Hey everybody,
If you had kids in school today(20/3/2020) you may have sussed out that rather than postpone the Easter Egg Hunt we decided instead to give away the eggs to all the pupils and staff in school today!!
Our remit as a charity is to enhance the educational experience of the kids at Balfour – and how better a way than to give away free chocolate eggs in these crazy and uncertain times!
Be safe, be kind and lets get through this craziness together!!
After much consideration, in light of the developing situation and current uncertainty concerning COVID-19, we have decided to postpone this year’s FAB Easter Egg Hunt.
As an independent charity, this is a decision that the FAB Trustees have taken based on the government recommendation to halt non-essential gatherings, events and socialising in public places – social distancing.
The Easter Egg Hunt is not an essential event that ‘has to occur’, but it is fun and involves chocolate – so the kids love it! Having said that it typically involves 600 children and so it is a gathering of potentially over 1000 individuals on the school premises for a prolonged period of time. Consequently, it seems sensible to postpone the event to a time when this global pandemic is less of a threat to our community.
We are sorry to disappoint anyone, but it is important for everyone to do what they can to keep everyone healthy.
As we have already bought and stored the Cadbury’s Mini eggs in the school, we will look to finalise a date before the end of the academic year to hold a Late, Late Easter Egg Hunt – probably just as kids run out of chocolate!! Tickets will still be available to buy online via www.ticketor.com/friendsatbalfour but just without a date set… but it will be a Friday straight after school!
If you have already bought tickets and would like a refund then please email info@friendsatbalfour.com and a full refund will be issued within 7 working days.
We’d like to take the opportunity to thank those of you who have bought tickets and volunteered to give your time and effort help out. Let’s keep calm, help others, and repeat this event when we are able!
So we are kicking off our fundraising for mega awesome playground structure with £8k that we’ve raised so far this academic year from our events!!!
If you have any ideas on how to help us raise the £30k for the play structure then please email info@friendsatbalfour.org or come along to one of our FAB Committee Meetings (the next one is on Tuesday 11th February)… we are confident that we can raise £20k of the total needed by the summer – but we need some ideas/ help to raise the extra £10k!
If you want to help us then you can donate money via https://chuffed.org/…/outdoor-playgroup-equipment-for-balfo… or drop a cheque/cash into a FAB box!
Our Christmas Fair is on Saturday 14th December (2-5pm) and is our biggest fundraiser… but it is only possible if we have help. There are many flexible slots to suit any type of weekend or evening commitments – from setting up on the Friday evening, or Saturday morning, to helping on a stall and helping us clear up on the Sunday morning…. It honestly takes a small army of volunteers!
As per usual tradition, we have allocated stalls to KS1 classes and need the rest of the school community to pull together to fill the other volunteer activities.
Please use the links below to sign up easily online.
Before the event
Christmas Tombola Donation Collection (Friday 29th November)
https://volunteersignup.org/EKBY7
Cake Donations and Forgotten Tombola (Friday 13th December)
https://volunteersignup.org/RDEQA
Mulled Wine Preparation (Friday 13th December)
https://volunteersignup.org/9DDK4
Roll Cutting (Friday 13th December)
https://volunteersignup.org/PJWAA
Evening Set up Friday (13th December from 5pm)
https://volunteersignup.org/YC9H9
Saturday morning Set Up (14th December from 9am)
https://volunteersignup.org/ELKQ7
After the event
Saturday Evening Clear up (14th December 5pm to 7pm)
https://volunteersignup.org/KEEED
Sunday morning Clear Up (15th December from 10am)
https://volunteersignup.org/H7WYJ
During the event
Christmas Marshals https://volunteersignup.org/JQHA7
Christmas FAB Desk https://volunteersignup.org/XMKC4
Christmas Bar https://volunteersignup.org/JYXA9
Christmas Face Painting https://volunteersignup.org/PATLH
Festive Glitter https://volunteersignup.org/4FQBK
Christmas Food Serving https://volunteersignup.org/DCH39
Candyfloss https://volunteersignup.org/99J74
Christmas Kids Tombola https://volunteersignup.org/QFFJF
Crafts – Badge Making https://volunteersignup.org/48LTY
Crafts – Christmas Eve Plates https://volunteersignup.org/HPD3F
Crafts – Christmas Tree decorations https://volunteersignup.org/93EMR
Crafts – Christmas Tree decorations https://volunteersignup.org/93EMR
Christmas Games Stall 1 https://volunteersignup.org/KWMWR
Christmas Games Stall 2 https://volunteersignup.org/PJELK
Cakes and Mince Pies https://volunteersignup.org/BPJ3P
The Grinch’s Cave https://volunteersignup.org/AQ73H
Santa’s Grotto https://volunteersignup.org/KAWCP
Get into the Christmas Spirit with our FAB Cinema event on Saturday 7th December…
We will be showing two films…
Elf at 2pm and
Jingle All the Way at 4.30pm.
