This is just a brief note of thanks to all the parents and teachers who made last week’s BBQ at Southwater Montessori such a great success. It was truly delightful to have so many of our mums and especially dads with us and to have the chance to chat with them, with the children playing happily all around us.
The Southwater team had worked extremely hard to get the classroom and the outdoor area ready for the event. For most of them this was after a full day’s work. Many parents helped out with drinks and food. A special thank you is due to Tim, who took responsibility for prepearing the BBQ setup, and for Maureen, who did lots of preparation and helping. They were not the only helpers! The other special thank you is for Lyndsay, of www.theshutterbugfamily.com (password-protected), who took brilliant photos and brought Steve along to record brief interviews with parents and children at the event.
It would be great if mums & dads could pass on my thanks to the children, who were so delightful and clearly so much enjoyed having all their friends and parents there.
Thank you all!
This is my very first blog, very exciting and a bit scary for me! I’m very grateful to Tim (Tom & Alfie’s dad) for setting this up.
The intention is to gather our community together on-line to find a way to deal with our premises challenge. Our lease in Southwater runs out in October 2011 and we’ve been told it won’t be renewed. We were offered Easteds Barn as an alternative venue, as its use (and revenues) have steadily declined over the last five years.
Horsham District Council recommended approval but some of the local residents organised an effective campaign, for now.
One argument was in the numbers: 140 community users against 35 children. However, numbers can be presented in different ways: 140 users using 15 hours per week, or 35 children, 10 teachers and 70 parents (totalling 115 people) using 50 hours per week, for instance. Another argument was that we were a business, as if that in itself was a bad thing. In the black & white past business was for making money and government and charities were there to help the poor, things have moved on. My coach puts it thus:
“On a bigger scale where we’ve come from is a place where business focussed on making money (and unfortunately not always in good ways) and taxes and gifts were made to government and charities to do good things to restore the balance. The new wave of social entrepreneurs are finding ways of doing good things in profitable ways. This opens possibilities. And potentially leads to greater overall health.”
I couldn’t agree more.
If you any ideas or suggestions, or would simply like us to know your opinion about our campaign, please feel free to comment here. We’d love to know your views and feelings!
