FOBS Blog

Four weeks down already!  Time is certainly flying this term.  Welcome to all our new families, we hope you and your children are settling in to Bowmansgreen and getting to grips with all that is going on.

The Friends of Bowmansgreen School (FOBS) is an independent charity set up to provide activities for the Bowmansgreen Community and to raise funds to advance the education of the pupils.

FOBS is co-ordinated by a group of trustees registered with the Charity Commission.  After over two years in post, three of our four trustees are stepping down at our Annual General Meeting on the 9th October.  This includes are Chair and Treasurer.  If you are interested in taking on the role of Trustee, please pass your details to the school office or email fobs@bowmansgreen.herts.sch.uk

There are lots of other ways you can help with our activities and fundraising and we have quite a busy term ahead.

Bag2school and Macmillan Coffee Morning

Our first fundraiser of the year, the Bag2school collection was held on Friday 27th September.  This is where we collect unwanted clothes and linens which are collected for reuse and recycling.  This was tied in with the school’s fundraiser for Macmillan as who doesn’t love a cup of coffee straight after drop off?  Thank you to our helpers and to everyone that donated a bag of clothes or cakes.  Despite the rain we collected 288kg which will be converted into cash for FOBS.

Autumn Disco

Tickets are on sale through School Gateway for our Autumn Discos on the 11th October 2024.  EY/KS 1 runs from 4-5pm with KS2 from 5.30pm – 6.30pm.  Tickets are £3 and include squash and biscuits, facepainting and glitter tattoos.  If you would like to help with the discos, please sign up on our volunteer link volunteersignup.org/Q4K3Q

Cauliflower Cards

Look out for Cauliflower Cards order form coming home with your child soon.  Every year, we arrange for children’s designs to be printed on Christmas Cards or Mugs which you can then order through the dedicated online portal.  Christmas designs need to be A4 in size.  Please read the guidance for the best results and to ensure that you don’t miss the deadlines.

Asda Cashpot for Schools

If you download the Asda Rewards App in the next 60 days and select Bowmansgreen under Cashpot for Schools, you will instantly raise money even if you don’t shop with Asda.  We will receive £1 for every new sign up! Easy!

Winter Fair

Our Winter Fair is an extremely popular local event but this can’t happen without a dedicated team to plan and organise the fair as well as people to help on the day.  Overall it takes about 70 volunteers – can you spare some time to help with the organisation?  Lots of help and guidance is available. Please sign up at volunteersignup.org/M99JJ

FOBS Colour Fun Run Blog

The children loved choosing gifts at the FOBS Mother’s Day sale last Friday; they were so polite and a joy to serve. This event is never run to be a big fundraiser, it’s so children can enjoy the independence of giving to their loved ones.  We were very fortunate that savvy purchasing from the FOBS team, and a generous donation of stock from B&Q, gave a £700 profit.  A special thank you to Danielle, Jade and Sabrina for their hard work sourcing and producing the gifts for the sale.
Please let us know if you can help with donations or sourcing products for our Father’s Day Sale in June.
FOBS COLOUR FUN RUN ON 23rd MARCH IS SELLING OUT FAST – ONLINE TICKET SALES CLOSE THIS SATURDAY (16/03) 
Ticket availability is currently:
11:20 Sensory Friendly – Spaces available
11:40 Spaces available
12:00 Limited spaces
12:20 Sold out
12:40 Sold out 
13:00 – NEWSFLASH new slot has been added due to high demand (final slot)
Please click to book your space now – https://www.pta-events.co.uk/fobsevents
Participants should wear a white top for maximum colour bursts, and sunglasses/goggles.

We are thrilled that Oliver & Akers Estate Agency are sponsoring the FOBS Colour Fun Run; their promotional boards have popped up in the village to advertise our event.  www.oliverandakers.com/

