. There will be a collection of any more used uniform, that is still in good condition, the week before the Fair.
School Summer Fair (Saturday 4th July, 11.00am - 1.00pm)
We had great weather to run our first school fair at the new school - it was so hot that we had to set up stalls in the shade - a possible first! Once again the layout of the school was perfect for a fair with all the stalls set up outside, games going on in the football pens, beat the goalie on the grassed area, a perfect spot for the bouncy castle in the Reception yard and the chance to sit indoors and enjoy a cup of tea and some home baked cakes.
It was a stunning success and we made £1912.28 profit!
An eagle-eyed ex pupil found an undated 20pence coin in the takings and the Friends have sold it on Ebay for £115 - an easy bit of profit!
Many thanks go to parents and staff alike for helping on the day, setting up, running stalls and clearing away. We feel that all the effort made it a really fun day for both the pupils and the parents.
Cake stalls
Weekly cake stalls have been held in the KS2 yard each Friday at 3.20pm. Many thanks to Louisa who has coordinated the stalls and all the helpers that come along on the day. The stalls have been a huge success with all the proceeds going to the class who baked!
All classes have done extremely well with some record amounts being raised (the total so far for 5 year groups is £1835.80 - that is a lot of cakes!). This year’s 'winners' were R3 who raised £174.59! Year totals are below. Years 2 & 4 will have their chance to beat the top earners in the Autumn term!
Reception £499.85
Year 1 £410.45
Year 3 £353.37
Year 5 £315.32
Year 6 £256.81
Well done to everyone!
My Design Made
The Friends of West Jesmond agreed in cooperation with one of the school mums - Rose Mockford from 'my design made' - to have the year one children produce their own unique greeting cards, created from their artwork (as part of their 'growing' theme for the term). The class teachers and the children have put so much effort in and they are very proud of the results. Rose has then taken the work and produced the beautiful cards.
Year one have been selling the cards to their friends and families and Rose also displayed the cards at the summer fair. For each pack sold a percentage of the takings will go towards the Friends. Depending on how much is raised, we will discuss how best to use the money to celebrate the effort Yr1 have made.
Year 6 leavers
Time to say farewell to our Year 6 pupils. The Friends once again organised leavers t-shirts with all the children’s names on them. We sold 62 in total and they looked great on the pupils.
The Friends also donated £100 towards an end of year party which will be held at the Jesmond Cricket Club. Have a great evening and good luck for the future!
The School Garden Project
Once again a huge thank you to Hugh and Jenny who continue their great work at the school allotment. Jenny brought along a fantastic selection of plants to the school fair - a lot of allotment items and managed to raise £161.00 for the project. Whenever possible they have also sold produce on Friday's alongside the cake stalls to raise some extra funds.
It was agreed that the Friends would fund a banner for the School Garden Project that could be used when they sell plants at school and when their fantastic 'hangings' are on tour and also to use for the allotment show in September at the Civic centre. We provided £245 for this.
| Role | Name | |
|---|---|---|
| Chairperson | Sue McDonald | |
| Vice Chairperson | Suzanne Armstrong | |
| Secretary | Anne O'Brien | friends@westjesmondprimary.org.uk |
| Treasurer | Kate Mills |
