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- Lisa Gammon
- Nov 11
- 8 min read
If you'd like any further information or have any questions on any of this please don't hesitate to get in touch.
CLAREMONT PRIMARY SCHOOL PTA
13th October 2025 – Claremont School Hall 7-9pm
Members Present:
Axelle Joos de ter Beerst (Chair) Natalie Jolliffe (Vice Chair) Lisa Gammon (Secretary)
Committee Members: Claire Summers, Zoe Phillimore, Julia Beath, Candie Roberts, Marta Zielinska, Gemma Ferguson, Ami Parker, Becky O’Brien,
Apologies:
Lucy Prior, Anna Pearson, Jenny Brown, Nikki Webb, Shagun Bansal (Treasurer)
Agenda:
1. Chair’s Welcome
2. Chair’s Annual Report
3. PTA Committee: resignations and appointments
4. AGM Treasurer’s Report
5. Looking Ahead to this Year - Events, Why We Need You and Vacancies
6. AOB/ Q&A
1. Chair’s Welcome:
Axelle Joos de ter Beerst (Chair) welcomed everyone to the 2025 AGM, thanking all the committee members, friends of the PTA, Mrs Roberts and the school staff for their time and dedication supporting the PTA. The support contributed towards raising a remarkable £72k during the 24/25 school year and donating a total of £50k to the school.
A reminder for new attendees, why we exist…
• To continue developing more extended relationships between the staff, parents and others associated with the school
• Engage in activities which support and advance the education of the pupils attending it,
• Provide and assist in the provisions of facilities for education at the school.
2. Chair’s Annual Report:
Highlights:
Chip-In was launched two years go now raising £9,800 annually as of 31st August 2025. Axelle thanked Ben, Jon, and Lucy for their contributions to the success of this initiative.
Flagship Events: Clarefest and the Summer Fete continued to be highly successful, with increased profits this year. Axelle thanked the teams who coordinated these events.
Playground Sales Has become a regular income stream (3rd highest earner for the PTA). Jennie was thanked for her superb efforts in managing them.
New Parent Lead Becky O’Brien ran a successful New Parents Drinks event on Friday 11th October. Throughout the night we received lots of interest in parents wanting to help the PTA.
Reflections:
School Funding: Axelle highlighted the regular communications between herself and Mrs Roberts discussing the positive work undertaken by the PTA, as well as the increasing challenges of school funding. Axelle is very mindful that there’s been a shift in families available time to help at PTA events and that we need to consider adapting events to suit this change.
Volunteers: With key individuals leaving, there is a pressing need for new volunteers to run events. Currently, there is no team in place to run the Summer Fete 2026 and Playground Sales.
Community: The sense of community spirit among Claremont families is precious and has a positive impact on the children. Protecting this spirit is fundamental to the PTA’s mission.
3. PTA Committee: resignations and appointments
Resignations:
• The following committee members or friends of the PTA resigned: Ben Dryland (ChipIn), Emma Doward (Xmas Cards), Emma Butterworth (Clarefest), Sam Walker (Cinema Club) and Jennie Maslin Fong (Playground Sales). On behalf of the PTA committee and friends, Axelle thanked them for their time and dedication to supporting the PTA over the years, their contributions to the success of the PTA have been invaluable.
• Natalie Jolliffe – Vice Chair- has resigned as a trustee and become a committee member, to continue to support and guide the PTA as and when it’s required. Natalie has served as a trustee for seven fabulous years and contributed hugely to the PTA’s core as it stands today. Her unwavering commitment to the PTA’s success over the years has been outstanding. On behalf of the PTA committee and friends, Axelle thanked Natalie.
• On behalf of the school, Mrs Roberts also thanked those members stepping down for all their hard work and time given to supporting the children and the school. Natalie has been a super trustee and a truly valuable person to have on the team. The collaboration between the PTA and the school is very much cherished.
Appointments:
Reappointments- The following trustees and committee members were all unanimously reelected.
Trustees: Axelle Joos de ter Beerst (Chair) Lisa Gammon (Secretary) Shagun Bansal (Treasurer). Committee Members: Claire Summers, Zoe Phillimore, Julia Beath, Candie Roberts, Marta Zielinska, Gemma Ferguson, Ami Parker, Becky O’Brien, Lucy Prior, Anna Pearson, Jenny Brown, Nikki Webb. Appointments- Natalie Jolliffe was nominated to stay on the committee and was unanimously re-elected.
Axelle displayed a chart outlining the new committee structure and thanked the many volunteers who support the PTA in various roles, beyond the formal Committee roles. It was highlighted that if the current vacancies are not filled, we are at risk of losing £27k profit this school year.
4. AGM Treasurer’s Report:
Income for the year: £72,000, a £10,000 increase compared to the previous year. This is a huge sum of income, the largest income since Natalie’s 7 years on the PTA. The extra profit came from the Summer Fete £2k, Clarefest £1k, Playground Sales and increase in donations from Gift Aid.
Event Performance: Hugely successful events all year round. Clarefest and Summer Fete accounting for 65% of the profit.
Direct donations/Chip-In accounted for £14k + Gift Aid claimed we reached our £15k target.
