Minutes, BHSA Zoom Meeting – Summer Term 2024 May 1st, 8pm.
Agenda
Welcome
Last term’s events & activities
Last term’s financial report
Upcoming Events
Volunteers for events
Next year’s BHSA officers and other volunteers
AOB
Close
1. The Chair, NatalieSensierRenaud, (NSR) welcomed all the meeting.
2. Junior School Events Coordinator, KateChandler (KC) reported on last term’s events.
It was a quiet term for events but the BHSA still raised some funds and helped build the
community – people loved the events.o The BHSA welcomed a lot of new families to the school family community, working with the junior admissions officer, Emily Browne.
Quiz Night – it was a full house and the bar was busy! Everyone had a brilliant time, it’s a
popular event.
Feedback received: this year’s was too reliant on technology and had less of the most popular ‘silly rounds;’ making things, singing lyrics etc. Perhaps the previous Quiz Master could be asked again as last year’s was loved by parents? (The school has traditionally chosen the Quizmasters.) This info should be built into the event for next year.
Mothering Sunday – really nice gifting activity, this year it was lovely bracelets. Dads
helped with the stall. The students loved it! It’s an easy event that gives a lot of joy.
Coffee Shop – every Friday, it has a really nice community feel that lots of parents enjoy.
Coffee Shop Co-Lead, Karen Hristov (KH): we have so many year groups mixing! The volunteer team is really committed to this and it works so well so please keep coing along.
NSR: please note we title 2 of our gifting events as Mothering Sunday and Fathers Day as that’s how they’re nationally known but the gifts are pan-gender and we make it clear in our promotions that we support and encourage any student to confidently give their gift to any loved one. We strive to make all our events as inclusive as possible. This year’s bracelets, which could have been seen as more female were made in a style and in colours that could be worn by all genders. This is the same for the upcoming Father's Day, all gifts are for all families and chosen ‘family.’
3. Honorary Treasurer, LouiseRobinson (LR) reported on profits for the aboveevents.
Quiz Night made £1000.00, the clean cut figure is due to the simplicity of costs for this event, the only overheads are the cost of the quiz master and the prizes.
Mothering Sunday made £246.06 net.
Coffee Shop brought in £788.78 which will continue to pay off the investment in new Nespresso machinery.
The BHSA Bar made £1465.30, unsurprisingly a good profit!
Uniform sales continue to outstrip all events in terms of revenue with £3922.50 profit this term alone.
4.Communications Coordinator, Lauren Myers (LM) presented what events are planned and how the BHSA communications are delivered
Over the past year we have been improving and developing the BHSA comms across all year groups.
The Reps’ Whatsapp group consistently and in a not too heavy way shares the comms from the BHSA to all years’ Reps at the same time
New format to the BHSA newsletter which focuses on upcoming events and promotes the online shop.o Introduced more efficient ways to manage the other Rep duties eg. Collection of staff gifting money from participating parents is now digitised.
We encourage reps to welcome new parents more, and encourage the Reps to run once
termly social events for all parents to attend. This is v important for earlier years. We have been supporting the Reps in managing this with a ‘by month,’ checklist so it’s really
easy for them to build the community in their year.
Rep role is still voluntary and so the BHSA does not force Reps to follow this.
5. Up coming events are the BHSA fete, Fathers’ Day gift, the Mini Festival & Camp Night, and the Summer Party, and we’d love some volunteers.
NSR: reiterated the request for volunteers, all are welcome! Camp Night especially needs a lot of community support.
The BHSA Bar is run separately from individual events, the finances are kept separate and the team who run the bar are like the coffee shop team, they aren’t part of the general request for ad hoc volunteers for individual events. Linda Hardwick and I would love more people to join us please! It’s a fun job, you meet lots of people and you don’t have to be behind the bar for the whole event
KH & NSR: we need more volunteers for coffee shop too please! Please let NSR or KH know if you’d like you join our team.
6. Next year’s BHSA officers, honorary roles and other positions available. NSR: our aim this evening is to at least have officers’ roles filled, but if anyone here wishes to do step up for other roles please come forward. NSR invited attendees to ‘second,’ [support the offer from] the two people who have stepped forward.
Richard Myers (RM) was seconded by Asha Ngai, Natalie Sensier Renaud & Jarlath Pratt as Co Chair.
Jarlath Pratt (JP) was seconded by Richard Myers as Co Chair.
Asha Ngai expressed strong interest in becoming vice chair, and agreed to do the role,
dependant on further discussion.
