Family Get Together

The Parents Association will be holding a “Family Get Together” event on Sunday, December 12^th from 3 – 5 p.m. in the Adamstown Educate Together National School.

There will be some fun activities for children + Finger food + Soft drinks to all.

You are welcome to bring along finger food of your choice to share with other families.

Appreciate your participation and support for the event.

For any further information, contact 0860633087

Year 2011 Calendars

Parents Association brings out Year 2011 calendars with an elegant design and exciting art work.

We are proud to say that they are Dublin's ONLY multicultural calendar listing of most major festivals and come with a handy 'notes' section to jot down important stuff!

All collection goes to the school via Parents Association fund. Price structure:

• 1 calendar @ 8 Euro
• 2 calendars @ 15 Euro
• 3 calendars @ 20 Euro

You may buy them from the school office or contact us to place your order.

Email: acetnspa@gmail.com
Phone: 0860633087 (Rao) or 0851194357 (Rashmi)

View the Calendar on the School Notice Board.

Free public lecture: "Protecting Children from Unhealthy Food Marketing" - What Parents Need to Know

A free public lecture on the marketing of unhealthy foods to children.

Further details:

Title: Protecting Children from Unhealthy Food Marketing - What Parents Need to Know

Date: Wednesday 1^st December 2010

Time: 7.30pm

Location: The National Gallery of Ireland, Merrion Square West, Dublin 2.

Guest speakers:

Sue Davies, Chief Policy Adviser, WHICH? UK

Dr Edna Roche, Consultant Paediatrician and Paediatric Endocrinologist at AMNCH, Tallaght.

RSVP to sdaly@irishheart.ie or phone (01)634 6953

This lecture is open to the public, is free of charge and all are welcome to attend.

AGM Minutes

We held 1st AGM and below are the meeting Minutes:

Attendees:
Meena, Tom, Rao, Sofia, Tina, Rashmi, Barbara, Rahul, Bhava, Samira, Sabah, Juna

Absent with regret: Donna, Gema.

Date: 19th October 2010
Time: 7:30 to 9:00 pm
Venue: ACETNS Staff room

The Secretary (Tina) kick start the AGM by welcoming all members and announced the Agenda for the day

Rao (Chairperson) report back on last years activities, the difficulties, positives, and future activities. A small core group has been active and it is getting difficult to get more parents to various meetings. He thanked the existing committee and members for their support over the last one year.

Sofia (treasurer) report back on last years account and placed income-expenditure copies on the table. We have made a small profit of around €150 after expenses, but some feel the fundrising comes only from Parent body. All the money is held in the BoI bank account.

Chairperson of the BoM Report: Meena outlined the reality of the importance of having set up a Parents Association, suggesting how and for what to fundraise. Meena stated that the most important thing is active participation in the school for parents. She also suggested having a road map of set goals - what do we want to achieve, what do we need to get it done.

Principal (Tom) talked about the culture of volunteering and thats how the school gets by. Delegating to parents who does not get involved was his suggestion. He also talked about how to improve the school by proper play areas, garden, etc. This could be a goal of fundraising. There is a trial to set up a common enrolment policy among all ET schools in Lucan. He also stated that ACETNS will hold the festival of light in December - a committee has been set up with Martha, Dara, Paula, Liz, Fiona, Emma. In the school, we are opening up for having special units attached to the school like Talent list, Yard games, Street games to be taught to students and interested parents. Saving schemes for books, perhaps link in which Griffen Valley ET. He also suggested that renting of the Hall to be run by PA - should be used by the parents of the school who come under insurance.

Member's feedback: To answer a question, Tom informed that Dermot to be the point of contact with PA as part of his extra responsibility.
Someone suggested that we need to raise money for a specific target within a timeline.

Election of the new committee:
Everyone present agreed to be on the committee except Rahul for personal reasons. There were 2 advance nominations, who could not come to the meeting. Every one thanked Rahul for his contribution, and Rahul promised to involve as a member. Following members represent the new committee.

1. Rao Hanumantha Marepalli
2. Sofia Albery
3. Tina Jansson
4. Olga Knoutova
5. Rashmi Sawhney
6. Juna Rosaies
7. Barbara Garrido
8. Gema Pintor
9. Bhava Mada
10. Donna Sunario
11. Sabah Abdelfadil
12. Samira

Office bearers (Chairperson, Secretary and Treasurer) will be elected in the 1st meeting of the committee in November.

