It’s been a while since I posted an update on fund-raising, so below is a chart showing our progress up to May. The fund to May stands at a fantastic £46,607 – almost half-way to our target. The last six months alone have brought in nearly £13,000.
Thanks to everyone for their fantastic support. We’ll be taking a break over the summer, but will be planning more activity for the Autumn term.
I blogged a few weeks ago about the Waitrose Community Matters scheme, which is now running in the Thame store.
I’m very pleased to say that, thanks to everyone’s support (and their green tokens), Waitrose has made a donation of £320 to St Joseph’s Building Fund.
Thanks to Waitrose in Thame for selecting us to be one of the beneficiaries.
2008 was an excellent year for St Joseph’s Building Fund. Thanks so much to everyone who has shown the support—whether through the direct debit scheme, attending our events, sponsoring us, or through the Easyfundraising service.
The Building Fund total to the end of December now stands at an incredible £41,196.
During 2008 we raised a total of £22,393, which was a fantastic return-an increase of 48% compared with 2007. The Building Fund average monthly income is now nearly £1400. We’re planning to set ourselves a similar target for 2009 and hope we can count on your continued support.
The Government has announced that £1.75bn of funding has been approved building funds for hundreds of Primary schools in England. This is part of the Primary Capital Programme which is investing to rebuild or refurbish half of Primary schools by 2023.
In total 41 local authorities have met all the Government’s requirements and will receive their allocated funding for at least the next two years. A further 92 local authorities have had their 2009-10 funding approved, but need to do more work before funding for 2010-11 will be released (Oxfordshire is among these). And finally, 15 local authorities haven’t met the guidelines and won’t receive their funding for the moment.
A full BBC News article about the funding is available here.
There is more detail on Oxfordshire’s approach to reveiwing the funding requirements here.
While this is clearly great news for the nation’s Primary Schools, many of which are in need of updating, it’s unlikely that St Joseph’s, Thame will benefit in the immediate future. We have to continue our fundraising efforts to ensure we’re in the best position to benefit when we have our chance.
Thanks for your continuing support.
Waitrose in Thame has recently launched its ‘Community Matters’ scheme.
The scheme is simple. Each month, the shop divides £1,000 between three local organisations- such as community groups or schools. The shop’s customers nominate which organisations can benefit from the scheme. Customers are offered a token every time they shop, which can be inserted in one of three Perspex tubes – one for each organisation. At the end of the month the tokens for each organisation are weighed and the beneficiaries receive a proportion of the cash.
The first three charities in the Thame scheme are a local nursery, a playground project and the local museum. Needless to say we will also be nominating St Joseph’s Building Fund as a potential beneficiary.
The Waitrose scheme seems like a great idea to me – it’s part of a national programme – as it generates much-needed funds for local organisations, influenced directly by the people affected (not to mention the additional positive publicity for Waitrose).
According to the manager of another Waitrose: ‘Our customers love it, and it’s raised our profile locally.’
It’s been a while since the last post – apologies to our regular readers, but the summer just seemed to get in the way (anyway, we all needed a break after the exertions of the Thame 10K). Hope you all had a good break, and avoided the British weather. I don’t have an up-to-date total at the moment, but will post one as soon as I get it.
Our Easyfundraising efforts continue to bear fruit – we’ve now raised over £500 using this service. Every time you shop online, remember to visit Easyfundraising first – it doesn’t cost you a penny, but it raises free funds for St Joseph’s Building Fund.
Just a quick reminder that we have two events planned for the next couple of months:
On Friday 19th September, the school is holding a Fashion Show in aid of the building fund and we’re looking for models (age 5 and over). If your child would like to be a star for the evening then get in touch: stjosephsfund@googlemail.com.
On Saturday 18th October, the building fund will be holding a Back to School Prom. There are very special plans taking shape to make this a memorable evening, so make sure you mark the date in your calendar. Further details to come!
Just a quick update on our fundraising progress – to the end of June the St Joseph’s Thame Building Fund total stands at £28,657 – an increase of 27% since I last updated you in April.
So far in 2008 (January to June) we have raised nearly £10,000 – thanks very much to everyone who has supported us. Our target is to raise another £8,000 by the end of the year (July to December). So far we have two events planned for the Autumn:
On Friday 19th September, the school is holding a Fashion Show in aid of the building fund and we’re looking for models (age 5 and over). If your child would like to be a star for the evening then get in touch: stjosephsfund@googlemail.com.
On Saturday 18th October, the building fund will be holding a Back to School Prom. There are very special plans taking shape to make this a memorable evening, so make sure you mark the date in your calendar. Further details to come!
Here is the intrepid team that completed the Thame 10K on Sunday in support of St Joseph’s Building Fund.
The team looking relaxed before the big event.
Warming-up (very gently).
Warming-down…
Who said I was competitive?
How far?
Don’t even think about talking to me.
Don’t know what all the fuss is about.
Same time next year?
It’s even harder if you hold your breath.
Team spirit.
After a couple of days’ rest it seemed like a good time to reflect on the success of the Thame 10K for St Joseph’s Building Fund.
The event was very well organised, with great support from the Thame Runners club, including friendly and helpful marshals, excellent parking, and a well-marked course (including km-markers and road closures). The weather was fine, and cool – ideal for running, though slightly blustery. The course itself was a nice loop starting from Lord Williams’s Upper School, and taking in Thame High Street, Towersey and the Phoenix Trail. I have to admit there were a few more ‘inclines’ than I was expecting, which definitely slowed me up – I’ll have to train harder for these next time. There was also a welcome water-stop at about half-way (though I was behind schedule by this time, so I didn’t pause!).
There were over 850 finishers in total, with more than 15 of them running for the Building Fund. Using our online form we raised nearly £900, and so we confidently expect that when all the paper forms are collected, along with donations, we’ll have a total of over £2,000. (The online form is still live, by the way, so it’s not too late to make a donation).
The final results (including the accurate chip timing) are now available from Thame Runners website. Thankfully the chip timing shaved an extra few seconds off my time!
Here’s everyone I think ran for the Building Fund – if I’ve missed anyone, then please let me know.
| Runner | Time |
| Rob Harris | 1:04:55 |
| Darren Baker | 1:00:55 |
| Stephen Fahey | 0:58:53 |
| Jake Collinge | 0:51:06 |
| Claire Totoni | 1:09:02 |
| Karen Penn | 0:57:26 |
| Theresa Heath | 0:55:26 |
| Antony Green | 0:55:13 |
| Huw Roberts | 1:02:54 |
| Helena Richards | 1:07:30 |
| Adrian Richards | 0:50:23 |
| Adam Buckland | 0:47:23 |
| Sinead Buckland | 1:07:30 |
| Claire Lowe | 1:13:06 |
| Sonya Cattell | 1:04:42 |
| Katherine Totoni | 0:59:24 |
| Steve Chainani | 0:50:23 |