Arpita Rodrigues was unsure if she wanted to be publicly named as a possible vice chair,
she agreed to discuss the role further with NSR. NSR said any discussion would include RM & JP as it’s their team we are now building and they must make the decision about who joins, but NSR is happy to share all info about what the role could be Julia Tolkovia said she might be able to help, but wasn’t sure as she knows there’s a lot to do, and would only want to work on exclusively senior events
KC: it’s worth noting that all events are open to both junior and senior school families to
attend, especially the evening ‘parent,’ events, though some daytime events are more suitable to different age groups so there are already a lot of things in the schedule and the senior school has stopped the BHSA from adding more as there’s no space in the senior school timetable for time-consuming events that require huge parental input to run. Senior school parents don’t wish to take half a day from work to set up a camp site or silent disco, for example.
The school could support the current BHSA events much more by promoting them for the BHSA alongside the BHSA’s own promotional efforts
NSR: there has been very little interest from senior school parents in the additional events we have put on in the past three years – they all have had to be cancelled due to lack of
7. AOB Junior interest, experience now teaches us that the existing BHSA events diary satisfies the senior families.
JP: Is there anyone offering to be the new Treasurer
NSR: no offers yet but the past 2 Treasurers have been found after we have publicly
announced the vacancies here in these meetings, and no one ever came forward
immediately, so experience indicates this will be the case this time around too.
Simon Chambers (SC,) the previous Honorary Treasurer agreed, and added that being
“an Accountant,” isn’t necessary.
SC & LR agreed it’s a very light role
SC: the growth of the charity in the past three years means independent accountants
audit our process and they have confirmed they are very happy with the way it has been
run.
School Head, Natalie Argile (NA:) Due to the way NSR and the team have built up the charity over the past 3 years the current team have rewritten the roles for the new team and created additional roles to help spread the workload that NSR has had.
School Head, Sarah Skevington: we want to say a huge thank you to NSR as BHSA Chair these past three years, but looking at the figures in the financial report and how successful the second hand uniform online shop is; that is all down to her and the meticulous way she runs it. It’s been an outrageous success, so NSR, we really hope you can find the time to continue to do this – it’s just so valuable to the school on every level; the money, the sustainability and the valued savings our families find in it is immense. Thank you for everything you’ve done because we came out of Covid with nothing and you build everything back up and now the school has a really thriving charity and the way you’ve set everything up is really exciting. We’re thrilled to welcome our new co-chairs, but NSR has left us in such good shape, and myself and Natalie Argile are hugely grateful for all you’ve done.
NSR: it’s worth reiterating how many people have helped over the three years. Previous officers Simon & Michelle Chambers and Jo Rosset, their kindness was amazing post Covid in helping when I was not only a new parent at the school but also the new Chair of the BHSA. Also, all the Reps – who are the backbone of the BHSA, who send the comms, keep their year on track with all sorts of things, and this year to have a Comms Coordinator in Lauren Myers has been amazing. Kate Chandler has been my Right Hand Woman & brilliant team player in all the events she and I have pulled together for the BHSA, we were both just helping out where we saw we could be of use and from that we also now have a great friendship. Also, my husband Neil Renaud, who wrote the code for the uniform website that we all love so much, and the setup of the BHSA main website, if he hadn’t been there to act as the best IT support when I didn’t do things in the normal IT way; it’s things like this & the whole team of people that make the BHSA work. I also want to thank Danielle Eaves [school secretary,] and Sasha McCully in the office who have been so, so helpful, just amazing. They are so resourceful, knowledgable and kind – also the senior school office staff have been fantastic as the BHSA’s reach has grown into the senior school with second hand uniform sales. It’s the balance of parents and staff working together that make the magic. The school made my role so much easier as I have a full time career and have fitted this Chair role in around that. Furthermore, if no one turned up to events the BHSA wouldn’t survive, it’s everyone who makes it all work.Genevieve
D: I want to second the thanks to Natalie before we transition to a new team. Fantastic work Natalie and her team! The schedule of events is wonderful and the parent community has been strengthened by these. She’s helped build that culture and not everyone tells the school this but there’s a lot of people who didn’t want her to leave.
So, to the new Co Chairs, no pressure but please continue that trajectory and as a community we’ll support you. We know it’s a huge job, as much as Natalie plays it down, but you’ve got our support if you continue what she’s done.
RM: thanks – I’ve a gained a small insight into what NSR does recently and so far, I’ve not been scared off! But I look forward to working with everyone and continuing the great spirit and community we now have at BHS.
JP: I’ve been a parent at BHS for 8 years and Natalie, you’ve been amazing. You’ve revolutionized and professionalised things, and clearly spent an incredible amount of time doing it – thank you very much.
8. Close.