Carpenterstown Educate Together group working to September 2009

daymobrew

The group is very confident that our school has a great chance of being up and running for 2009 but the Start Up group needs your help! We have great
plans for the year ahead but we need more hands on deck. Areas such as fund raising and PR are important and very often involve many people involved in posting flyers, posters, making phone calls and basically sharing around the workload. As we've said before we know from other school's experience that this can be a fun and rewarding process and not one that need take up too much of your time. In fact, by dividing into sub-committees we hope to leave less work for everyone.

This is the time to get involved and we really need your input even if it is small! Everything helps!

Remember, this school now has great political will behind it and many of
our local politicians are pushing to have the second primary school site in
Kellystown reserved for our school. There is a huge opportunity now but we
need more people to help drive this forward.

We are meeting in Laurel Lodge Community Centre on Wednesday 3rd September at 8.00pm and we would be delighted to see you there.

Please contact us if you plan to attend, to give us an idea of numbers.

Also, we are now accepting pre-enrolments for 2009 through 2013.

Zaph

I'll sticky this for you until your meeting daymo

daymobrew

The next committee meeting is on Thursday 11 September at 8pm in Castleknock Community Centre in Laurel Lodge.

We held our Start Up Committee meeting on Wednesday 3 Sept at Castleknock Community Centre and we are happy to report that we have now grown in numbers to begin a lot of work which is necessary to get our school approved and established.

It was decided at the meeting that we would form sub-committees in 4 key areas. These are areas where you will be able to help so have a look through each and let us know which suits your skills:

1. ACCOMMODATION SUB-COMMITTEE - Our very first priority is to secure temporary accommodation for our school for September 2009. This was the excuse given by the Minister for Education for refusing to give our school the go ahead. The school could be accommodated in sports grounds, vacant office premises, community centres, unused buildings (or buildings that are only used occasionally), vacant sites which could take prefabricated units for a defined time period, etc. The job of the sub-committee will be to co-ordinate the search and start contacting people - so that would include for example phoning estate agents for a list of vacant office or commercial premises. Remember, the Department of Education will pay the rental for the duration of our time there so clubs or property owners might be very happy to talk to us about this. The main body of work to secure accommodation will take place between now and Christmas so if this is a good time for you then it might be the area where you can get involved.

2. FUND RAISING SUB-COMMITTEE - We need funds to operate as a Start Up committee and to help pay for specific costs such as Planning Permission for our temporary school premises. You will also have heard in the media about the small amount of money given to school Boards of Management to equip their classrooms. We need to start fund-raising to fill that shortfall and this is where many hands can help even for just a day by coming out for a Sponsored walk or a Supermarket grocery bag pack day. Let us know if this is something you would be up for. We do however also need people on a continuous basis on our Fund Raising committee and this will continue after the school has opened - all schools have to fund raise and the more money you raise the better your child's school will be. Let us know what you can do to help.

3. PUBLIC RELATIONS SUB-COMMITTEE - The local media have been very good to us and we have had good coverage. We have even had a bit of national exposure but we need to really streamline our message now. That involves a co-coordinated approach. We're looking for people who are good on press releases, photography, who have contacts in the media, have been involved in a PR campaign large or small or who just have a feel for how to get the message out.

4. DIRECT MAIL - Printing, photo-copying, delivering flyers, putting up posters. When we have funds available we will look at Leaflet Drop companies but if this is the area where you can help let us know.

This school is for all of our children and the more people that get involved the better the school will be - more funds, better premises, more innovative approaches to our children's education. This is the only school model in Ireland where parents get to set the agenda and decide what facilities our children will have - it is up to all of us to ensure not only that this school opens, but that it is a superb example of what an Educate Together school can be.

This is your time to get involved in your children's future education - drop us a line now to let us know how you can help.

Best regards
Carpenterstown Educate Together Start Up Committee
EDUCATE TOGETHER - Multi-denominational, Co-educational, Child-centred,
Democratically-run