Friends At Balfour

We held our final Trustee meeting last night to discuss moving forward in September. It’s been a strange year for everyone and we have cancelled half of our planned events and as a result, our net income dropped by half… however, we still managed to raise £12k! We would like to thank everybody who helped organise, set up, run, tidy away, came to these events or donated money to us this year – because without your input we would be able to raise these funds.

We have our ‘usual commitments’ to the school of things we pay for, such as: £1k for each Year group for trips or workshops; moving on treats/celebrations for Years 2 & 6; Christmas hats at Christmas dinner; ice lollies for sports day; Let’s Dance entry; small playground equipment and various academic enhancements or workshops. Typically, we end each academic year with £10k in the kitty that we allocate towards these commitments, however, this year we find ourselves £4k short of covering these commitments for the 2020/21 academic year – we would have made this amount (and more) if it had been ‘alright’ to hold the Summer Fair.

We are planning the usual set of events and fundraisers for September (and beyond) and have socially distanced options and alternatives in place – however the future of our fundraising is uncertain.

If you would like to donate any amount of money to help us enhance the educational experience of every child within the school then please do so via this link https://chuffed.org/project/fab-fundraiser

If you would like to donate towards Black Lives Matter resources for the school then please do via this link https://chuffed.org/project/black-lives-matter-resources (we’ve hit our target – but you can never have too many resources within such a big school!)

… and lastly if you would like to donate towards the massive play structure that we were hoping to buy this summer then please do via this link https://chuffed.org/project/outdoor-playgroup-equipment-for-balfour-primary-school

Have a great Summer and thank you once again for supporting us this year
FAB

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