CMS Parents and Friends Association Inc.
The role of the Parents & Friends Association (P&F) at Caboolture Montessori School is to share in the school’s vision by enabling the community to be involved with events and activities that support the school. It is part of the school’s mission to facilitate the involvement of class directors and students, but also significantly the parents, friends and larger community associated with the school. Therefore, the P&F association plays a strong role in realising this mission and vision of CMS.
2024 Term 3 News
Sports Day BBQ lunch – Friday, 13th September
Orders are now open on School24, and will close on Tuesday 10 September at 9pm. Staff parents, carers, siblings & spectators also welcome to order through School24. There will be very limited extras available for sale on the day, so to avoid disappointment please pre-order, if you can. Icys will also be available to pre order.
Volunteers needed from 9am to assist with BBQ set up and other duties. If you can assist please register on school24 or email us info@cmspandf.org.au
Reloved books
Thank you to our amazing community for their generosity to help make this event such a success!
We have received lots of feedback & are looking to hold this event again next year.
Father’s Day stall & raffle
Another wonderful stall with lots of lovely gifts & raffle prizes!
Thank you very much to all who generously donated prizes, made gifts for us to sell at the stall, and to those who volunteered on the day.
The children love to have the opportunity to choose their own special gift for their loved ones, and we are grateful we can provide them with some lovely options to choose from.
Christmas Market – Term 4
We are still seeking volunteers to help with the organising leading up to the event. Please email us if you can help in any capacity info@cmspandf.org.au
Feedback
Our community’s feedback is important to us. Please click here to complete a survey for Semester 1 of 2024. It only takes 2 minutes. We are accepting responses until Friday 26 August, the data will then be analysed & published.
General meeting
Join us for our Term 3 General Meeting on Thursday 1 August at 5:30 PM. The location is to be confirmed, & a virtual option will be available.
Please RSVP to us if you can attend in person or virtually
Containers for change
The P&F’s Containers for Change bin has been relocated to the carpark. We encourage you to place all eligible containers in the bin. Please do not use this bin for rubbish as it renders the whole bag as contaminated & we do not receive our refund.
Community Exchange Space
After recent changes & in response to feedback from our community, we are excited to announce we are setting up our Community Exchange Space cupboard in the admin building. Families can drop off & pick up items they are selling, gifting or swapping with other families using the cupboard we have provided.
We hope this space makes the process easier for the community & staff.
T&C’s will be located inside the door of the cupboard, please read before using.
Hair accessories
Term 3 orders close 9 August.
Visit school24 in the uniform portal to place your order.
Disco feedback response
We are heartened by the enthusiasm & community spirit shown by the recent petition regarding the Disco usually held in Term 3. It’s wonderful to see such passionate support & student activism for school events.
The P&F Committee is very small, with our General Meetings attended by the same half-dozen dedicated supporters. In 2022, the P&F was almost disbanded due to a lack of consistent leadership and Committee volunteers. Since then, our focus has been to stabilise & ensure that the events we run are sustainable & manageable, as we are all volunteering our limited time.
The Committee organises several events every Term to encourage community spirit and raise funds. We also rely heavily on a small core group of committed members to coordinate smaller events like the Bunnings BBQ & the Mothers’ & Fathers’ Day stalls. Despite the efforts of our coordinators, planning, organising & promoting these events still relies heavily on the Committee’s support.
At the beginning of the year, the Committee made the difficult decision to prioritise the Colour Run & pool our limited capacity into two new trial events requested by our community: a book-related & a Christmas event. To make this possible, we decided not to run the Disco this year.
While we understand the disappointment this decision has caused, this feedback highlights the importance of giving students a voice in the events we organise for their benefit. As a committee, we are committed to engaging students more consistently & their trial involvement was invaluable during the Colour Run. To this end, we will also seek feedback at the end of the year on what events should be prioritised in 2025.
We also encourage parents to support their children by volunteering. While we have many step up on event days, help is desperately needed on sub-committees for the organising & preparation stages. This early involvement is crucial to ensure our events can even take place & to avoid difficult choices based on the Committee’s limited resources.
Please reach out if you would like to offer your time & ideas to make our events bigger and better.
Community Cabinet discussion on CMS High School
At the recent Community Cabinet meeting on Bribie Island, Chelsea (P&F President) & Morgen (P&F Vice President) had the opportunity to briefly meet with Di Farmer, the Minister for Education, thanks to an invitation from our local State Member, Ali King. We discussed the need for a Montessori high school for our area with Minister Farmer, Michael De’Ath (Director General of the Department of Education), & two other politicians/support staff.
The Minister & her team offered some suggestions & have offered to use their contacts to help put our cause on the radar of key decision-makers. Ali King also provided tremendous support during the meeting. While this is a step in the right direction, there is still much work to be done. We plan to discuss these recommendations with the board to hopefully gain further traction & clarity on what is actually blocking us.
We understand that many of you are eager to see progress & we share your commitment. We will continue to push forward & keep you updated on any developments.
Thank you for your continued support & patience as we navigate this process together.
Warm regards,
The CMS P&F Committee
P&F Fundraising
The Association is actively involved in fundraising for the school. The P&F organises and administers raffles and funding initiatives throughout the year. It operates the Mother’s Day and Father’s Day Stalls. All funds raised are returned to the School to benefit students and to enable the school to be as progressive as possible in the region, state and countrywide.
Volunteering
Parents play a pivotal part in the CMS culture in connecting the school and students together. Caboolture Montessori School highly values our parent volunteers. The P&F association offers many opportunities for parents to become involved with their child’s school and education, such as helping out with school fundraising stalls and fundraising activities or even becoming involved in the management committee. Joining the Parents and Friends Association (P&F) is a great way to connect with other parents and to deepen friendships and acquaintances. It can serve as a medium to keep connected with the business world for many parents who are taking time out of their careers while children are young. It’s also serves to create vital social connections with the local community and get to know the operations of the school. Best of all it’s a vital way to support the students of Caboolture Montessori School.
If you are curious about becoming involved, CMS would sincerely appreciate your contribution and the P&F would be delighted to have you involved.
Please give us a call for a chat, so that we can pass you on any further information about the P&F. We are available at the School Office on 5495 5877 to answer any questions you might have.
2024 P&F - How to create a School24 account
To help manage volunteers and events, the P&F uses an external website called School24. This site is designed to help schools and their P&F teams and will enable you to do things such as place orders for food, purchase accessories, and also to register to volunteer for an event.
To access School24, just like most websites, you are required to create an account with a password. For this, you will need the school’s ID which is 25429963 and then you can simply set up your own student or parent profile with your name and details. The image adjacent will help you do this.
2024 P&F - Results of Survey
At the beginning of the term we requested feedback from the community to help us with our goals in 2024. Thank you very much to those who took part in the survey. Your feedback is instrumental in us improving and aligning with the community’s expectations. Please keep an eye out for future surveys to continue to help us grow and succeed.
