Committee advice please?

[cktwo]

After basically running the pre-school single-handedly since last summer, I have now had enough. Our committee has shrunk to the bear legal minimum, so the staff and I have decided to call a meeting of parents and give them the hard word.

I know some of you have had to do this in the past. Has it been successful?
What should I write in the letter to parents to make them come?

Any help would be appreciated, thanks

do you belong to an association, like PATA or the Pre School Alliance?

They might be able to help.

The alternative is to close.

You will need to be absolutely sure that you use the correct procedure to wind up the preschool and to follow charity commission guidelines too.

I am sorry, it's a difficult path to follow in either instance

PSLA.
I don't want to shut it though. It makes money, it's a fab facility adn we've just been given a massive grant to improve the outdoor area.

Are you linked ot a school at all, or close to a primary?

When i stepped down as Chair (after 2 years), the primary school asked their governing body ot consider it and one of them stepped forward, in her role as governor, for 2 years as Chair.

It is also worht asking local people if anyone would take on the role.

The PLA were helpful, tjough they couldn't do anything.

Our CDO from county was also helpful as she could speak ot people about the preschool.

do you have a local Voluntary Action group or Council for Volunteer Service?

This is our local one just to give you an idea of the sort of thing I mean.

In the past we've found them very helpful in giving advice and sourcing volunteers for us. The advantage of this is that you can sometimes reach people with a broader range of skills and backgrounds.

We find every year that we have to threaten to close pre-school to get the numbers in we need to run the committee.

What we've found works best to recruit new members is to approach specific people and talk to them directly, honestly and openly about what being on the committee entails (the good stuff and the bad!). The one's I've spoken to do find it far more interesting if it's face to face.

Remember there are benefits too, one of the biggest (for me at least!)is that it's a really good way of getting to know new people. It's an absolute godsend when you get to school to know 10 other people at the school gate. You also get experience of doing something you might never have done before, which is incredibly useful experience both for people who work, and perhaps those who've taken time out for childcare. Not many companies with a turnover of £100k and 7 employees would employ a book keeper with no experience but pre-school treasurers do exactly that.

Hope that helps!

I am a bookkeeper! Life would be more simple if they did employ me!!

Thanks for your responses. I shall take your ideas to the next meeting

We wrote a letter saying that unless a new committee came forward than the pre-school would have to shut.

We did employ people to do the admin & day to day finances etc so the committee had to do the minimum.

Did it work?

The one I used to be involved with ended up paying a local accountant to do the payroll as that was one of the bits putting people off being treasurer

We have a local accountant to do Payroll and a paid administrator to handle the admissions and other administrative jobs.

Yes it did work - we targeted the people whose children still had a full year or more before they went up to school. It does help that there aren't any spare places as such anywhere else so if we shut their children would not have a pre-school to go to IYSWIM.

We also teamed up people to take on roles in pairs and seperated fundraising from the main committee so people didn't have to do 2 lots of meetings IYSWIM.

So we had chair, vice chair, treasurer, assistant treasure, secretary & assistant secretary that kind of thing and we tried to get a mix so that all the parents wouldn't be leaving at the same time, so some of them had younger siblings to come through that kind of thing.