A huge shout out goes to our Colour Station sponsors, where participants will be showered with colourful eco-paint powder:
Colin Bailey Sports Therapy – http://www.colinbaileysportstherapy.co.uk
London Colney Football Club – https://www.londoncolneyfootballclub.com/
At arrival you will check in at the registration wristband station, so there’s no need to bring your paperwork.
Fun Runners will do a warm-up dance lead by Allie Park-Crowne from RedAlert PT.  The colour fun begins under the multi-coloured balloon arch .  The course is 250m with four different sets of obstacles; participants can go round as many times as they wish within their time slot.  Watch out for the four colour stations and water pistols along the course…you will get colourfully wet!  The SEN session will not have paint throwing or water pistols along the course.
The grand finale is the paint throwing station after the finish line.  This is where additional purchased powder can be thrown and runners can pose using the selfie photo frame for their Instagrammable moment.
Every entrant will be awarded with a FOBS Colour Fun Run 2024 Runners Medal.  We advise you to bring a towel so you can dry off after taking part.
On the main playground there will be lots to do.  DJ Jamie will be providing the entertainment and you can purchase:
  • Powder Paint Stall (one packet is included in your entry ticket)
  • Rainbow Raffle
  • Burger and Hot Dogs
  • Ice Creams
  • Face Painting
  • Candyfloss
We are still looking for volunteers, please register here to sign up for an hour or two.  https://volunteersignup.org/PY4D7
Please click on the link to check out our frequently asked questions file FOBS Colour Fun Run FAQS.pdf(Review) – Adobe cloud storage
Everyone is so excited to painting Bowmansgreen all the colours of the rainbow!

FOBS Blog

 

Last week was so much fun!

 

Year 5’s Leap Day event was a great success, with an impressive £465 raised for sports equipment.  Congratulations to Mia P (Y6) for guessing that the Bowmansgreen Bear was named Gracie.  Antonia (Rec) was the proud raffle winner of the signed Michael Morpurgo book.  The rest of the children were winners by having a yummy doughnut at school, happy days!

 

Year 5 loved running the Leap Day stall and games.  If any class groups would like to organise and run at stall at our summer event on Friday 7th June, please let FOBS know via the school office.

 

Crazy Hair Day on Friday was crazzzzzzy.  The children were rocking some really funky styles and colours.  The heavens opened at drop-off but that didn’t dampen spirits.  FOBS received many generous donations for the Colour Fun Run Rainbow Raffle, thank you.  Thanks also goes to our FOBS volunteers who collected the donations in the torrential rain.

 

This week is another exciting week with school running a book swap on Tuesday and World Book Day on Thursday.  FOBS’s Mother’s Day pop-up shop will be open during school time on Friday 8th March.  This is where the girls and boys can buy a little Mother’s Day gift for their loved ones.  Presents range from 50p to £3.00 and are gift wrapped with love.  This was a sell-out event last year – the children were empowered by choosing and spending their money on others.

 

FOBS Colour Fun Run 2024 takes place on Saturday 23rd March.  Bookings  are now open to the wider community and some slots have sold out.  Please secure your spot by purchasing a ticket as slots cannot be reserved without a ticket.   Ticket sales close on 16th March.  Our next blog will be all about the FOBS Colour Fun Run, so watch this space!

FOBS Blog

FOBS Blog: March Madness

FOBS have a jam-packed schedule of events coming up after the half term break.

29th Feb (timings tbc) – Leap Day Fun run by our Year 5 pupils and FOBS, including Donut sale, a chance to win a signed Michael Morpurgo book and Guess the Name of the Bear.

1st March – Crazy Hair Day
Children can wear their hair as crazily as they wish, in return for a raffle prize donation for our Rainbow Raffle Hampers. Each year has been awarded a hamper colour:

Reception – Pink
Year 1 – Red
Year 2 – Orange
Year 3 – Yellow
Year 4 – Green
Year 5 – Blue
Year 6 – Purple

The hampers will be raffled at the FOBS Colour Fun Run on 23rd March.

8th March – Mothers Day Sale, held during school time. The children can purchase gifts from as little as 50p to £3 for their loved ones. This event was so popular last year – we completely sold out.

23rd March – FOBS Colour Fun Run 2024 – Let’s paint Bowmansgreen all the colours of the rainbow!
This is a fabulous family friendly fun run, open to all your family and friends. Wear a white t-shirt and goggles and be prepared to be showered with colourful eco-friendly paint around the course.

Runners/walkers/joggers must be over 2, and children under 8 must be with a participating adult. Gates open at 10.45am with a sensory friendly run being the first race starting at 11.20am, and every 20 mins after that.

Tickets must be purchased in advance from – https://www.pta-events.co.uk/fobsevents
Book early to secure your required timeslot.

FOBS give a big thank you to our event sponsor Oliver & Akers Estate Agents, colour station sponsors Colin Bailey Sports Therapy, Busy Books, London Colney Football Club and Strive Drama. There will be stalls and an ice cream van to enjoy, as well as the Colour Fun Run.

