By Lynne Roberjot

There is no doubt that 2020 has been an incredibly tough year for charities. The need for new and innovative fundraising ideas, which are safe and Covid-19 compliant, are essential.

Here at Lindfield Primary Academy PTA – a non-profit organisation run by parents and teachers of children at Lindfield Primary Academy – we consider ourselves a resilient and resourceful bunch.

In the last academic year, despite a global pandemic that shut down our school and saw the cancellation of planned events including the Summer Ball and Summer Fair, we raised £24,000. This followed a record-breaking £40,000 raised the year before.

These much-needed funds further enrich our children’s learning and environment. Recently, the PTA has helped to fund a Year 1 outdoor classroom and learning area, online subscriptions which have been invaluable in supporting home learning, booster groups and mountains of books.

New initiatives have included EasyFundraising and Amazon Smile, enabling families to gift donations to the PTA through their everyday online shopping. We have received generous one-off donations and the continued support of corporate sponsors, including Lloyds Bank.

Last month we held our first virtual PTA Annual General Meeting, with a significant uptake in attendance on the previous year. New committee members were voted in by the current committee, and heaps of new ideas proposed.

With current PTA Co-Chair’s – local businesswomen Anna Ashley and Rebecca Downie - stepping down after two successful years at the helm, we are delighted to welcome new Co-Chairs Victoria Tischendorf and Sharn Smith. Tasmin Broadstock adopts the role of Secretary, replacing Lynne Roberjot, while Treasurer Steve Hall and Vice-Chairs Carrie Faraday and Julia Barham-Wick continue with their roles.

While we are currently unable to run in-person events, including our much-loved and profitable Christmas Fair, we will be making Christmas special for the children and their families with some new and virtual festive fun!

We are incredibly lucky to have such an amazingly supportive school and local community. We thank everyone who continues to donate, volunteer, partner and support us and we wish our newest PTA committee an exciting (albeit unprecedented) fundraising year ahead!