New Ark AGM 9 July 5-7pm

Invitation to New Ark AGM

The New Ark Trustee Board would like to invite you to attend New Ark Play Association’s Annual General Meeting on Thursday 9th July 5pm – 7pm.
New Ark Resource Centre
Hill Close
Off Reeves Way
Eastfield
Peterborough PE1 5LZ

Tea, coffee and a light buffet will be served.  Please ring to reserve a place.

We are offering childcare for your children if you wish to attend our AGM. To book a place for your children please contact David Musson on 01733 340605 or dave@newarkgmail.com

Download an agenda and nomination form, and please do feel free to contact us in advance if you have any questions.

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Register for holiday playground sessions

Avoid the queues on the first few days of the summer holidays by registering for the new playground holiday year before Friday 17th July.

You will need to complete a new registration form 2015-16.

Remember that we offer additional childcare to fully registered children during school holidays from 8.30am to 6pm Monday-Friday.

Full details of our holiday playground sessions including pricing details are here

register now playground

Midsummer Festival 20 June 2015

Saturday 20 June 2015 11am-3pm

Our annual summer fete has a festival feel with entertainment, hot food and more. Our city farm, adventure playground and eco garden will all be open. There will be lots of fundraising games, crafts, our summer raffle and lots more. Entry by silver donation.

  • Magic show by Keith Down from Party Magic at 12 noon and 1.30pm
  • Drummers from the African Heritage Centre are running children’s workshops
  • A bouncy castle and ice cream van will be on site, donating a percentage of their profits to us
  • Other activities including face painting, environmental crafts, tombola
  • Summer raffle will be drawn – first prize is a Samsung Tablet
  • Our city farm will be open. Children can play freely in our adventure playground and eco garden
  • Refreshments such as hot and cold drinks, biscuits, burgers and hot dogs, homemade cakes

If you can volunteer to help, donate prizes/food, or do anything else to help us fundraise, please contact Charlotte on 01733 340605

 summer festival 2015 poster

Baby, toddler & child – Preloved Sale

Please note that we have cancelled our future Preloved sales.

Thank you to everyone who has helped to support them so far – we are glad we tried them and we raised a decent amount for our charity, but unfortunately it appears that we don’t have the audience to run the sales regularly.

 

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• Free parking. Open between 11am-1pm
• Buy preloved good quality clothes and equipment at bargain prices for your family.
• Refreshments available, sold in aid of New Ark
• Cash only sale

BOOK A STALL…
• To book a stall telephone 01733 340605 or email fundraising.newark@gmail.com
• A minimum donation of £5 is payable to New Ark to secure your stall.
• All stalls to be pre-booked and paid for in advance
• Set up time is 10-11am only
• You will be given a table to display items on. You may also bring a clothes rails or blanket/sheet to display extra items on the floor

DONATE YOUR ITEMS
• At these events New Ark will be holding their own stall selling donated items.
• All money raised will be spent on buying new equipment and toys for New Ark.

Christmas activities and opening

Attention holiday playground members! Over Christmas/New Year we are running playground holiday sessions on three days only: Monday 22 December, Tuesday 23 December and Monday 5 January. Session times are 10am-12noon and 2-5pm. As usual, fully registered members may book additional childcare between 8.30-10am, 12-2pm and 5-6pm (NB on 23rd December we close at 5pm).

Christmas celebration on 23 December

On Tuesday 23 December we will be celebrating Christmas with hot chocolate and cakes around a fire in our adventure playground. We would be grateful if parents could donate food for this event. Also please note that we close at 5pm on this day – there is no additional childcare available between 5-6pm on Tuesday 23 December.

Closed on 2 January

We have decided to stay closed to the public on Monday 2 January 2015 while we clear out our long-neglected workshop area. If anyone is able to volunteer to help us from 11am onwards we would be very grateful – we regret that children are unable to come on site on this day, and our office will be closed.

Afterschool and playgroup term

Afterschool and playgroup term ends on Friday 19 December. The new term starts on Tuesday 6 January.  Afterschool parents please read our separate post about registering for spring term.

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Register for afterschool spring term

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If you want your child to come to our spring term afterschool sessions please do register them asap. This is especially important if you wish them to join the walkover from Newark Hill school on the first day of spring term. During the Christmas holidays our office is only open to accept bookings/payments on 22-23 December and 5 January. If you wish your child to be on the walkover on Tuesday 6 January, you must book them in with us by Monday 5 January 2015 so that we can ensure that we are adequately staffed for the following day.

There is no need to fill out another registration form if you are already registered for this year’s holiday or afterschool sessions – just see a staff member in the office. If you do need a registration form, please download one from www.newarkplay.co.uk/afterschool, along with copies of the walkover form for January if required.

