Committees and pre-schools, running out of helpfull parents!

[Ripeberry]

Hi, been on this thread in the past about pre-school committees and this year is no different.
We had our AGM last night and we have 16 famillies on the books and ONLY one new parent showed up.
The other two parents me and another committee member were present, together with our employed playleaders X2, employed treasurer, the exiting chairman and a overseer from playlink.
So, as usuall, the only two people left on the committee have to stay.
That one new parent was a total star and took up Treasurer/Vouchers clerk role and i'm doing fundraising, chasing voucher forms and liaising with Ofsted and doing the EYFS "suitable person" interview.
BUT, the biggest hot potato is the CHAIR, they tried to get me to do it but NO WAY as my youngest will be finishing pre-school next year and i want to make a quick exit from the committee as i've been doing this for 4yrs running, even when i had no kids at pre-school.
We will have another meeting in October and basically if NO-ONE takes the chair then the pre-school HAS TO CLOSE.
The parents need to come forward and we will write to them about it, but i've done my bit and won't be held responsible for the end of the pre-school.
It's the wider community that is letting it down, not the parents that actually get off their arses and do something to help.
This kind of problem happens in most pre-schools and in the future all this "can't be bothered" attitude is going to mean that pre-schools will all have to become nurseries and parents will end up paying much more.

very sneaky, but good! if the AGM is poorly attended I may suggest that!

BumpyBecky - Our preschool manager calculates wages and sorts out all the fees.
We hire an accountant to sort the NI and to actually process the wages. Actually the lady has been doing it for a case of wine for 8 years and now we pay her it is truly a nominal fee. She also processes our tax return on line for us etc etc.
Our treasurer deals with the petty cash, cheques, payements and keeping the records to balance the books. Only money stuff!

Any committee member can collect the vouchers (we do the Sainsbury's ones).

Another committee member should be responsible for the fundraising.

I think our chair applies for any grants etc.

You need to delegate . Not easy I know.

Are you members of the PLA? They are very helpful ime.
Also our county (Shropshire) has an amazing amount of support available to us. We have a contact we can call for any problems. Can you contact your Early Years team at the council?? Ours are fab. Good Luck.
Our poor chair has been in the job for 9 years. She tried to resign last year but no one took it on so she had to stay, but the max termis 10 years so we HAVE to find someone this AGM (July).
It is such a struggle, and now Gordon wants free childcare for two year olds too......If he wants it HE should provide it not leave it to a group of well meaning but inexperienced mums to get stressed trying to run groups in order to provide answers to the governments promises. Gah! Our pre-school is a charity but has to be run like a business. The only person with any business experience on our committee is our chair (and that is why we don't want her to go ).

We hold our AGM in July and invite the reception teacher from the school most of the kids go on to to come and talk, that draws quite a few parents. I am now in my 3rd year as chair and fully intend to stand down when DS2 leaves in July.
our admin person does all admissions stuff, fees and grants and keeps our policies up to date.
We have a seperate role for collecting sainsburies vouchers and stuff, it is a relatively small job so people are willing to take it on and then you have all their details for when you want helpers for fundraising and stuff.
I think if people realised what was really involved they would run a mile. I certainly didn't envisage having to hire a solicitor to negotiate a lease, cleaning the toilets or rehoming goldfish as part of the role when I took it on.

I don't mind helping out the pre-school by donating toys or even buying some.
So far have spent £30 on playsand, took apart and removed the old wodden sandbox that was getting dangerous.
Spent a whole day in the holidays cleaning the building from top to bottom (by myself).
Even managed to dust the roof rafters as there were massive spiderwebs up there for years!
But the problem is that our pre-school is running on air. We have NO contingency plan NO redundancy insurance, NO spare cash whatsoever.
Does not matter what time we do the EGM as the mums just dump and run in the morning and in the afternoon we have to leave pronto as the school (primary) does not like having the gate open for the pre-school and wants us off the premises ASAP.
I'm going to be SO nervous on 01st October!

Usually a preschool has a term's worth of money, "just in case". In fact, it is a condition of ur PLA insrance. And we have indemnity to cover the committee.

