Parents & Friends Club

Another amazing year for the Parents & Friends Club (PFC) events and fundraising. 2023 really stepped it up on all fronts with big events, high attendance and lots of wonderful volunteers giving their time to ensure these events were successful.

We are thrilled to announce that the PFC events for 2023 raised just over $70,000! What an incredible effort. Some of these raised funds contributed towards the Little Learners Love Literacy Program, Art Exhibition, and new IT equipment in 2023. 

It was pleasing and rewarding to see the fruits of our PFC events labour come to fruition with the new 1/2 Playground finally opened in Term 4. So wonderful to see how excited the kids are with their new play space. Makes all the hard work we put into the PFC events worthwhile.

Before we start planning activities for 2024, we took steps to gain some feedback from our parent community. We very much appreciate those who took the time to complete the survey, so thank you. It helps us focus on the types of events that matter to you and the kids. 

As part of the feedback we received, we wanted to share some of the insight and effort that goes into planning the PFC event calendar each year. Which we hope clarifies some of the questions and comments you raised in the survey. 

• At the beginning of 2023, we recognised that we had to scale back on events due to several factors – limited volunteers, increased costs, financial pressure on families and extra time commitment of families and volunteers.
• The PFC is made up working parents who give up their time outside of work to plan and run events for the school community.  For example, the Carnival took over nine months of planning and over 80 parent volunteers to host the event on Saturday 18 November.
• An annual calendar of events is designed to include a variety of events aimed at children (Flip Out, Disco and Footy Colours) and family focused events (Welcome Event and Carnival) and the regular events that we need to run for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

Here is some further insight, so you can understand why some decisions are made for our events: 

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day Stall

We are not a retail store and do not have the capacity to buy and store an extensive variety of goods. We sought advice from other schools in the area around what they do for their stalls, and we believe we achieved a good balance on the products that we offer at the stalls.  The kids get so excited and love shopping at the stall to buy a gift for their loved ones. Given the way our lives have moved to a cashless society, we think it’s valuable for the kids to bring cash along to this event and understand the value of money and what they can buy for the money they have. We have reviewed the price points over the last couple of years, based on feedback, and we think the two stalls in 2023 were fantastic. Not just from a financial point of view with the amount raised, but from the view of what items we have at the stall and the quantity of items. We do understand there are at times disappointed children, as they didn’t get exactly what they wanted to buy. This is managed each year by rotating the timetable of when each class comes to shop at the stall. We do stagger the sale of stock to ensure a fair experience for all children but unfortunately there will always be a class or two that shops last, and this is unavoidable. If you get an opportunity to volunteer at one of the stalls, you should. It’s one of the favourite events to volunteer at each year and spots fill fast.

The use of commercial food trucks at events

This idea started purely because of capacity. We simply don’t get enough volunteers to help at events for us to consider doing food and beverage ourselves at events. You might think a sausage sizzle is simple, but it’s not. There is a lot that goes into getting all the items organised plus the need for people to cook the BBQ. Food stalls are very time consuming and costly. We (PFC) also want to be able to enjoy attending these events with our children and not have to be the ones always volunteering and doing the work. We also don’t want to be constantly asking the parents to work at these events either. We ask parents enough for things, it’s nice to be able to outsource some things and we believe the use of food trucks has been very well received amongst most. We try our best to source local suppliers with variety and suitable price points. It’s also nice to have a night off cooking!

Days and times for events

We avoid holding events Monday to Thursday in the evening due to extra-curricular activities and commitments that a lot of families have. We also try to have all evening events finish at a suitable time, so kids aren’t up too late in the evening. Families are also very busy on weekends with sport and activity commitments, and weekends are also family time for many families. Therefore, we avoid holding events on weekends, except for the Carnival.

We received many more comments in the survey however the above were a common theme and we thought this was the best way to try and address these. Your feedback on the events from 2023 will certainly be taken on board with our planning for next year.

If you get the chance to come along to a PFC meeting next year, please do, as you will get to experience firsthand, the planning and thought process that we go through for each event.

Wishing everyone a great and restful summer break, it’s been a busy year. We look forward to seeing you at a PFC meeting or event in 2024.

Betty & Sam and the PFC Committee

Lost Property & Secondhand Uniform

The lost property bins were emptied and sorted last Friday, and all named items have been returned to students.

Thank you to those families who have donated good quality, clean, current EHPS logo uniform that is no longer required for our next secondhand sale in Term 1. The Term 1 donation and stall dates are:

Our thanks again for all the support and involvement this year. 

Niki Ngo & Bree Conduit

Secondhand Uniform Coordinators

Ritchies IGA Loyalty Program 

EHPS received $24.07 from the Ritchies Community Benefit Program (RCBP) in November. Our school is part of the Ritchies Community Benefit Program (RCBP). If you shop at a Ritchies IGA (the local store is in Mount Waverley) and are a member of their loyalty program, please support EHPS by choosing our school as your nominated beneficiary. Each month we receive 0.5% of purchases made by customers who have selected our school each month. Please encourage family and friends who also shop at IGA to support EHPS. 

Contact the PFC

Contact the PFC by email - pfc.ehps@gmail.com