MINUTES OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING HELD ON
THURSDAY 7th NOVEMBER 2013 7.30PM
BUCKDEN PRE-SCHOOL PLAYGROUP ROOMS
Present: Geoff Swire, Elaine Scott*, Julia Woodmore*, Vikki Brooks*, Corrine
Emeleus*, Sam Hardy, Sarah Brown, Estelle Fraiman, Sonia Wall*
* indicates parents of children currently in Playgroup.
Absentees Alison Runham, Sam Mailes, Angela Burrows, Tracey Beacher, Suzette
Dudley, Claire Gill, Heather Mitchell, Arty Speroni
1.
Minutes of last meeting
Welcome to parents, staff and committee for attending the meeting.
2.
Absentees
It was noted members of the committee and staff whom were present or absent from
this year’s Annual General Meeting.
3.
Last year’s minutes
All agreed.
4.
Acting Chairperson’s report (Corrine Emueleus )
Going from a parent, to the fundraiser for the last two years and stepping in as acting
Chair ~ I am learning very fast!!
Taking on this role has been much helped by all of the staff and the committee members
supporting me in this role ~ Thank you.
It has been a busy year for staff, committee and parents.
We are still looking for a Chairperson that will be able to take on the role for the next
few years. We will start advertising again and hopefully we will find an eager person
before too long!
On behalf of the parents and committee members I would like to say a huge Thank You
to all members of staff for all of their hard work within the preschool, their key working,
updating polices, attending training courses, and the day to day work it takes to keep a
preschool running and most importantly, ensuring lots of happy children. We all
appreciate the background work which is essential to the preschool running smoothly.
Also a thank you for staff members’ extra work helping the committee with fundraising in
their own time, and for the fundraising initiatives within preschool.
Especially for gaining the Preschool Alliance accreditation.
Staffing
We were sorry to see Lisa Kane leave at the end of September, and we are also sorry
that Tracey Beacher will be leaving us at the end of November: we wish both Lisa and
Tracey well for their futures.
We are delighted to welcome Suzette Dudley who has joined us in a supply capacity as
and when needed.
Training continues to be important and the staff will continue to be encouraged to follow
appropriate training, beyond that which is required of us by law, to ensure the continued
high standards at preschool.
The Committee
A huge Thank You to all of the committee members for all their hard work, commitment
and enthusiasm, who willingly give so much of their time to the benefit of our preschool
(and of their families and friends time!).
We have had a brilliant year of fundraising, the new website is about to go live
tomorrow, and we now been using the Sage accountancy system for the past academic
year.
Thank you to Sonia our Secretary, Claire and Elaine, our Treasurers and to Geoff who
organises the staff wages. These positions take up a lot of time and are essential to the
preschool; I know that Christine is very appreciative of their hard work over the last
year.
Fundraising events that the committee organise are essential not only to affording
resources for the preschool but also in helping cover the costs that incur throughout the
year.
We had a very successful fundraising year, raising just over £3,000 from the Halloween
Party, Christmas Fayre, Buckden Christmas Lights, end of year photographer, the Village
Fete and Buckfest. This figure has been contributed to by preschool fundraising
initiatives such as the plant sale, Christmas t towels & cards, name tags, bag for school,
pancake flip, Easter egg drawing competition, and a staggering £400 from Alfie’s
Granddads plant sale!!
A massive thank you to Vikki who has now taken over the fundraising role, and who is
already coming up with lots of brilliant ideas.
And not forgetting, a thank you to parents for their support with our fundraising events
and for coming in to help with the children.
Past year
Over the past year we have also sourced smart new tops and fleeces for the staff and tshirts and bags for children.
We are in the process of having a children’s mobile garden being donated and built by
Matt Gill’s garden centre, and sourcing quotes for staff and children’s visibility jackets to
be donated by B4B.
Future Events & Initiatives
We are currently collecting various new ideas for fundraising events and initiatives
including:
Swishing evening for parents
Children’s nearly new sale
Claire has kindly offered to help organise!
Adam Hardy has come up with a brilliant idea of asking for corporate donations,
recognised by way of the News Letter and Website, with the added advantage of
charitable donation tax break ~ any thoughts on this idea please email.
Lastly, we are currently actively seeking new members to join the team, please speak to
one of the committee members if you can help in any way.
Child Numbers
The past academic year has seen a continued smaller child intake, explained by fewer
child numbers in the Village and parents working thus needing extra hours of child care
that other providers can offer.
