1 year ago I took on the role of chairperson and the year has gone really fast.
Chris left us in a strong position financially and with a committee of 11 people, during the year Cathy and Lawrence stepped down from the committee due to new family commitments, congratulation and thank you to both of them for all they have done, especially Cathy as she has been on the committee for a number of years. This left us with a healthy committee of 9.
JUNE started straight in at the deep end, the 1st job was to arrange the camp, our biggest event. Everyone did their bit arranging food, setting up BBQ, cooking, and Tracy did a great job arranging some games for the children. Everyone pulled together including parents once we were at the campsite. The camp was well attended the weather was quite fair and the children spent lots of time in the pool.
AUGUST Denise organised a meal at the Fleur for Chris to say thank you for all he had done over the last 38 years,, the meal was attended by 9 committee members some current and some from the past making it a very pleasant evening.
SEPTEMBER Kayaking, we were very lucky with the weather, there was a large black cloud looming over the Island all day, I had many messages asking if the event was going ahead, but when we arrived in the afternoon the sun came out, a very light breeze, it was stunning. 32 people put their names down to come, most of these came. We marked this down as a definite event to repeat next year.
GHHA quiz night, GDCS committee members entered a team, we didn’t do too badly, ended up in the middle of the score board at the end of the night. We thought the event was very well organised and would recommend it to any keen quiz masters out there.
OCTOBER Halloween, we tried to organise a science party, there was not enough interest to hold our own party so we joined another session so we didn’t disappoint the children. 9 attended and made a good effort with costumes. I was away on holiday but was told the food and games were good as were the science experiments, it looked lots of fun from the pictures posted on Facebook.
NOVEMBER Healthspan kindly invited us to their bonfire party on 3rd November over 31 people attended. I thought it was a fairly small intimate party, we felt lucky to be invited. Food and fireworks were brilliant. Thank you to Tristan for the invitation.
Xmas Fayre Cathy came back briefly after a becoming a new mum to pretty much single handedly organise the fayre, plenty of offers of help on the from fellow committee members on the day. It’s an enjoyable day but hard work, we did lucky dip, reindeer food, balloons and Santa keys raising over £200.
DECEMBER busy month, Cathy kindly taught sign language to Christmas songs, a big hit for my family, we really enjoy this. 10 people came along, it’s a very relaxed fun atmosphere. We got to show off our talents to customers at the cafe @ Saumarez park.
Ice skating, we purchased a block of 30 tickets which went very quickly, very popular And luckily no broken bones :-)
After a brief rest in the new year.
MARCH Iris and Dora pottery painting we had 18 children and 10 adults attend it was great to give the children an opportunity to show off their artistic talents.
As well as the events there are lots of things going on behind the scenes, Elliot has been busy setting us up in google docs (and showing us how to use It) he has also set up a new email address. There has been lengthily discussions on new name/ logo for the charity. We have also had requests for equipment for children.
Looking forward to next year GDCS will turn 40!!! We will be working on new brochures continue to update our brand with a new web page.
To finish off thank you to all the parents for attending and bringing their children to the things we organise, and thank you to the committee for all their support over the last 12 months. Good team work.