PA AGM Update

Many thanks to all the parents who attended the Annual General Meeting of our Parents Association on Wednesday the 26th of September 2018.  For those of you who were not able to attend this is a short note of what was discussed. 

• Welcome – The Chairperson welcomed all the parents, teachers and principal to the AGM and expressed her thanks as it was the greatest turnout to date. 
• Chairperson’s Report – The Chairperson spoke briefly as to why the PA must hold an AGM, what the PA did last year and what they hoped to do this coming year.
• Financial Report – The Chairperson gave all attendees a financial statement of the PA and briefly spoke about it.  The Chairperson also gave Ms Burke, Principal a cheque for €2,000 which was the remaining money raised from last year’s Easter Fair.
• Principal/Board of Management Address – Ms Burke very kindly spoke on behalf of the BOM and thanked the PA for all their help last year. 
• Election of new Parents Association Committee – Last year’s Committee stepped down and a new Committee were elected.  Please see below for new Committee Members and a special welcome and thank you to our 4 new Committee Members this year.
  

 

 

• Planned Events for Coming Year including Easter Fair – The Chairperson went through all the events which they would be organising this year including, 3 new dates for clothes collections (19th Oct 2018, 25th Jan 2019 and 7th June 2019), a very special visitor on 19thDecember, Easter Fair 14th April 2019, Communion Reception (tbc), Graduation Reception 20th June 2019, 2nd Hand Uniform Sale (tbc).  The Chairperson also asked if there was anything else that parents would like to see in the school.  One parent mentioned a Book Fair.  The Committee agreed to look into it with the hope of trying to arrange for end of Nov/early Dec.
• Prefabs–The Chairperson explained about the prefabs and that one when ready can be used by parents to hold coffee mornings, classes etc.  These will be organised by the parents of the school for the parents of the school.  It was mentioned that if possible the booking system should be something easy to use, with a visible timetable so parents can see when it’s free and a simple click system to book.  The PA agreed to look into this but stressed that it is a great facility to have and encouraged parents to make use of it or the school may find another use for it themselves. 
• AOB – A number of its came up for discussion under AOB including:
  * Uniforms – Parents expressed a concern about the quality of the uniforms being supplied by Lynches at present and asked if the PA could look into this again and possibly look at doing another survey of parents to see if there is a bigger interest in changing suppliers this year.  The PA agreed to do this. 
  * New Payments System – A parent asked for it to be noted that she thought the new online payment system that school introduced was a great addition and help.  The PA would like to encourage all parents to use this new system. 
  *Mental Health – A parent asked if there was any support for children going through a bereavement (eg Rainbow).  Ms Burke said the school were looking into getting teachers trained in this.  The PA said they would look into seeing if there are any talks that could be arranged. 
  *PE in the school – A parent expressed concern about the amount of PE that the children in the school took part in and asked if this could be increased.  Ms Burke took note of the request. 
  *PA Lines of Communication – The Chairperson addressed the issue of contacting the PA with issues and/or concerns and the use of their Facebook page, email and phone.  The Chairperson said that the Facebook page was not a forum for dealing with grievances etc and all these matters should be either emailed or phoned/texted to the PA using the following:
  
  email – [email protected]                                  mobile – 086 1967194
  
  The PA’s Facebook page is there only as a way for the PA to reach/remind parents of things that are coming up in the school and/or of things that might be of interest to parents. 

 
The Chairperson ended the evening by thanking everyone for attending and asking that the next time they attend if they could please try and bring at least one more parent with them and to spread the word that the AGM is worth attending so parents can have their say.  ​