NEWSLETTER SUMMER TERM 2005

We URGENTLY need PARENT HELPERS all this term. This will allow all the children to play inside and outside whenever they wish. It also means you see all the things your children are doing at playgroup.

What a glorious May Bank Holiday that was. I hope everyone had a good time. Tiggers warmly welcomes our new starters Todd Stewart, Zina Napper, Gregory Kehoe, Billy Drury and Jared Kingsland. We have many important dates for everyone this term. Please put them in your diary:

Saturday 14^th May Parish Room Coffee Morning Fundraiser.

Please attend this to help raise money for the

continued upkeep of the Parish Room. See

poster outside the Parish Room for details.

Monday 23^th May Tiggers Sponsored Walk to Westup.

All the children walk with their parents/carers up

to Chris Napper’s house where refreshments and

fun is to be had in Chris’s garden. Sponsorship

forms will be available shortly. This is a very

important fundraiser for Tiggers so please get all

your relatives and friends to sponsor the children

generously.

Friday 27^th May Balcombe School Inset day – Tiggers is closed.

Mon 30^th- 3^rd June HALF TERM

Saturday 25^th June Balcombe School Summer Fete – Tiggers are doing a

cake stall. Contributions requested. Please speak to

Leonie Dolly-Sparkes on 819229. Thank you.

Saturday 2^nd July Balcombe Summer Fete – Tiggers will be doing a

stall with games and competitions. So please

volunteer nearer the time and please come along. It

is a fun packed village event.

Date to be decided Trip to Tilgate Park. As the theme after half term

is “Old Macdonald” Tracy is planning a trip for us all

to see the farmyard animals and many more at

Tilgate.

Friday 15^th July END OF TERM. As usual we all spend the last day of

the summer term having a picnic at Cuckfield Park

where the children can splash around in the pool.

This means that the last day at the Parish Rooms

will be on Thursday 14^th July.

If you have any queries regarding any of these dates please speak to Tracy or myself (Caroline Rix 819210).

Very sadly Vanessa Oecken is leaving Tiggers at Half Term. She has been working at Tiggers for over four years and has contributed enormously to the children, fellow members of staff and the various members of the committee during that that time. She will be greatly missed and we would like to send her off with a really good present so please give generously. Please give your donations to Tracy. We will be wishing her well on her last day, which is Wednesday 25^th May, everyone welcome.

The Garden Project

I hope that many of you know about this project, which is aiming to improve the back garden area so that it is more flexible and also available to the children for more of the year. At our last fundraiser in February we showed some mood boards for parental feedback. We had some lovely ideas and these form the basis of the design brief. Thank you to Nancy Towers for compiling these and also for volunteering to be Project Manager if and when we get the funding from Action in Rural Sussex.

At present we have two local artists Rachel and Sam (from Handcross) working on our parents brief. This Thursday they are going to spend the morning with the staff and children using art to gather the children’s views and ideas. During this time they will also be gathering information from all the staff as to what they think is best. Last week Sarah Manthorpe, the staff representative on the project and I had a meeting with them and Alex Bell of AB Garden Design. It was a very exciting meeting and I look forward to everyone being able to see some of their beautiful drawings and ideas. When we have compiled the staff and the children’s ideas these will then be incorporated into a final design. This design will then be put to Wendy Malkinson (Parish Room Committee chair), the chair of the Rifle Club, and Balcombe Estate. We simply cannot go any further without written consent from all these parties.

We will then display it for everyone to see in the Parish Rooms for a final consultation. Once all this is all agreed the design will be costed and then the form filling starts for the funding from Action in Rural Sussex! The highest figure we can attract from this source is seven thousand pounds. With a volunteer workforce we should be able to produce something very special for the children and indeed all users of the Parish Rooms. I would like to thank Rachel and Sam for all their hard work and contacts (Rachel’s husband has volunteered to do a technical drawing for us and Sam’s father has volunteered to do a survey of the area for us). This is the measure of their enthusiasm for our community project and we are tremendously fortunate to have them and Alex on board to help us.

I will keep you all informed as we go along but I really hope that when it comes to it everyone will volunteer to help in some way. Please telephone me if you have any information or queries.

Policies and Procedures Update 2005

I have at last completed the update of our policies and procedures and these are now with all members of staff and the committee. Feedback from everyone will then be discussed and the policies finalised. Geraldine Tidy a Quality Advisor from the government body Sure Start has also seen and has approved them. A finalised copy will be available on the notice board in due course but if you would like a copy please phone me or email carolinerix@phonecoop.coop. Thank you.