Newly elected Committee for 2010-2011

Following members have been elected as PA committee in our AGM on Tuesday, 19th:

1. Rao Hanumantha Marepalli

2. Sofia Albery

3. Tina Jansson

4. Olga Knoutova

5. Rashmi Sawhney

6. Juna Rosaies

7. Barbara Garrido

8. Gema Pintor

9. Bhava Mada

10. Donna Sunario

11. Sabah Abdelfadil

12. Samira

Office bearers (Chiarperson, Secretary and Treasurer) will be elected in the 1st meeting of the committee in November.

Request: Nominations to the new Committee

Dear Parent,

A new committee will be elected at the AGM to look after Parent Assoction activities. The size of current committee is 10 and we expect the same size for the next year.

As a Parent of ACETNS you have the right to be on the committee. We request nominations from all those who present at the AGM and also request nominations in advance from the interested parent/guardian - you may choose one of the options to send your nomination:

1. Email to acetnspa@gmail.com (OR)
2. Text on 0860633087 (OR)
3. Submit your name in the school office.

Thanks
Rao

Invitation to AGM

Dear Parent,

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Parent Association will be held on 19th October (Tuesday) from 7:30 to 9 pm in the School. Following is the agenda:

• Report last year's work of PA
• Account for money received/spent during last year
• Amendments to the Constitution, if any
  
• Address of the Principal, Tom Moriarty
• Message from the Chairman Board of Management - Meena
• Election of new PA committee
• Questions and Answers

We would like to listen from all of you about Parent Association. So please mark your diary and attend. Appreciate if you can spread the word with other parents to join the AGM.

Thanks
Rao

September 2010 Meeting Minutes

Attendees:
Rao, Sofia, Olga, Barbara, Garie, Ravikant, Sabah, Rubhsan, Muhammad, Donna, Ugo, Babatunde, Atif, Ilona, Vishal, Inam

Absent with regret:
Rakshmi, Tina, Gema

Date: 23rd Sept 2010
Time: 7:30 - 9 pm

Minutes

Welcome to new members: Meeting room was flashing with new members presence! Rao gave a quick overview of the Association and solicited their active contribution. Most of them are very enthusiastic to involve with the school.

School Fleece/Polo shirts: Samples of fleece and polo shirts with the school logo were put on the table. They were well received by parents present there. For making publicity, following options were suggested:

• Upload photos on the school website
• Upload the order form on the website
• Advice parents to send emails with their interest(s)

PA would work with the school to execute the sale of them. As of now, Donna is the front runner and we request more volunteers to help out on the sale process. We (PA) get small amount out of this sale.

Hall usage by Parents: School hall is open for parents to use for group activities or sports. It can be booked in advance for the following week. A schedule with available slots will be on display at the school notice board or office. We are working with Tom on this. Parents Association will be responsible for running this and there will be a charge of €2 (Two Euro) for 1-hour slot usage to meet the utility/admin expenses. Interested parents can contact Tom or Rao on utilising this opportunity.

Forthcoming AGM: Our 1st AGM is due and will be held in the 3rd week of October. We invite all parents to give full update on the progress of the PA including finances. New office bearers will be also be elected. Tentative dates are 12th or 19th evening around 7pm. Actual date will be notified very soon.

Calendar 2011: We thought it is required to bring out a calendar ASAP. Lot of schools does sell year calendar to raise funds. We discussed a few ideas on how to make this happen but it is inconclusive. Ideas are welcome and the best way is to use email to communicate on this.

Second hand Book/Toy Fair

There will be a 2nd hand book and toys fair on June 27th, Sunday.

The aim of this fair is to raise some funds for a library within the Adamstown Educate Together School. Books and toys will be sold at a nominal amount. The toys that are not sold during the fair will be given to a charity and left-over books will be kept for our future library.

You will have a chance to recycle yours kid books and/or toys.

If you want to bring and leave your items before hand, we can store them at the school. Please contact Tom or school office when you bring items.

On this occasion there will be some fun activities for children like face painting, storytelling, balloon modeling and more.


Call on Sofia Alberty (0851188863) for any further information on this.