FOBS Blog

Thank you to everyone who supported the bag2school clothing collection last Friday. We collected a staggering 460kg for reuse and recycling! Along with the pop-up coffee morning we raised an amazing £372 towards projects at school. Thank you once again to Mrs Stanley and Breakfast Club for hosting the coffee morning and to everyone who helped on the day or donated cakes.

At our meeting at the Colney Fox on the 23rd January we discussed our events for the term ahead and made plans for the rest of the school year.

On 9th February we will be holding our Glow Discos for KS1 4pm and KS2 at 5.30pm. We are encouraging the children to wear neon and glow-in-the-dark but all will have the opportunity for glow facepaint and tattoos and will receive a reusable glow ‘baton’. Squash and biscuits are included for the entry price of £4. Tickets are available through School Gateway with a ‘pay it forward’ option. If your family needs a free or discounted ticket, please ask at the school office. As always, we need volunteers to help with the event – please sign up at: volunteersignup.org/9MMPH

We’re pleased to announce the return of Crazy Hair Day on 16th February in return for a donation to our Rainbow Raffle – look out for a letter coming home with details of your year group ‘colour’.

Year 5 pupils in partnership with FOBS will be holding a Leap Day Sale on 29th February to raise money for new netball goal posts. This will include a donut sale, on the day raffle and more!

We will again be holding a Mother’s Day Sale in school time on 8th March which allows all the children to buy a present in secret! Gifts are priced between 50p and £3 so lots to choose from.

We are really excited to announce the first Bowmansgreen Colour Fun Run on 23rd March 2024 sponsored by Oliver & Akers. We are now open for entries through https://www.pta-events.co.uk/fobsevents Tickets are open to everyone so we look forward to seeing friends and families tackling the course and getting showered with paint!

FOBS AGM

FOBS had their Annual General Meeting at the Caledon Community Centre on Wednesday evening – thank you to everyone who came along. After the Chairperson’s and Treasurer’s reports were presented and approved, the FOBS attendees voted to adopt the PTFA model constitution from Parentkind. A constitution is a governing document that sets out the fundamental principles, practices, and purposes of a charity. The main change is that online meetings are allowed under the new constitution. A FOBS election process will be written to support this constitution.

Whilst all Bowmansgreen School parents and carers are automatically members of FOBS, the AGM voted to elect four trustees to formally manage the FOBS charity. Angela Duce (Chair), Danielle Sutton (Treasurer) and Liz Alderston (Trustee) were re-elected, and Abi Housley (Trustee) was newly elected. Sabrina Miller was co-opted as Events Coordinator. Sian Riches (Secretary) stepped down as a trustee. To succession plan for 2024/2025, FOBS member Lindsey Lee volunteered to work with the trustees to learn the roles.

The FOBS team are planning events and activities to give the children wonderful school memories. The Trustees will work closely with Ms Lippa and the new Head, Mrs Fleming, to spend the funds raised by FOBS on improving the playgrounds and supporting the Bowmansgreen pupils and staff where required.

Next FOBS events:

Fri 10th Nov 3pm Christmas Jumper Sale – KS1 Playground

Thurs 23rd Nov Non-school uniform day – for a donation for the bottle/chocolate tombola

Sat 25th Nov 11am-2pmFOBS Winter Fair Follow us on Facebook – Friends of Bowmansgreen School

FOBS Blog

The first Friends of Bowmansgreen School (FOBS) meeting of the new school year was held at the Colney Fox on Wednesday 20th September. There was a great turn out with new faces who came along to find out how to get involved in all our events or in the running of the charity.

The FOBS disco is back!  This extremely popular event returns on Friday 6th October at 4pm for Early Years and Key Stage 1 and at 5.30pm for Key Stage 2.  Tickets are available on the School Gateway priced at £3 which includes a drink and biscuit and face painting.  There is an option to ‘pay it forward’ if you would like to donate a ticket to someone else who may be struggling.  If you need a free or discounted ticket, please ask at the school office.  If you would like to volunteer to help please sign up at volunteersignup.org/AECQL

Bag2School collection bags have been sent home!  FOBS collects used clothes and linens through Bag2School which are converted to cash towards our fundraising.  For a full list of what we can collect go to https://bag2school.com/what-we-collect  Our next collection is on Friday 29th September.  Drop a bag at the mosaic between 8 and 9am then join Mrs Stanley at the Macmillan Coffee Morning for a hot drink and some cake!

