FRIENDS OF W.I.S.

H NEWSLETTER

Issue 3

Friends of W.I.S.H
Newsletter

Whitbourne C of E Independent School & Hub

25th September 2013

IN THIS ISSUE

News from the frontline!

The past month has been both incredibly busy and, at the same time, immensely frustrating for the team. We have all been working hard at getting everything in order so that we could take over responsibility for the school building as planned on the 18thof this month. Unfortunately, and not for lack of effort on our part, this was not to be. There were several things that the local authority were required to do before the building was handed back to to the diocese and they were unable to get them done in time. This has delayed us by at least a week and a half, we are now hoping that we will have the keys by the end of this week. This is obviously less than ideal for the children still waiting for school to start, however Matt and Sheenagh have some off-site activities planned, which should help ease the children into the school as well as helping develop relationships before school starts. Im sure some of you will have heard about our disappointing result from the silent auction of all the school equipment and resources that concluded last week. We managed to acquire a handful of things, in fact it was 35 lots out of a potential 800, which whilst better than nothing was a fairly disheartening result. We did put in a request to ask that anything left over from the process that was not wanted by any other of the parties invited to take part to be gifted to us, but unfortunately these items were all loaded into a van and taken away as well. This does leave us

Whats On
Upcoming events & dates for your diary Page 2

Can You Help?

Do you have any of these things, or do you know somewhere that does? Page 2

The 1st W.I.S.H. trip

Find out where the children went & how they got on.

Munching & Mulching

Page 3

What happened when the school joined other members of the community at the Orchard.

Friends of W.I.S.H.
The latest membership news

Page 3

Page 4

us with the difficult task of trying to restock a school almost from scratch, but on the other hand provides us with the opportunity to create something new and different from what was there before. We are all desperately keen to get the school up and running hopefully we can scale this last hurdle and get on with creating something amazing!

FRIENDS OF W.I.S.H NEWSLETTER | Issue 3

Can You Help?

As we have been left so few of the items of school equipment, resources and furniture we are now urgently looking for a number of things to help us get up and running.

Whats On
Dates for your Diary An evening of entertainment, 10 for teams of up to 6 people 7.30pm start at the Village Hall Please come along with any unwanted household items / stationery / books / furniture / toys & games or anything else that may be of use at the new school. Welcoming cup of tea and cake for all. At the school from 10am It will soon be upon us! Come along to our Christmas Fayre for gifts, decorations, food and much, much more. More details to follow Eyes down for a fantastic Christmas Prize Bingo. Prizes for all and a great way to start the festivities! More details in next months edition Please see notices and the next edition of the newsletter for further details

Quiz Sat 28th September

Classroom resources
Exercise books, pencils, crayons, felt pens, dry-wipe pens, art & craft things, material and yarn scraps. Maths & science resources e.g dice and counters, 2D/3D shapes, measuring instruments.. Gardening tools for the school allotment Cooking equipment of every & any sort - scales, mixing bowls, utensils, sharp knives, chopping boards, Tupperware, cutlery, crockery, mugs.. Games & toys dressing up things for role play, puzzles, trains, cars and other vehiclesanything and everything!

Trash & Treasure Day Sat 5th October

Christmas Fayre Sat 7th December

Classroom furniture
In particular, if anyone has any suitable lengths of worktop and structural pieces of wood, these would be extremely useful for creating additional workspace areas around the edges of the classrooms.

Christmas Bingo Sat 14th December

Office Equipment
Office chairs & desks, plastic trays, plain paper, envelopes, pens, staplers, cellotape, labels, scissors, marker pens..

Miscellaneous & Consumables

Kettle, toaster, microwave, mop, bucket, brush, hoover & other cleaning items, toilet roll, soap, paper towels, paper/rubbish bins and bags. And tarpaulins any sizes shapes & condition!

LIMITED EDITION SIGNED PRINTS & CARDS

Help raise some more funds for W.I.S.H. and get a little piece of Whitbourne history by buying one of local artist Cynthia Watermans limited edition prints of her lovely watercolour painting of the school. They are available for 30 as a framed print or 23 unframed. Or if you would rather have something smaller we also have greeting cards that feature the image which are available in packs of 5 for 4 Prints - please contact Cynthia at info@cynthiasfineart.co.uk Cards please contact Anna on 821887 or info@friendsofwish.co.uk

FRIENDS OF W.I.S.H NEWSLETTER | Issue 3

1st W.I.S.H. Trip!

