Metheringham Pre-School - Winter 2008

Metheringham Pre-School (formerly Playgroup) has been established for approximately 40 years and has always been housed in the Village Hall - I'm sure a number of people reading this article will have belonged to the group in their early years.

The group was started by a group of parents for children and their parents and its main aim is and always has been to provide a happy, secure learning environment for children where they can gain confidence, knowledge and socialise with others from the local community. Many friendships started at the Playgroup have endured the test of time.

The group has always joined in with community activities from the days of the Carnival Floats to the present day Fayre and Feast and continues to do so, helping to instil a sense of belonging from an early age.

Over the years the group has evolved and is now registered and inspected by Ofsted. At the last inspection in 2006 the Pre-School education was judged as outstanding and, at that time, was the first pre-school in Lincolnshire to achieve that standard.
The atmosphere is welcoming, the Staff and Committee are friendly, approachable and caring and their greatest wish is to help further the all-round development of happy, secure children.

The group is registered as a Charity with the main source of income being attendance fees. Although the groups finances are currently okay, because numbers of children have reduced and other costs have risen, over the last couple of years the financial position has started to deteriorate.

The Committee must raise more funds and needs the communities help with this. This will make sure that the group continues to provide an excellent standard of service for children in the local area and can continue to run in future years.
So far the plans include:
* Making a small increase in the feesin January (this won't affect thosewho are getting free nursery places)
* Doing more to advertise the Preschool for example in the MACLA Magazine
* More fund raising events such as asking for a contribution for relatives (other than parents) to attend the Christmas Nativity play
* Sponsorship from within the local community. for example, a Race Night in November hosted by the Star and Garter in Metheringham.

Please support the group. You may have ideas for raising funds, or know of people that would be prepared to sponsor the group, if so, let Anna Russel, the Pre-School leader know. Sponsorship can take different forms for example via donations, or providing raffle prizes etc.

The Committee's main job is to concentrate on raising funds for the Pre-School. We are only a very small group and few have children currently attending. We have 3 main meetings a year and the next one is Wednesday 28 January 2009, 8.00pm at the Star and Garter, Metheringham, please join us.

Pauline Moore - Chairperson