Expenditure and Donations:
◦ Total Expenditure: £23,987
◦ £50k donated to the school
◦ £15k allocated for IT support
◦ £23,042 allocated to Maslow’s Corner Wet Weather Outdoor Canopy
◦ £3,603 allocated to trim trail playground equipment
◦ £2,601 allocated to library refurbishment
◦ Annual contributions for classroom expenses, pantomime, and Year 6 activities.
Balance Sheet (as of 31 August 2025): Total cash in bank and hand was £34,024
5. Looking Ahead to this Year – Events, Why We Need You, and Vacancies:
Axelle highlighted several key events for the 2025-2026 academic year and stressed the importance of volunteers for their success. Overall, the PTA plans to continue with the same events subject to volunteers.
Events and Vacancies:
• Vice-Chair: new person needed to ideally follow into chairs role in future years although this is not expected nor required to take on the role
• Clarefest: Carmen will lead for another year but needs to recruit a team of at least ten people to sub lead specific areas
• Summer Fete: Needs a team to lead the event
• Playground Sales: Needs a lead
• Other Open Volunteer Roles:
◦ Become a ‘Friend of the PTA’
◦ Christmas tree coordinator. Lisa Gammon has agreement from Mr Hume to have help from four year 6 pupils to help decorate the trees alongside the lead.
◦Volunteers’ Open Morning: Help serving tea and coffee
• New events:
◦ Quiz night will be lead by Ami Parker and Natalie Jolliffe. Mrs Roberts has signed off for it to take place in the school hall. This is due to happen springtime when PTA events are typically quieter.
◦ Silent Auction is going to occur as a solo event and not during the Summer Fete. Mainly due to Anna Pearson (who leads this) stepping away from the Fete but happy to lead this separately.
◦ We are open to new ideas for events if parents would like to put their thoughts forward to us.
Why We Need You
Axelle emphasised that the PTA’s ability to run successful events depends on the active participation of parents. Axelle outlined potential future initiatives for the PTA to fund, including curtains for the school hall, outdoor storage huts in the woods field, redevelop the early years outdoor play equipment.
We received a marvellous £5k from the Tesco grant initiative lead by Emma Doward which will go towards the outdoor play equipment initiative- a huge thank you to Emma for leading this!
Mrs Roberts explained the reasons behind the need for new curtains. The school hall has recently been refurbished and when the curtains were taken down in preparation for decorating, they fell apart. Due to the size of them and the mechanical fixtures and fittings, the school can only fund the replacement for two windows. The school would be grateful for contributions to finish the room, they are key to blocking out the sun, as well as keeping it warm during the winter. The school hall is the hub of the school with multiply uses, including a place where the school regularly comes together, as well as the school and the community to share precious memories. The hall is also used for PTA events including cinema club which requires curtain closure to operate successfully.
AOB:
• Claire Summers asked Mrs Roberts; What’s the latest with funding?
Grants from Government are static – no increase in funding. The school doesn’t receive grants from the Government because there are limited numbers of disadvantaged pupils on roll.
o Pay rises are not fully funded, it must come from the school’s main budget.
o The local funding has reduced significantly compared to 15/20years ago, there’s just not enough money to rejuvenate the school or replenishment. This comes from the school’s limited capital budget
o The reality is we need funding in areas that make the school visually fun.
o School does try to match fund the PTA’s donations, for example the library refurbishment and school path.
Summer Fete: The core purpose of this event is the community spirit that it brings rather than it being a money-making event. Feedback received from this year’s summertime events, was that families are exhausted, then there’s with the added help required for the Fete off the back of Clarefest. For the PTA, it’s hard to juggle the timings of these successful events because both require to be outside, so we need the summertime weather. To reduce the pressure on parent volunteers, we are considering getting all children more involved to help at stalls, come up with new ideas, pricing and marketing- treat it like a business project!
New Parents: Ask parents for their event ideas, we might receive more engagement this way. Set up a virtual brainstorming Q&A to make it easy and convenient for as many parents to join the discussion.
Parent Survey: Revisit sending out a new parent survey, which is also an opportunity for parents to inform us what skills they have to offer to the PTA.
Socials: Plan to post more news and updates through Instagram this year to capture those who follow us, especially in the early years or those new to the school.
Children Engagement- Another idea to improve engagement with all families, is for the PTA to provide survey questions for the children to canvas at drop off and pick up. Also, get children to interview committee members about the summer fete for example, to build awareness and hopefully get parents more engaged.
Collaboration: To help build on the collaboration between school and the PTA, the school website now includes a PTA tab on the home page, as well as our events forming part of the school calendar.
Vice Chair succession planning: Claire Summers wanted to say thank you to Natalie for everything she has done for the PTA over the past 7 years. It shouldn’t go unnoticed that she has been a significant cog in the wheel in making the PTA successful. The PTA has arranged an open morning for volunteers to hear about the how they can help, alongside sharing information about the openings within the PTA.
The next committee meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, 14th January 2026 8pm at The Claremont Pub.
Signed by Chair
————————-Axelle Joos de ter Beerst ————————
Dated: 11/11/25