I was chair of ours for 2 years, the second year becasue no one lese would do it.

This year no one came forward again, so I warned everyone that it would have to close.

A governors form the local school agreed to taek on the role, and I was offered a paid job as admin manager.

So I now do the Chair's job, a bit of the Treasuer role, and some of the Play leader role, and get paid.
Much better solution!!

The PLA website have job descriptions and various other downlaods that are very useful.

Our County dept were also helpful.

I've not had time to read all these posts, but I think a lot of the problem is the parents not actually realising the consequences of NOT having a committee. When my DS1 went to a preschool for a (very short) while, I had NO IDEA there was even a committee, never mind what its function was, or why it was so important for the preschool. Maybe when new children start, or even before that, their parents should be made aware of exactly how a committee-run preschool works. I naiively just thought you paid your fees, your kids attended the sessions and that was it. Obviously, I knew there was some admin going on behind the scenes but I didn't know who was responsible for it. For various reasons, I switched him to a private nursery after a couple of months, and it is only now after reading the likes of these threads on MN that I realise the difference between the way the 2 types of provision are run.

thanks for the replys delegation is a splendid idea - unfortunately there is no money to pay for an admin person, there aren't enough volunteers (at the moment) for anyone else to take over the vouchers etc

last treasurer hadn't added up the book - I did last night. We made a loss of over £4k last year

I don't think we've got the funds to run after Christmas

We're investigating the possibility of becoming a 'community' pre-school - the premise being that parents can either pay higher fees or take on some role on the committee or volunteer as a helper regularly, clean toys every term etc.

bumpybecky - when you say a loss, are you actually in debt or have you been using up savings? It's a condition of the Charities Commission that you must have enough money to pay staff wages and redundancies and any outstanding bills at ALL times; you are not allowed to become technically insolvent.

We had a very serious situation a few years ago where we realised that we were technically insolvent. We sat down and worked out what the minimum number of staff was on each day and basically had to go to them and ask them to reduce their hours or we would go under immediately. Fortunately they were very nice about it, but had little choice in reality. We eventually lost two of them over it We now have a member of staff who is on a flexible contract which means we only offer her a minimum number of days and increase this over the course of the year.

Please get in touch with your Early Years person at the council and/or the PLA to get some support with this - it's very hard to tackle it on your own.

we've money in the bank, so I guess we must have been using savings. I say guess as I've only got bank statements for the last 11 months so far....

I'm working on the minimum staff levels at the moment. According to last years figures we spent over £1k more on wages than we brought in in total, that's before spending on rent, insurance, equipment, food, milk, etc etc

Do you have enough money in the bank to meet redundancy payments? You MUST have this money set aside, a) because if you don't, then you shouldn't really even be still operating and b) because if your committee doesn't have some sort of insurance against it, then your staff can sue you individually for the money they are owed if you cease operations.

If you made a loss of 4K last year and still have some money left, then it sounds as though you were operating at a surplus as some stage in the past, which is hopeful for turning things round. I've just been through the books this afternoon and three years ago we were technically insolvent and in that space of time have managed to save around 9K, so it can be done.

I almost had an argument with some of the mum's on Friday, as they were told that we need people to come to the meeting 01st October.
One even said to everyone else "Well if it closes then we'll go to the one down the road".
It just really p*s me off that people think that they just pay their money and can just not think about it.
If they want that they should go to a nursery and pay MUCH higher rates.
I'm fed up up being the one to be made to feel guilty for not taking up the hot potato that NO-ONE wants to touch.
They are going to try loads of ways to get me to do it, but if it comes to it, i would rather take my daughter out of pre-school and not bother.
I just can't deal with being the chair when even much more confident/business minded people don't want to touch it.
I've got enough on my plate with setting up my childminding business and dealing with my Mum who has Dementia.
The new parents MUST take it on, there are no "oldies" left!
I refuse to be bullied, if i'm seen as the one who caused the pre-school to close then they are all deluded.

We're short of 2 trustees and if we don't find some then we will have to close or no longer be a charity which of course means the fees will go up drastically because we will have business tax to pay.

