Merry Christmas and welcome to the LVSPTA blog!
We started off with a newsletter, but life (both inside and outside the PTA) got very busy and that was one of the balls that I had to drop, along with putting away all my clean washing!
We’ve now upgraded to a blog and a whole PTA website. This will continue to grow, with plans for a volunteer sign-up page and lots more to come. On the homepage you’ll find a link to PTA Events, where everything from disco tickets to quiz night curries will continue to be sold. There are also links to all our affiliates - Stikins, Easyfundraising and Stamptastic, which are really easy ways to support us. Thanks to you buying name labels, Stikins alone have just sent us a cheque for £125.
As we reach the end of term, I wanted to share a quick round up of the Autumn term - the highs and the lows
We held our AGM in October, with eight members attending, including the current committee and Mrs Hooker. This was disappointing given the size of the school community. We were hoping to find a new treasurer, but as no one stepped forward I’m currently covering that role alongside being chair. We can co-opt members at any point during the year, so if you’d like to get involved and don’t mind a spreadsheet, please get in touch.
October also saw our first Halloween Disco, with three discos in one night - starting with 2 year olds and ending with Year 5&6! It got louder as the evening went on! The event raised an amazing £805, including £67 from the enterprising Year 5 3D printers. We’re planning another disco in the spring term and would really appreciate help with organising. Dates will follow in January.
We also ran the Halloween Trail, which took a lot of work but had limited take-up. After selling 67 maps, the event raised £154. We don’t currently plan to run this again next year, but if anyone has ideas and would like to take it on, we’d be happy to support.
In November we held our quiz night, with ten teams joining us for an evening of questions, curry from Sandra’s Flavours & Fusion, and a very popular bar! While ticket sales only made a small profit after costs and fees, the overall total raised on the night was £330. We’re hoping to run another quiz in the summer term.
December brought our Christmas Market, which was a wonderfully festive evening. Thank you to everyone who came along to support our stallholders. Between the market, bar and raffle, we raised £660.
We also ran Elfridges for the first time this year. While we didn’t receive enough donated gifts for every child, it was a big learning curve and next year the event will be run differently to ensure everyone is included. Even so, the event raised £503.
Unfortunately, we’ve had to cancel Santa Comes to Lightwater this year due to a lack of volunteers and Elf stops. We’re hopeful to bring Santa back next year, but we won’t be able to run the event without your support. If you’d like to help make this possible, we’d love to hear from you.
Altogether this term we raised an incredible £2,911. Thank you so much for supporting our events — we truly couldn’t do it without you.
This term hasn’t just been about fundraising. We’ve also been able to donate £560 towards the ducklings next year and £1,658 for new playground equipment across both sites.
As always, thank you for your continued support. We can’t support the school without you.