We hope that the flexibility of hours Preschool offers, the provision for lunches and for
the under three’s will continue to attract children to our Preschool and so benefit our
financial status.
We have 4 confirmed new starters and a few more as yet to confirm (Sarah may be
mentioning).
Website and Roundabout
A massive thank you to Alison who worked very hard on the Preschool website over the
past few years, and who also wrote the Roundabout articles, and to Sarah who took this
over for a few months. Jules who has written them on a monthly basis since ~ Thank
you. Sonia will take over this job from December
The Roundabout Article gives Preschool news and forthcoming events, please give Sonia
any ideas or comments for her to use.
Jules has worked amazing hard on creating a new website where we can include more
information for parents, for staff and committee members (Sessions, Staff, Committee,
Notice board, Calendar, Gallery, and a policy page).
There has already been considerable feedback from staff and committee members;
please have a look and give any further suggestions, improvements, queries etc to Jules.
Jules will be working on a new committee and fundraising page after the Christmas
Fayre, which will have committee master copies of event notes and various other admin
and information.
The admin section (which will be worked on in the New Year) will be via login for staff
and committee members. No public access. Every time someone leaves we will change
the password.
As already mentioned the website will hopefully go live tomorrow if there are no issues.
Ofsted
The preschool was inspected by Ofsted in December 2010.
We were rated as
satisfactory and were given some action points. We have not had a visit from them in
2012 or 2013.
All previous action points have been completed and have been
incorporated into our Preschool Development Plans for monitoring and consideration
together with policy reviews which are reviewed and updated on a regular basis.
The Preschool is due an Ofsted visit within the next academic year. The staff have
worked very hard to ensure that we will be accredited with an Grade 2 ~ (good) or an
Grade 1 ~ (Outstanding), after all of the hard work that staff have completed over the
last couple of years we should not be getting a Grade 3 ~ (requires improvement).
Conclusion
In conclusion an enormous Thank You to the Committee, Staff, and Children who have
been in anyway involved in the fundraising activities and an even bigger Thank You to all
the parents their friends and family members who have spent their money.
None of our activities would be possible without the hard work, support and dedication of
our staff and our committee members and I know Chris, and myself would like to record
thanks to everyone that has contributed in any way to the successful development of our
Preschool over the last year.
Sustainability Action Plan
Because of the financial loss over the past academic year we have sought guidance from
Rachel Shotter, a Sustainability Officer from Pre School Learning Alliance, who will advise
the committee of methods of improving the efficiencies of the Preschool with regards to
our working procedures and financial situation.
Immediate actions that the committee will undertake include:
a) Calculate the closure cost of the Playgroup
Worse case scenario ~ The Playgroup’s reserve account should hold enough monies to
cover the cost of closing the Playgroup should this deemed necessary by Pre-School
Learning Alliance.
b) Confirm with our insurance firm if the Committee is covered for redundancy pay
The Committee was made aware that we could be financially responsible for Playgroup,
e.g. should the Playgroup be shut down, the Committee would be liable for redundancy
pay.
We are not covered by our insurance policy for redundancy.
c) Charity Incorporation Organisation
We need to register with this organisation in December 2013 to ensure that every
committee member’s liability is limited to £1.
d) All expenses to be taken out of petty cash
No spending of non essential items and any large items deemed necessary to be voted
on by the committee.
e) Staff / Children Ratio
Currently we are not being cost effective with regards to our staff / children ratio.
We need to promote to parents the days where we have capacity for more children to
attend and steer parents away from days where we would have to increase our staffing
numbers to make up the required ratio.
Plan of Action
Rachel is working on an Action Plan for the Preschool, of which Rachel will go through
the plan with myself and Sarah next Wednesday.
Any information from this meeting will be shared with committee members and to staff
through Sarah.
5.
Treasurer’s report (Elaine Scott)
Treasuers: Elaine and Claire to complete forecasting models for next week. Geoff
suggest changing the account year end from 31st August to 31st July might clarify the
accounts as the rent from the nursery and funding from the council all occur in August.
Elaine and Claire are to review the situation. See report below:
We ended the year with a loss of £6866, down from a healthy profit of £3842 in the
previous financial year.
 Voucher and parent fee income decreased by £9474, which reflects a return to
more normal child numbers after the previous two years of ‘baby boom’ numbers.
 Staff Costs have increased slightly by £520, however as a proportion of our
income this is a marked increase, given the lower numbers.