Join us on this initiative!
Parent Association of ACETNS

Invitation to the intercultural event

INVITATION

The 2^nd Inter-cultural event will be held on June 13^th (Sunday) from 3 to 5 pm in the PE hall. On this occasion, there will be some interesting activities from different countries to mutually share cultures/traditions with others in our school community. At the end of the workshops food, sponsored by parents, will be available to taste different flavors.

You are all welcome to this event. Contact Rao on 0860633087 for any further information.

We suggest you to come in traditional dress of your country.

Parents Association

ACETNS

Minutes of May 20th

Attendees:
Rao, Sofia, Juna, Olga, Gema, Barbara, Rashmi, and Tom

Absent with regret:
John Clair, Tina Jansson

Time: 19:30-21:00

Minutes:

Tom updated parents on IT projects, enrollments for 2010-11 and garden work. He also informed that Educate Together (ET) office has increased membership fee per child to 11 Euro from 9. The membership fee was not charged to parents for the current year, but parents need to take the increased amount of 2 Euro for next year and it will be notified to parents individually.

ET fund raising dinner for secondary school: This will happen in September and entry fee is 100 Euro which includes 3 course fancy dinner. This gives an opportunity to interact with other ET schools and to support our strong need of the secondary school. Board will give us 2 tickets and PA will run raffle for those tickets. Parents are welcome to buy a few tickets for the dinner to support ET.

School dress: Tom will ask the vendor to supply us a few samples for the proposed school jacket/fleece/dress to give an idea to parents along with the price. We expect this to display this in June.

InterCultural Event (13th June): Discussed about the format/logistics of this event and an action committee to execute the event has been formed. Based on the constructive feedback, the format of the event will be slightly different than last year - this year we arrange Workshop/Demonstration style to share different cultures and traditions rather than stage performances. To accommodate more people we moved this to 13th June (Sunday) from 12th. A letter will be sent to all parents on Monday to inform and solicit their contribution for the event.

Second hand Book/Toy Sale(20th June): To encourage recycling of toys and books we wanted to organize a second hand sale of Books and Toys. On this fund raising event we want to arrange fun activities for children. We plan to do this event on 20th June, and details will follow next week.

Rao
on behalf of PA

Next Meeting on 20th May

Dear Parents,

Our May month meeting will be held on 20th (Thursday) at 7:30pm in the school. Please bring items of interest/concerns to the table for discussion.

Thanks
Rao

April Month Meeting Minutes

We had Parents meeting on 22nd April'10 in the School, and discussed some interesting items brought by Parents. Meeting minutes -

Attendees:
Olga, Barbara, Sofia, Rashmi, Gema, Rahul, and Rao

Absent with regret:
Tina, John

Time: 7:30 to 9:00 pm

Intercultural Event:
Our 2nd intercultural annual event will be held on 12th June from 3 - 5 pm. We touched over the format of the event. We plan to include cultural performances, food, and some other fun filled programs for children. More details to follow

Library fund/development:
As we are waiting to listen from Maynooth Tesco for bag packing to raise funds, we also check with other popular shops/stores (in Liffy valley, Lucan, etc) for the same. Additionally we would like to sing songs outside Superquinn. We may use Dermot's band as a special attraction for the show. We hope to do this in the last week of May. We request enthusiastic parents involvement for this exercise. We also recognized the need for a document with details of the library setup , and the priorities to get better idea on the requirements and facilities.

Garden work during weekends:
Over the coming months we are organizing garden work in and around the school. It will be a couple of hours on Saturday and/or Sunday and will continue for a few weeks. We request interested parents to come forward to actively participate in this task. Parents can choose either Saturday or Sunday based on their convenience. We'll circulate more details on this shortly.

Walking Chain:
To support Green school strategy, we thought it is good idea to bring children in groups to the school from different locations inside Adamstown. We can start this activity once in a week (like Wednesday) if we get volunteers.

School Dress:
Tom supplied 3 samples of T-shirt, fleece and a Jacket from a vendor in Lucan. We liked them but we need to see more colors and also price of each. Once we finalize the logo, we will get it printed on it. There is a possibility that some of us can go the factory to get better idea of the stock.

School Logo:
The logo entries would be displayed inside the school so that parents, staff and children can vote their choice. We number each entry and leave it there for a couple of days so that majority will get chance to show their liked design. It will happen some time this week.