Ripeberry - You are completely right. You have done / are doing your bit. Do NO MORE!!! Hope people turn up. I had pressure from various quarters (staff, parents, the vicar, current chair etc) to take over Chair when our chair wanted to quit last year. It was hard work to stick to my guns and say no. I am very glad I did though as I know I was not up for it. I still help out a lot and I get treated as a bit of a 2nd in command sometimes but this suits me far better. You have other responsibilities. Sorry to hear about your Mum.

Becky - GET ON TO YOUR EARLY YEARS TEAM AT THE COUNCIL NOW!!!! You should not be trying to deal with this alone... Good Luck.

Thank you Vanilla, glad to know that you managed to stick to your guns. Did you get dirty looks from anyone afterwards?
Because i know some of the parents will and they are usually the ones who moan about the committee but NEVER come along to any AGMs!
I don't mind helping out, i'm the fundraiser this year and i'm donating some personal money to the pre-school and also do lots of duties, give support to the play leader.
Just glad that the playlink person will be there and they can suggest something because i'm very tempted NOT to turn up at the meeting but i have to.
Aaarghhh!

I think our current committee are going to send out a very blunt letter stating that if no-one comes forward for chair and if no-one can find some one to be trustees then it will be closing at half term or it may reopen as a business and the fees are likely to be £15 per session.

No, thankfully no snidey looks at all. They know I do my bit (and it is not that much really). It seems a friendly bunch at our Nursery, just no potential chairs....
You do not need stupid people like that in your life. How dare they?! Ignore ignore ignore. Good Luck.

I will get on to the council honest, it's just I'm busy trying to fit in the rest of my life (my maternity leave ends this week, I'm self employed and so have work to find, also four kids to chase around!). I didn't ever really agree to be treasurer, was sort of dumped on me (isn't that always the way!) and I don't really have time for this.

I'm not sure if we have the redundancy payments in the bank as I'm not sure how long all the staff have been there. The senior staff lady is finding out for me for Thursday

and Ripeberry - stay strong! just say no

This thread is making me feel a twinge of guilt.

Nothing I can't live with, of course.

Let the sahms do it!

Guess what? No one turned up, not even the person who had the key to get into the building not even the outgoing chairperson!
We've got to try again next Wednesday but its not looking promising
We the committee of 3 people sat around for over half and hour in the cold.
Oh well, at least there's not much redundancy to pay as the play manager and helper have only been in the job less than 2 months.

oh Ripeberry that sucks!

No!!! .
Your outgoing chair should be in trouble then!!! . She cannot actually resign if there is no-one to take over and rightly or wrongly has legal obligations....

That's the thing Vanilla, he is the husband of the previous pre-school leader and they have had a very bad year personally.
He's been trying to leave as Chair for the last 3yrs! and when his wife decided to give up the pre-school job then he just wanted to resign.
He has given the whole file to our secretary, basically telling her to get on with it.
But yes, he is still LEGALLY boung and he has not been DISMISSED, but you can't force anyone can you?
Had a quick look at some other threads last night and someone posted details of the charities commision site and we are going to go through it with a fine toothcomb to see if there is ANY WAY to maybe, pay someone who wants to be chair, even if it's an outsider and we do have someone who would not mind being named as chair but can't do the the work as she has a new baby.
We are going to have to do a "lock in" next Wednesday and hammer something out.
Vanilla, hope you get your committee problems sorted out soon

Oh good luck Ripeberry. Have you spoken to your council advisors? They have been great for us.
I have just been told of two committee member resignations today, one has moved and one has just decided no more . I am creating some role sheets so that people might be encouraged to sign up if they see exactly what their responsibilities are iykwim.

Seriously GOOD LUCK though. You are a better person than me to be dealing with all this .

ripeberry. these preschool committees are a PITA. I know it's cheaper to run them like this than as a business but it's madness. Recruiting a load of people that really can't be arsed. Then infighting all the way. I'm supposed to be taking on an officers role at the AGM of our preschool at the end of the month, but seriously considering whether to bother.

The chair seems to ask for help, but when you offer your opinion seems to be getting narky. I'm trying to keep the manager happy because in the end the chair is off in a couple of weeks and it'll be me along with the committee dealing with everything.