Fundraising team meeting – 9 December

Want to help with fundraising?

We need people to join our fundraising team. Anyone interested is welcome to drop into our next fundraising meeting on Tuesday 9th December 4pm-5:30pm. Your children are welcome to play in our adventure playground, supervised by our playworkers, while you attend this meeting. Give Charlotte a call on 01733 340605 if you have any questions,  or email charlottenewark@gmail.com. We’ll bring the biscuits, you bring the ideas and offers of help! Items on the agenda include:

  • Ideas for fundraising to repair our playground equipment – we need to find £3K to repair our ‘banana board’ climbing frame.
  • Putting together a diary of fundraisers. So far we have pencilled in the following events:
    – Thursday 18th, Friday 19th and Saturday 20th December 2014 – Charity bucket collection at Peterborough Garden Park/Van Hague.
    – Saturday 7th February 2015 11-2pm – Mother and child table top sale
    – Friday 3rd April 2015, 11-3pm – Good Friday Easter Hunt
    – Saturday 20th June 2015, 12-4pm – Midsummer Festival
    – Saturday 28th November 2015, 1-3pm – Christmas Bazaar

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New doors thanks to Biffa award

Have you noticed the brand new UPVC doors in our main building? If not then here are some of our playgroup children showing how pleased they are now that the main playroom has been made warmer and safer by the new doors…

Children with Playroom Fire Exit Doors - After jpeg

The new doors have been installed thanks to a £7,440 grant from Biffa Award – a multi-million pound fund that helps to build communities and transform lives through awarding grants to community and environmental projects across the UK, as part of the Landfill Communities Fund (LCF).

As you may remember, last year we gained funding to improve our heating system, but the integrity of our external doors had also become compromised. Problems include poor insulation, reduced security and swelling in the rain – it made them difficult to open.

Charlotte Griggs, Operations Manager, New Ark Play Association Limited, said:

“The main New Ark building is 35 years old and over the past two years I have worked with organisations and local businesses to renovate the premises. The new doors will dramatically enhance the appearance, reduce heating costs, make the building more energy efficient and improve safety and security.”

Lisa Sachse, Parent/Committee Member, New Ark Play Association Limited, said:

“The new fire exit and external doors will create a safe environment for children to use, as the old doors are not practical and children struggle to open them. As the old doors have holes in them, it causes heat to escape out of the play room, but after the doors have been fitted this will no longer be a concern, creating a warm environment.”

Gillian French, Biffa Award Programme Manager, said:

“This work is an excellent example of how the Landfill Communities Fund can help improve facilities for the benefit of the local community. For more than 16 years community buildings across the UK have benefited from the scheme and the organisations that award grants through the fund look forward to supporting more in the future.”

Fundraise for us while you shop

Please help us fundraise this Christmas by doing your online Christmas shopping via easyfundraising. You raise a FREE donation each time you buy! It’s easy and won’t cost you a penny extra! Support us at http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/newark

We’ve found a great way to raise money for free, simply by shopping online through a website called easyfundraising (www.easyfundraising.org.uk).

Whenever you buy anything online (e.g. Christmas presents, groceries, clothes, books, train tickets, hotel rooms, etc.) you can raise a free donation for New Ark. There are over 2,700 retailers registered with the site, including Amazon, John Lewis, eBay and Tesco who will donate a percentage of what you spend to us to say thank you for shopping with them.

Here’s how it works:
1. Sign up – go to http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/newark and click on the button to sign up.
2. Shop – from the easyfundraising website, search for the retailer you’d like to shop with and click through to the retailer to make your purchase. This tells the retailer you came from easyfundraising. The price is exactly the same as if you’d visited the retailer directly.
3 .Get a donation – after you’ve made your purchase, the retailer will give you a cash reward that easyfundraising turn into a donation for Newark Play Association (our charity name).

No cost, no catch!

Please be assured that using the easyfundraising website will not cost you a penny. There are no catches or hidden charges and New Ark benefits from any donations you make once registered.

Thank you for your support.

easyfundraising xmas

New Ark alumni and reunion

Do you know someone who used to go to New Ark? Then forward them a link to this blog post!

We are planning an event for early 2015, possibly on Saturday February 14th, to which former and current users of New Ark will be invited. This will first and foremost be a reunion and family event. But we will also be asking for your ideas about how we can secure our future – finding funding to cover our running costs is getting more and more difficult.

Sign up for news

For now, please sign up on our website home page to receive our “reunions and alumni news” emails. Also please pass the word onto others who might wish to help.

If you want to get involved sooner, please call us on 01733 340605 and leave your contact details for Elisabeth Buck.

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