Hello,
In this newsletter you will find information about:
– our next events, including the Summer Fair
– our current fundraising campaigns, including the Hardship fund
– how we have raised money recently
– how we have spent money recently
NEXT EVENT: THE SUMMER FAIR
We’re busy planning the final big event of the year, the Summer Fair. Thank you to all who have volunteered already to organise each year’s stalls, there’s lots of exciting activities in the works! The fair will be held from 12-3pm, with delicious veggie food and BBQ on the menu.
It’s a great community event that all children absolutely love – and they’ve missed so many of these due to the pandemic – but it cannot happen without parents and carers’ help, so if you can spare an hour or two, please let your Class Reps, or Gill (Year 2) or Nicky (Y1 and Y3) know. You can help with your kids in tow, and older children can help supervise too.
Everyone is welcome at the fair, so please let your neighbours, friends and family know they can join us on the 16th. We’re also hoping to inaugurate our new Garden classroom, due to be installed soon in the garden above the firepit area.
We’re still looking for more volunteers for the following:
– any musicians or artists (perhaps former Grasmere pupils?) interested in doing a little show for us at 12h?
– anyone free to sort out music/speakers?
– anyone free to help set up the fair in the morning (free access to the bouncy castle for all children of volunteers before the fair starts)?
– anyone free to help on the stalls, in particular the kitchen stall serving tea, coffee and cakes? (free cakes and hot drinks for those who help on this stall)
If you can do any of these then please let us know as soon as possible.
Please look out for next week’s newsletter for more info on the Summer Fair.
We’ll be having our last FROGS meeting of the year on Friday 8 July, 9am, at the school. Everyone welcome – please join us if you can!
On the same day Year 6 is organising an ice lolly sale at 3.30.
CURRENT CAMPAIGNS
• We’re helping the school set up a hardship fund to support Grasmere families experiencing financial difficulties. Please see more information here, and donate if you can – thank you. And a big thank you to those who have already donated so generously!
• Last call for donations to buy gifts for our lovely dinner ladies, Margaret and Breda who are retiring at the end of the school year, after close to 50 years working at Grasmere between them!
HOW FROGS HAS RAISED MONEY RECENTLY:
• Jumble sale: We raised £868.38 – many thanks to all our volunteers who helped sort, set up, man the stalls, and clear up. It’s a disappointing result (the last one raised nearly double this sum and the sale is usually one of our biggest earners) as it requires a lot of effort and volunteers, so let's hope the next one this autumn fares better. If you have any ideas on how to improve it or would like to help organise the sale on 8th October 2022, please get in touch.
Still it was a lovely event with some great bargains:
We’re also looking for a better system to make sure the leftover jumble goes to a good cause or makes more money for our charity. If you know any charities who would be interested in picking up children clothes and toys on the 8th in the afternoon, please let us know.
• Reception & Nursery Cake sale: £140. Well done to Reception and nursery for their first cake sale – only six more years of this!
Actually we’re changing the format slightly next year, as we think the children would love to do some of the baking themselves, at school, with parents donating ingredients or time to help them. The older years will be also doing some of the selling themselves. And of course we’re hoping our keen parent bakers will continue bring in some of their amazing cakes to supplement the kids’ bakes.
HOW FROGS HAS SPENT MONEY RECENTLY:
• New hoses and sprinklers to be used by the whole school
FROGS has spent around £200 some sprinklers for each of the school’s playgrounds, as well as some new hoses. These are to be used by the school during heatwaves, and to help the children water the plants in their playgrounds. They were set up on the hottest day of the year and the kids really enjoyed them. Here are some images of the yellow flower sprinkler now in the nursery playground:
• New outdoor play equipment
We’ve spent over £1,500 on play equipment for both KS1 and KS2 playgrounds. These include foam blocks, clipboards, skipping ropes, hula hoops and big red spinning tops. The children are using them at playtime everyday – ask them which is their favourite :
• A subscription to unlimited recycled art resources for the whole school
FROGS has spent some of the money raised by the Art club on a subscription to the Children Scrap art project which is used by the entire school. Here are some of the children’s creations using textile and wings sourced from the Scrap art warehouse:
And of course our next big spend is the new Garden classroom, coming soon!
Last but not least, a big thank you to Rob and Billy who have dismantled the cricket nets, leaving space for a new and improved climbing wall, and a painted football goal. We’ll also paint the remaining walls in KS2 playground, and the toilet doors. Watch this space:
Thank you and take care,
FROGS