Well, what can we say about 2020 and this academic year so far? I think challenging, different, thought- provoking and emotional are a pretty good place to start! As we all try to get to grips with and adjust to new ways of personal, work and school life, one thing has certainly remained the same…… that is the commitment and enthusiasm of us – the Sully School PTA!!!!
We have been racking our “lockdown frazzled” brains on how we can safely and respectfully continue to go about our great fundraising work. Our meetings are no longer a “night out” at the Sully Cons Club or Seashore Grill but like most meetings now, held over Zoom; but that has not stopped the success or the creativity flowing!
The Autumn term has brought a number of successful events already with our Bags 2 School clothes weigh-in raising £297. Thank you to everyone who brought in items for donation. Remember to put items to one side for another collection event during the Spring term! We also had an amazing response from parents and the local community who placed an incredible amount of orders for the children’s fabulous Christmas Cards, Gift Tags, Tea Towels and Mugs. Many thanks to the teachers who supported the children in creating their wonderful designs. This raised a mind-blowing £1003 – over £300 more than last year! A further £281 was raised by swapping the usual sell-out Halloween Disco with a “PJ & Spooky Movie” activity on the last day of school before half term – a fantastic trade, which the kids loved!
Sadly, several other historically popular events are unable to operate this year e.g. Movie Night, Jolly Bag Sale, Playground Sweet Sales, Christmas Jumper & Nativity Costume Sales ……
BUT …….
We have introduced the new “In it to Win It” scheme which is performing well and now has more than a quarter of families in the school taking part! Based on initial feedback, we have now simplified the sign-up process so it can all be done super easily by using your Parent Pay account. You can also still make a regular monthly donation by signing up to a standing order and sending in the standing order form – whichever works best for you. Good luck for everyone who has entered the first draw and remember, the more people who join, the bigger the winnings!!!!
The Christmas Raffle was a huge success last year and we hope to replicate this again. As most things, this will be drawn “virtually” for 2020. Due to Christmas Concerts not taking place in person you will be pleased to hear you won’t have us waving our raffle ticket books, struggling with ripping them out, writing your name on the back whilst balancing our cash basket under our arm (haha!). Instead you will receive details on how to enter via your child/children next week. Once again, we have some fantastic prizes up for grabs! Thank you for all the prize donations so far, but of course, more donations would be hugely welcomed!
STOP PRESS! New Recruit!
We would like to welcome our new Vice-Treasurer Andrew Walters who has kindly agreed to take the reins from our long-serving (or suffering!) and incredibly dedicated James Redford. James kindly agreed to continue in his role until a suitable successor was found and will work closely with Andrew for the remainder of the academic year to ensure a seamless handover. So, welcome to the team Andrew and thank you James!
Phew! A great start to the year!
As you would expect, the Spring and Summer Terms are also jam-packed with exciting and fun events for everyone to enjoy and you can keep up to date with these via the school newsletter every Friday and your class WhatsApp groups.
Signing off for now with a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone for your support, generosity, kindness and dedication to our wonderful school during this extremely challenging time.