Second hand Book and Toy sale:
To raise funds and encourage recycling of toys we want to organize a second hand sale of Books and Toys in the school. This will be open not only to Adamstown residents but also to Lucan community. We need to set up collection boxes for some time so that parents can leave their toys and books. On the day of sale, we would like to include a couple of activities like story telling, face painting, etc.

School Opening Day CD:
We want to collect songs from different languages that are connected to the school/studies on a CD, and play them on 1st September when the school reopens. This would make a grand welcome to the children on the 1st day of the school. A note would be send to parents to send a clip of the song in their native language. We may limit it to one song per language based on number of entries

Next meeting will be on 20th May.

Please watch this space for further details on the items listed above, and send us your feedback.

Thanks
Rao
on behalf of PA

April meeting on 22nd

Dear Parent(s),

Our next meeting will be on Thursday, 22nd April @ 7:30 pm

We'll decide the date and logistics of the annual intra-cultural event to be held in next month. It went well last year and hope to get more involvement from all this year as well.

We'll also go over a few other ideas on fund raising for books and other events.

Send me your inputs for the meeting.

Please book the date and time in your calendar.

Thanks
Rao

School Logo selection

Thank you for sending your entries for the Logo competition. We have a few entries so far. Initially we thought of conducting a competition on 27th March by inviting all parents to vote from the display. However, due to Easter break, we display 'possible' logos for a couple of days at the front door (not outside though!) and ask parents and children to vote their choice. Parents can vote when they drop or pickup their child to the school. The entries will be available for voting in the week of April 19th.

Any comments?

Rao

March meeting minutes

Attendees:
Rao, Juna, Sofia, Tom, John, Kamal Dilem, Titilayo

Time: 7:45 - 8:45 pm

Minutes:
1. Track suite: We will look for merchandising from some vendors to give us some samples so that parents will get opinion on how it looks like. It'll give us opportunity to give our choice(s). Buying or wearing would be voluntary. Tom clarified that this is a kind of replacement for the Uniforms. Based on parents choices Board would take a decision on the track suite.

2. Group Visit in Summer
There was some interest to visit some place, like Zoo or Park for picnic on week-end. We may utilize the bus facility for this. Based on interest from Parents we wish to organise this.

3.Tom provided update on activities like IT infrastructure, Community games, etc. He also suggested parents to think of book renting scheme.

Our next meeting will be after Easter break, and will be on 15th April.

Meeting minutes - 4th Feb 2010

Our first meeting of the new calendar year took place on 4th evening. There was good interest from parents as we can see new faces along with already active members

Attendees:
Sanjeev Kumar, Ebenezer Agbana, Barbara Garrido, Olga, Rao, Aminat, Nosheen Fatima, Juna, Bhava Mada, Judy and Tom

Absent with regrets: Rashmi and Gema

Time:
7:30 to 8:45pm

Minutes:
1. Track Suite from School
We went over on this subject again to get feedback from Parents. There was good interest in the room to know about the type, color, cost, etc. However, we postponed further debate when Tom told us that Board has been discussing it. So we wait for the Board decision on it first

2. School Uniform
Once again this long-discussed topic has been brought over. There was a good debate from new Parents in favor of Uniforms. As usual there was mixed reaction in the room on this. So we decided to run a survey on this subject to know the latest interest of Parents.
Action: Rao,Bhava

3. School Logo
Since the holiday season is complete, we would send letters to Parents this week to submit their entries by 8th March. The competition would be held on 27th to select a possible winner from the submissions
Action: Olga,Rao

4. Collection for Haiti Earthquake

To support Haiti Earthquake relief efforts, we thought of collecting money from the community. We'll put donation appeal in and around Adamstown for the collection. The amount would be sent through a most trusted channel.

Action: Aminat would initiate with letter and everyone can give helping hand.

5. Fund raising for School Library:

Since we don't have a dedicated Library in the School, we want to raise funds for it from external sources. To start with we thought of doing Bag Packing at large super market(s). We need to get approval from BoM before we start fund raising.

Actions: Rao to write to BoM and Barbara to contact Supermarkets (and other logistics)

Next meeting will be on March 4th at 7:30 pm. Bookmark your calender accordingly.

Thanks
- Rao
On behalf of PA