Welcome – Thanks to parents that have made the effort to attend

It gives me great pleasure to present the Chairpersons annual report to the parents - I really mean it when I say that it has been a pleasure being involved with the management of the school since you find that you actually don't have to do very much - Mr Robertson’s management team runs the place with the experience of age and the vigor of youth against a backdrop of a real feeling of ownership and pride in Scottburgh Primary.

The past year, the 86th of the schools existence, was one of what I would describe as steady progress. It was thankfully not disrupted by strikes and stayaways or world cups (the less said about the rugby world cup the better!) and this allowed the team to bring to fruition some plans that had been a while in the making.

The launch of our attractive and active webpage gave us a web presence and heralded our official arrival into the digital age. Special thanks for this go to Shawnette Togher and Rose Mason who put in the many hours required to achieve this. Whilst on the topic of  IT -   Shawnette has driven our strategic -    R 100 000 -  upgrade plan with a new server and a move towards thin clients which has tremendous advantages by allowing  changes to be done centrally and automatically rolled out to  all users. The computer burglary that we suffered in April allowed us to replace the stolen equipment with new technology thin clients and also resulted in an upgrade of the burglar bars - making our media centre that much more secure. Thanks are due to Scottnet and Simon especially. We now have 20 computers and are well on our way to reaching the target of 30 in the media centre - allowing each learner to operate on their own and making the experience that much more fulfilling.

Other projects completed this year were the installation of 2 new air cons for the grade 7's - the purchase of 400 new hall chairs - which you are currently enjoying - and the replacement of the tatty old stage and Hall curtains - which I'm sure you'll agree was worth while. New text books and readers worth another R 100 000 were also acquired - talk about balance - R 100 000 on traditional teaching technology and R 100 000 on computers!! - This brings the total directly spent on improvements to benefit our kids to over R 300 000 for the year.

On the sports field we had a fabulous year and whilst the school places more stead in ensuring broad based participation rather than the exceptional achievement of a select few - this year we have enjoyed both with our teams cleaning up in the cross country with a win in every age group - Beating arch rivals Suid Natal at Rugby and taking home 6/8 victrix ludorums at the interschool athletics. Cricket saw us victorious in the tournament in both U11 and U12 age groups. Special thanks go to Mr. Delport, Bryn and Joe Verster

With regard to the most important part of the business, the staff, we were very stable and were pleased to be able to employ Xanda Black as Grounds manager also doubling as sports facilitator as well as Molly Wortmann who assists in the media center - I want to take this opportunity to say a special thanks to all the staff on behalf of all of us parents - for your patience which we know from personal experience must be tested more regularly than we would care to imagine! I always find it interesting when talking to friends who live in the big cities and have the choice of numerous plush schools - when the gloss of the astro-turf field and the heated pool wears off - conversation quickly turns to teachers and suddenly Scottburgh competes and beats the best of them! Thanks to all of you for being the great dedicated educators that you are. Special thanks are also in order for the non academic staff especially Mandy and Rose who are the backbone of the Governing body and take care of all administrative issues.

Together with participation on the sports field we further aim to broaden the experiences by which the children’s characters develop and key to this is the excursions program which saw classes attending the spirit of adventure camp, a visit to the Sweetwater’s activity camp and the cultural trip to Babanago Valley. Most telling for me was to see the letters written to the school by the camp organisers who in every case commented on the high standards of discipline, courteous behaviour, participation and also teacher involvement. Tom - I have always believed that a school should be judged by its pupils and this tells me that you guys are getting it right! 

On a cultural level we saw a very slick and entertaining production taking us to a fantasy world and if you were at the shopping centre a few weeks ago you would have been treated to a lovely rendition by the school choir.

I remember being asked by my flying instructor if I knew what keeps an aircraft in the air and after a long technical description of wing profiles and pressure drops he interrupted me and said No Charles its Money!  - believe me Schools are just like aeroplanes! - Jon will take us through the financial details shortly but I want to briefly deal with some of the underlying thoughts.

Firstly I want to reassure you all that we are in a firm position – We as the GB are very aware of instances of mal-administration in other schools but have reviewed our processes and are very comfortable that good financial governance practices are in place to prevent these problems and look after our money. Having said that this year marks a turning point and rather than being able to supplement our reserve fund we are probably going to end on a slight loss - This doesn't pose an immediate concern since we do have the financial capacity to absorb this - talking about reserve funds I would like to clarify our position with regard to such a fund. Accusations have been leveled at well run schools that we are hoarding millions and they seem to imply that parents are being done down in some way or that the school and the GB's have some fraudulent intent.  In fact we do have millions - 1.8 to be precise in our reserve funds this has been accumulated over the 86 years that the school has operated and follows recommended best practice for non-profit organisations like ourselves to hold 6 months of expenses to ensure operation through difficult periods be they caused by fires, floods, theft of vehicles or even changes in the law.  The saved money levels our fairly erratic cash flows and allows us to embark on projects and take advantage of money saving offers -   interest from this fund also greatly assists our cash flow and helps the Budget.

You will also see from the budget that Jon is about to present that in order to balance the need of keeping the increases manageable in these difficult economic times - the fund is going to be drawn down next year.

On the brighter side of financial management I want to thank all of you as the parent body for a fantastic effort with fundraising income amounting to R 84 000 year to date. Off course this is largely due to the incredible drive of our very own Gail Armstrong who I believe hasn't finished milking us yet and will pursue her target of another R 30 000 vigorously watch this space for the grand jackpot... Thanks also to all of you parents who keep swiping the MySchool card - this has brought in just over R 10 000 this year!

As part of the greater community we remain aware of the needs around us and are proud to be able to have raised over R 27 000 for charities like the Cansa association and Feed the babies - thank you again to all of you that contributed so freely to these causes.

In closing I wish to thank each and every member of the GB who volunteered to give so much time and effort to our tasks each of you have been a real pleasure to work with.

Two of our members will be leaving us at the end of this year - Jon Browett and Roy Carty..

I'd like to thank Jon Browett especially - for his financial leadership – keeping the books balanced but also researching the best investment opportunities - I could think of no better person to be the custodian of my school fees.

Roy, Thanks for not letting anything go unchallenged and making sure that everyone is delivering.

Although he is not leaving - Thanks to Prem Singh for his rock solid legal advice in all matters from financial to public liability - we'd be lost without you Prem!

As for the school staff that served on the governing body Thanks as always to Jon and Mary Lindsay for your dedication towards improving the school on a daily basis To Shameen Pillay as educator’s rep your contributions were also greatly appreciated. Dewaal managed sport and extra murals as mentioned before he really got the results to speak for themselves. Also mentioned in previous dispatches Rose & Mandy our front office stalwarts and Jills of all trades from debt collection to nursing sisters (They alternate between breaking knees and fixing knees)

The resignation of Jon and Roy opens 2 vacancies on the GB until full elections are held in March or April next year opening an opportunity for us to co-opt members - We are desperately looking for parents that are interested and we are especially looking to try and improve our representivity by looking to include persons other than white males onto the GB.  I appeal to all of you please to consider taking up this challenge and even if you think of another parent who could be persuaded. It really is not very onerous and requires very little of your time - besides you get to spend at least one evening a term in the company of some really nice people - us!

Thank you all again for your many and varied contributions!