(by Matt Bennett) On Tuesday, Webbs of Wychbold and our new Forest site played host to the first ever W.I.S.H trip! Five children, their parents and the teachers (Matt and Sheenagh) met up in Whitbourne's Village Hall car park at 8.45am and were ready to rumble by 9am. It was great to have the children all strapped in and happy as we set off to storytime at Webbs. The journey gave us time to discuss as a school what we wanted to do with our 'blank canvas' of a building. After explaining the idea of spaces rather than classrooms, lots of suggestions were noted down and now it looks like we're going to have a: GARAGE - for trains, cars and the gadgets for both! BANK - working with money, making money! BIRD CITY - with several creative name ideas already in the pipeline! Bird baths, feeders and some sort of watch tower/hide.... ...and much, much more! Story time at Webbs was lovely. The children joined in with all the puppets and actions and the environment was very relaxed and inviting. We enjoyed a lovely time all sat around the same table sharing cake and drinks in the cafe and generally it was smiles all round....Annika's chocolate face definitely deserves a mention! We then had a chance to explore the store a little and hunt down some gloves for us to use in the forest site as well as when we work on the allotment and orchard. We also had just about enough time to browse the pets and reptiles on show at Webbs. Josh thoroughly enjoyed checking out the chameleons and corn snakes. The tiny mice and rabbits went down a treat as well! Once we'd bought our gloves, after managing to get through the 'problem-solving' bird seed contraption issue, we set off back to Whitbourne to discover and explore our new Forest site, kindly donated by the Evans family at Longlands Farm. In the Wheatsheaf car park, we met up with several home educating families and enjoyed meeting their children and discussing all the different opportunities and skills that could be shared. This brought our total for the day to 9 children what a brilliant bunch! The forest site was thoroughly explored by all, including the making of dens, checking out badger holes, identifying a skull and visiting our local beach! A shared picnic and further fun times were had. Thank you for all the picnic food donations from parents, the children stretched their legs and used their new found energy! All in all, the day was a great success and some really important, as well as fun, relationships have been fostered. Much more to look forward to in the not too distant future! Watch this space for photos and any further plans....

Munching & Mulching

On the 7th September we joined with the village shop at a Munch & Mulch event at the community orchard. A hugely successful event that provided a chance to get the school involved with the local community. In total we had a group of 33 adults and children attend, with ages ranging from 2 to 88. They day was spent weeding & mulching the bases of the young fruit trees in the orchard and identifying the local flora and fauna (with the aid of a fantastic supply of books and guides). Refreshments were provided in the form of a picnic a wonderful selection of filled rolls, crisps and cakes all washed down with a cup (or two) of delicious apple juice. Thank you to everyone who came, it was wonderful to see so many generations working and interacting together the children had a fantastic time! Our biggest thank you however must go to Kate Lack and the shop for organising it, and we hope to be part of many more community events like this in the future! If you would like to read more there is a longer report in the October Parish Magazine. A huge thank you to the village shop for sponsoring the event, The Wheatsheaf Inn for providing the picnic and Mill Orchards in Great Whitley for making the juice, which is on sale in the shop!

FRIENDS OF W.I.S.H NEWSLETTER | Issue 3

We are extremely pleased to announce that our membership has now reached 75 members! This is a brilliant achievement and a big thank you to everyone who has signed up to become a friend of WISH. We would especially like to thank Kate and Paul Lack and John Taylor, who introduced some more friends to us last month, thus earning themselves an extra entry into the members prize draw.

Friends of W.I.S.H

WHO TO CONTACT MAGAZINE EDITOR

Anna Adshead 821887 or 07903 763899

MEMBERSHIP ENQUIRIES
Anna Adshead as above or Anna Marshall 07790 886432

The 75 prize draw will be held on the 28th at our supper & quiz evening so come along and join us at the village hall at 7.30pm, it could be you walking away with a main meal for two at the Wheatsheaf!! The next prize draw will happen when we reach 100 members. Dont forget that every member will have one entry, with advanced members receiving a bonus entry, and you can get additional entries by introducing new friends.

FUNDRAISING CO-ORDINATOR
Deb Walker 07814 399918

SCHOOL VOLUNTEERS
Matthew Bennett 07846 088379

Or email at info@friendsofwish.co.uk We would like to start a letters from friends section in future newsletters after receiving one from John Taylor who writes I would like to thank the hard working group who have achieved so much (despite opposition in certain quarters) & assure them of every possible support.

We would love to hear from all of you letters can be sent to anna_adshead@btinternet.com Dene Hollow, Whitbourne, WR6 5RN or left for collection at the village shop.

Friends of W.I.S.H

Newsletter

Dene Hollow, Whitbourne, WR6 5RN

BECOME A FRIEND OF W.I.S.H

Please help support us by signing up to become a Friend of WISH. Membership is open to everyone, is completely free and does not commit you volunteering, participating in the school or attending fund raising events (though we would love it if you were able to do some or all of these things!) Becoming a member is simply one of the easiest ways to demonstrate your interest and support for Whitbourne School. As a member you will receive a copy of our regular newsletter enabling you to stay up to date with new developments and the progress of the School. Should you wish to further your support for the school by offering some financial assistance you will enjoy an advanced level of membership and will receive, in addition to the newsletter, a discount at any event organised by friends of WISH. Whilst the exact detail of how funds will be used is yet to be decided it is envisaged that the majority will be used to support the day-to-day running of the school. This will include such things as; learning resources, admin supplies, rates, utility bills, insurance, building maintenance, etc Name___________________________________________ email _____________________________________________ Address ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Please send the Friends of W.I.S.H. newsletter to my email/home address (delete as appropriate) Please tick the box if you wish to become an advanced member further details about how you can donate will be sent to you and a committee member can visit you to help fill in the forms if you would like them to. Please indicate below if you are interested supporting the school by volunteering Fundraising/events Publicity/newsletter Teaching/Classroom help Non classroom (eg maintenance/cleaning/admin) Other _____________________________
Please return your completed form to: Any of the Friends of WISH committee members The Village Shop Dene Hollow, Whitbourne, WR6 5RN