 Fundraising Income has increased by £2170.
 All other expenses have remained broadly static.
Treasurers suggested actions for the coming year:
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Analysis of staff costs to see if there is opportunity to reduce down to be more in
line with child numbers
Due to last year’s loss we have implemented a spending embargo with immediate
effect. Any requested expenses will need to be verbally agreed with either
treasurers or the chairperson.
Day to day costs for the running of the preschool should be taken from the petty
cash.
Any other agreed out of pocket expenses will need to be submitted via an expense
form and will be paid along with wages once a month.
Where possible goods should be purchased and paid for via invoice.
Tighter control is required on the fundraising expenses in order to ensure we
maximise the benefits of increased income.
6.
Supervisor’s report (Sarah Brown)
Sarah to check with EYFIS the ratios for staffing to children. This will help evaluate the
price increase for both 2 year olds and 3 year olds. See report below:
Our numbers for last year were very low and they do not look that much better for this
year. We started the year with 18 children which is the lowest total I have known the
pre-school to have. Although this looks set to increase throughout the spring term it is
not by much. The effect of two lean years has been felt by preschool before, but not of
three, and I would advise that some contingency plans are put in place in case next year
is another low year. If not Buckden may well lose a vital community service for its
families.
September 2012 saw the introduction of the Revised Early Years Foundation Stage, and
this month Ofsted have finally caught up and introduced a new Evaluation Schedule for
their inspections. As our last inspection was 3 years ago this coming December we can
now assume ourselves to be on ‘Ofsted countdown’. I realise this put the fear of God in
my team and some of the committee but I want to assure all of you that we should not
be worried. We have addressed previous issues raised, the relevant documentation is in
place, and we are constantly evaluating and if necessary altering our practice to meet
the needs of children and parents. This has been proved none more so than by gaining
the highest level in the PLA’s quality assurance scheme this May. I would like to thank all
parents who contributed their views whilst we completed our Reflecting on Quality
evaluation, and say a big well done to the staff who made it happen.
The staff has gone through a few changes this year. Following her ascension to fame in
the literary world Alison is now a cover staff member alongside Suzette Dudley who
joined us in June. Lisa left in September and Tracey is due to leave at the end of the
month. For a team such as ours it is a big blow to lose staff who have a wealth of
valuable experience like Tracey, Lisa and Alison do and they are/ will be missed.
However we also need to pay credit to Sam, Sammy and Estelle as they cope so well
with these changes and are able to slot extra hours, extra responsibilities and extra keyworking children in to their existing workload so seamlessly.
When the revised EYFS was introduced a whole plethora of courses got introduced with
it. As a necessity we now have to have staff trained in food hygiene, so three of us took
courses in September last year. It is regarded as best practice to have 2 SENCos within
each setting so Estelle undertook training in both special needs and CAF. She and Sam
will also be responsible for Equalities and despite a long wait are now firmly booked on
ENCo training next term. Other courses attended have included lots on the 7 areas of
learning and development as well as Makaton, and updating first aid and safeguarding
knowledge. It is a bonus for us that the committee recognises the importance of ongoing
professional development and is able to release funds for this training to take place.
And so finally I would like to thank the committee for all their hard work over the past
year. I too was chairperson of a preschool committee so I can imagine how terrified
Corrine is feeling right now. However she has a great team behind her and you all need
to take credit for the superb efforts that you make to keep our pre-school the warm,
vibrant and happy place that it is...long may it continue.
7.
Elected Members
Corrine Emuleus
– Acting Chair
Claire Gill and Elaine Scott
Sonia Wall
Geoff Swire
Julia Woodmore
Vikki Brooks
Heather Mitchell
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Treasurer
Secretary
General
General
General
General
Resignation
Angela Burrows
Chris Lawerence
8.
Date and time of next meeting
Next AGM
Wednesday 12th November 2014 19.30 Playgroup Rooms
Committee Meeting Wednesday 15th January 2014 19.30 Playgroup Rooms
9.
AOB
In the light of the financial situation of the Playgroup the services of a Sustainability
Officer has been employed. Rachel Shotter will be meeting Sarah and Corrine on 19th
November to discuss in detail an action plan that will ensure the Playgroup is running in
the most effective manner.
New Terms and Conditions to be introduced 1st January 2014, these will state that any
changes to a child’s hours at the Playgroup will require a 30 days notice period. Also
funding arrangements will be set for a term, these will not be transferrable to another
setting during this period.