Be our guest at the family trip to the Beauty and the Beast Pantomime at the Eric Morecambe Centre in Harpenden, on 16th December at 6pm.  Tickets cost £14 each (RRP £20) and are available from https://www.pta-events.co.uk/fobsevents Please note that this is not a school trip and all children must be accompanied by a paying adult.  No transport is included.  Ticket sales close on the 6th October.

We have started to plan our Winter Fair and need all the help we can get.  A planning meeting will be held on Wednesday 4th October at 7.30pm at the Colney Fox.  If you want to get involved then please come along!

Finally, our Annual General Meeting will be held on Wednesday 1st November 2023 at the Caledon Club in London Colney.  Further details will follow soon.

FOBS Blog

Hi everyone,
Like a phoenix rising from the flames, our resurrected FOBS has hit it’s first birthday!
Little did we know that a kick-off meeting, on a July summer’s evening at the Colney Fox, would result in an income in excess of £25,000 with circa £18,000 profit.  
It’s been a wonderful whirlwind of a year – we couldn’t have done it without a strong committee, passionate volunteers, fabulous children and supportive parents/carers and staff.  Thank you.
This year FOBS has funded:
  • Playground gym equipment (with a service contract)
  • Reading books
  • Coronation bookmarks
  • Y6 Leavers hoodies contribution
  • Reception PE bags
  • Toys and bicycles for Early Years
Ms Lippa, the teachers and the school groups (eco council, forest school, school council, breakfast club, sports teams etc) have been briefed on how to submit requests for FOBS for funding.  We are also having discussions with the school regarding larger projects.  When the heating engineers have finished their work, the builders will resurface the playgrounds.  FOBS will then be excited to get quotes for having the playground painted along with other enrichment playground activities for all year groups.
Here’s all the activities and events that took place:
  • Disco x 3
  • Winter Fair
  • Pantomime
  • Christmas cards & gifts (Cauliflower Cards)
  • Mother’s and Father’s Day sale
  • Circus Sensible and circus skills workshops
  • Face painting workshop
  • School lottery
  • Stickins school uniform labels
  • St Albans marathon marshalling
  • Coronation picnic
  • Legoland
  • Bag2School x 3
  • Coffee and cake mornings (during Bag2School)
  • Summer Fair
  • Big Clean Up x 2
FOBS are bursting with ideas for the new school year ahead.  The fun begins with our Family Mixer BBQ after school on Friday 8th Sept – all school families are welcome.  The more volunteers that we have, the more we can do, so if you would like to join the FOBS team, please drop us a message at fobs@bowmansgreen.herts.sch.uk.  Volunteers can be hands on or help out behind the scenes – we never say no to help…..plus we have A LOT OF FUN.
Lastly we bid a fond farewell the Y6-ers and some of their families that will be leaving Bowmansgreen this week – thank you, goodbye and good luck.
Let’s give our children another brilliant year at Bowmansgreen – happy holidays!
 
FOBS

FOBS Blog

We hope the children enjoyed selecting gifts for their loved ones at our Father’s Day sale.

The FOBS team have a jam-packed list of events planned for the last half of the summer term.  Here are the key dates of planned activities:

  • Wednesday 28th June 7.30pm – FOBS Summer Fair Meeting at the Colney Fox
  • Friday 30th June (Inset Day) – Legoland (ticket sales have closed – info for ticket holders will be sent out prior to 30th June)
  • Friday 7th July 3pm – The School Grounds Big Clean Up Part 1 – litter-picking, sweeping, washing and beautifying Bowmansgreen grounds
  • Saturday 8th July – 9am -The School Grounds Big Clean Up Part 2
  • Wednesday 12th July – Non-School Uniform Day in exchange for a bottle donation to our Summer Fair bottle tombola
  • Saturday 15th July 11am-3pm – FOBS Summer Fair sponsored by C J Smiths Builders

After a 4 year absence, our FOBS Summer Fair is back at Bowmansgreen!

We want to create incredible memories for our children, and the Summer Fair is shaping up to be out of this world! 

Of course we can only make this possible with the help of parents, staff, carers, family and friends.  The more volunteers that we have on the day, the more we can provide for the children Emoji.  Please sign-up to volunteer using this link, even if it’s just for a couple of hours volunteersignup.org/JMXHM

FOBS are collecting washed cuddly toys for the teddy tombola – please drop your donations at the school office.

Thank you for your continued support.

FOBS Blog

The FOBtastic School Disco is back on Friday 3rd February

Each ticket includes glitter tattoos/ neon face-painting, a biscuit and squash.