Parents Association Meeting 21st November 2024

Date: Thursday, 21st of November, 2024

Time: 7:30pm

Venue: ENS Staff Room

Minutes Taken By: Lorna Ganda

 

Meeting Attended By:                                           Apologies:

Shayla Hilpert                                                           Eileen Tobin

Lorna Ganda                                                            Michael O’Brien

Claire McCarthy                                                       Noelle Carew

Nileptha Magallage Sergeant                                Saphina Nandawula

Mariusz Cwiryo                                                        Eileen McNamara

Marcin Grochowski

Kat O’Shea

Fiona Eason

Ifeoma Ugwueru

Michelle Summerly

 

Agenda:

• Welcome & Apologies
• Open Comments
• Club Donations (Costume Sale Money)
• Teachers Requests
• Flag Day
• Christmas Disco, Concerts & Tuck Shop

 

Welcome & Apologies:

Meeting attendees were welcomed & apologies were read aloud.

 

Open Comments:

Some topics were brought up during Open Comments that parents/guardians would like clarification on. The Parents Association Committee will communicate these topics to the school from the parent body. Among the topics were homework, eating/break time, mixing 6th class pupils, school morning activities and/or minding, homework club and Garda Vetting requirement for PA members.

Photo Day – Photo Day was postponed by the school as this is a busy time of year. Photo Day will be rescheduled for a date in Spring, the date will be confirmed via social media once we have a confirmed date.

It was suggested that in future, the school would book photo day and PA would organise volunteers to help on the day, instead of PA booking the company. This will be discussed with the school.

 

Club Donations (Halloween Costume Sale)

A total of €103.00 was made from selling pre-owned costumes within our school community. Remaining costumes that were not sold were donated to Ennis Tidy Towns costume swap which was held before Halloween.

This money will be donated to the 5 clubs in our school (choir, chess, knitting, quiz and band).

It was agreed that PA will donate €147.00 on top of the €103.00 so that each club gets a €50.00 donation each to show appreciation from the parent body to the clubs.

 

Teacher Requests:

Inclusive Playground Equipment – After a lot of deliberating and a vote,  it was decided that a mud kitchen, accessible picnic bench and a low, free standing basketball hoop would be put forward to the school staff and management & BOM for consideration to be purchased and installed on the infant yard as PA would like to have equipment up and ready for use during this school year.

Images and plans for bigger projects were introduced and considered also. This is something we would be interested in participating in / contributing to in the future.

Bulletin Boards – Infant teachers mentioned the need for bulletin boards to display children’s work (as blue tack doesn’t hold). This was discussed and the school will provide the boards and therefore we do not need to fundraise for them.

 

Flag Day:

The date confirmed for Flag Day is Saturday, 8th of February, 2025.

We will fundraise for accessible/inclusive playground equipment.

Fiona will do the rota again this year.

There was discussion around using an online sign up forum (like ’Sign Up Genius’) rather than manually arranging it – this is yet to be decided.

We will do 1 hour slots again this year.

The Garda Permit Policy was discussed.

 

Christmas Concerts

Christmas concerts will be held on December 17th and 18th. There will be 3 concerts on each day at 9:30, 11:30 and 1:30.

We will sell our Split The Pot raffle tickets at the concerts.

A sign up sheet was passed around for attendees to sign up to help serve tea/coffee or sell raffle tickets.

We will look for more helpers via social media if needed.

 

Christmas Disco

The Christmas disco will take place on Friday 6th of December at 6:30pm until 8pm in the school hall.

A sign up sheet was sent around for attendees to sign up to help set up, sell in the tuck shop, sell LED lights, sell raffle tickets and/or clean up.

We discussed adding the option of a popcorn machine, candy floss machine and/or slush puppy machine. It was decided against fresh popcorn due to safety risks. Nileptha will look into the other two options.

We discussed the possibility of having an outdoor area available to students during the concert. We will communicate this with the school.

We will use the snow machines this year – either at the entrance or the outdoor area (if that goes ahead). Marcin and Mariusz will operate those.

A social media post will be made requesting more helpers for the disco.

The tuck shop supplies run will be done at the Value Centre on Thursday 5th of December. They deliver the supplies to the school.

 

Next Meeting:

The next Parents Association is proposed for Thursday, 9th of January, 2025 at 7:30pm in the school staff room. Once confirmed, we will post on socials and in the Committee WhatsApp group.

Back to Results