Tickets cost £5.50 per person (per film).
Available from www.ticketor.com/friendsatbalfour
Refreshments will be available to purchase on the day.
All children must be accompanied by a paying adult – up to 3 kids per adult.
If you can help out on the day please sign up via https://volunteersignup.org/FKWPQ
It is with great sadness that we have taken the difficult decision to cancel the Fireworks event this Friday 15th November 2019.
A number of factors has led to this decision. Ticket sales have continued to drop over the last 3 years. We believe a major contributing factor is the free fireworks event held annually at Preston Park. The amount of tickets currently sold indicates that the event will not be financially viable to run. The worsening weather forecast for Friday does not lead us to believe that on the day ticket sales will improve this situation.
In addition, at the time that we’ve made this decision, the level of volunteers to be able to support the set up, safe running and clearing away of the event is still insufficient. Lastly, the pyrotechnic team have concerns regarding the weather forecast and wind direction on Friday.
We’d like to take the opportunity to thank those of you who have bought tickets and volunteered to give your time and effort to help out.
All online ticket sales will be refunded in due course.
Our first Quiz Night of the year…
Doors open at 7.30pm for an 8pm start in the KS1 hall.
Cash bar with wine, fizz, lager, ale, soft drinks and snacks.
Fish & Chip supper & Vegetarian option = £11.00 per ticket
Tickets without food = £4.00
Olly’s Fish Shack will be providing the food, which will be cooked onsite and you can choose either a
Fish & chips supper with homemade mushy peas
Or a vegan option of tempura haas avocado.
We would be grateful if tickets could be bought online to save our volunteers any admin and hassle!
Please go to https://www.ticketor.com/friendsatbalfour to buy tickets… You can also buy tickets clicking the link to the right of this page. There is no booking fee for online payments.
Alternatively, please put a cheque (made payable to ‘Friends at Balfour’) with a note stating numbers and types of tickets required, into a FAB box before Wednesday 9th October.
Teams of six can be made up on the night or in advance.
Food must be pre-ordered.
more information to follow…
We will be showing The Nightmare Before Christmas (PG)
Just in time to celebrate Halloween… er, and Christmas!
Dress up and have some spooky fun!
The film will be shown in the KS2 Sports Hall.
Tickets – £5.50 per person… All children must be accompanied by a paying adult – up to 3 kids per adult.
Refreshments will be available to purchase on the day.
Please go to https://www.ticketor.com/friendsatbalfour to buy tickets… You can also buy tickets by clicking the link to the right of this page. There is no booking fee for online payments.
more information to follow…
The sun shone for us at the Summer Fair on 6th July which certainly helped us all enjoy the afternoon’s activities to the max!
We want to say a massive thank you again to all the volunteers – over 150 of you – and to all our guests and anyone else who helped raise money towards the FAB fundraising.
Special thanks to Higgidy who provided products to sell on the Food stall. Also to all our Raffle and Silent Auction donators. If you own or work for a company who can donate a prize for future fairs, please let us know.
“No one can do everything, but everyone can do something”
