Go to www.solarschools.net/profile.aspx for an update on exactly how much energy the solar panels at Bermagui Primary School are generating.
The Bermagui Pre-School 2008 Fundraising Committee was freshly formed in March 2008 and consisted of Sundaramani Fereti, Lisa Miller-Bradley and Lynda Cantrill. We were highly motivated and keen to help the Pre-School raise funds for one or more of the wish list items. We wanted a project that the whole of the Bermagui community could get behind, one that was visible to the community and one that the whole community would be proud of having helped achieve. So on the 5th of May we had our first meeting at the Horseshoe Bay Park and decided our focus would be the installation of solar panels and establishment of a community garden. The committee believed that the projects were both items that we felt strongly about, we thought the community felt strongly about, reflected current interests in conservation and provided great educational opportunities for the children of Bermagui.
We decided to start with raising funds for the Solar Panel Project. Sundaramani had the grand vision of an Auction. We set the date for June 14th and got to work on lobbying the community, and especially the business community for help.Sundaramani and Lisa were amazing in gaining donations of goods and services through face to face contact and Lynda sent out a letter to all the businesses around town offering a sponsorship place ranging from Bronze to Diamond depending on how much money was donated. We were overwhelmed to receive goods and services including kids toys, art work, dinner vouchers, meat tray voucher, baby sitting, massages, garden design advice, clothes, video conversion to DVD, a child size surfboard, natural soap baskets, a trailer load of firewood, electrical goods, gardening services, pottery, housecleaning services, pizza, wine & beer, belly dancing lessons, naturopathy consultation, wooden wall unit, accommodation, fishing rod, Pilates classes, plants, haircuts, a unique outdoor fire box, a handy man for a day and a slave for a day! Sponsorships also started coming in and we were amazed at the business’s generosity in donating cash. We knew we were onto a great project that everyone wanted to see achieved.
We were also hugely supported by many businesses with help with our printing costs, the delivery of our flyers, being able to put up notices in their windows and the biggest help from the Bermagui County Club who donated their auditorium on the night and provided complimentary glasses of champagne on arrival The pre school parents and their families helped with donations of goods and services as well and we had wonderful help with the delivery of our letter box flyer advertising the Auction. The CCG playgroup met one Wednesday and the parents took turns to keep the children playing while others raced around dropping off pamphlets by foot and by bike – I swear it was like an military exercise with colour coded maps and Sargent Lynda saying “just one more street, we can do it!” Other pre school parents took a street or two for us and special mention to Tanya who did all of Fairhaven in the rain after organising for her children to be minded and also to Narelle our pre school director who took on all of Beauty Point.
The night of the Auction arrived and we were very excited and nervous. We had Stu (a professional auctioneer in a past life) all ready. Lisa had rallied the pre school parents and organised hot snacks and nibbles which were set up in a bain-marie to one side. We had all our beautiful Auction items displayed, labelled with descriptions as necessary and given lot numbers. We had pre school parents and staff organised to be spotters, runners and cashier. We had even organised professional child care in the downstairs room at the club with Caro, one of our pre school teachers. We felt we had all bases covered. We just needed the people. Narelle was handing out the complimentary champagne tickets as people arrived and as the time for the Auction to start crept closer, we could see that the numbers were way down on the 150 that we were hoping for. Our hearts were sinking – all that effort and everyone’s donations were going to go too cheaply! We decided to wait another 15 minutes, give everyone another complimentary champagne and hope for a last minute flood of people.
After the allotted 15 minutes we decided that we couldn’t hold off any longer and decided to go ahead even though there were only about 40 people in the room!!WHAT A NIGHT!!!! Stu started with some warm up questions and jokes then we got into the bidding. He started everyone off slowly with a couple of kid’s toy packs, edging the bidding up by $2 lots. Lynda (who was displaying each item as it came up for bidding and calming her nerves with constant champagne!) was dismayed at such a low start but Stu knew exactly what he was doing and soon had the bidding flowing so well in between his jokes! We all ended up having a ball – the people were bidding against each other vying for these fantastic items. Stu made sure each item got good value for the solar panel project and also for the buyer so everyone was happy with the sale. A few items were so popular that the people asked for another one so they could bid on it again!
I had a big whiteboard up on the stage behind Stu and was doing a running total chart so everyone could see how much money we were raising. We started the night with the business sponsors that had already pledged money - $650, on the chart and went on to an amazing $4,400 by the end of the night. I tuned around to Vega and asked if the chart was right! Of course it was, Vega had done a great job of keeping track of the incoming bids and we had set a record breaking level of fundraising – Ya hooo! The total expenses for the Auction were $216 (which I thought was also a pretty great effort) so we had raised approx $4,200.
It was shortly after this event that Lynda brought the figures to the pre school committee stating that we shouldn’t mess around with a 1kW system which would only provide ¼ of our electricity usage; we should aim for the 2kW system and make a decent dent in our electricity bill. We only needed to raise $13,500 (only!!!!) and we could apply to the Govt for the other half to make up the $26,000 needed. The committee were convinced that this was a sound thing to do and the fundraising committee were still keen so we decided to go for it. Enter Prue Kelly. Prue had been at the Pre School’s Auction and was impressed by our efforts. Prue offered the fundraising committee the opportunity to join in with CEFE’s Fashion Parade fundraiser (to be held Sept 27th 2008) with the promise of a share in the proceeds along with the Bermagui Surf Life Saving Club.
The pre school fundraising committee, pre school parents and their families and the pre school staff all chipped in again and helped out where they could providing fashion models, silent auction item organisation, promotion, ticket selling, donation pick ups and being there on the day. It was a huge success for CEFE, raising about $3500. A CEFE meeting after the event decided to give $2200 of the proceeds to the pre school solar panel project and the remainder would complete a 1kW system for the surf live saving club with time still to raise funds for a 2kW system for them by the time the club was built. This brought the pre school solar panel project up to $6400 – getting closer!!!
Word was trickling out further about our project and the donations towards the project were still coming in. The Bermagui Garden Club sent a cheque through to CEFE as a donation to the pre school solar panel project. We were up to $6600. Amazing what word of mouth and community spirit can do. Enter Bill Southwood. Bill came on board with the project shortly after the fashion parade and was very excited and highly motivated to see it come to fruition. Bill had the idea of asking the BVSC to match the funds raised by the School in the same way they were doing for the surf live saving clubs in the area. Bill, with much persistence and tenacity and with BVSC conveniently coming into a community project grant from the federal govt, was successful in this request. By December 2008, BVSC had agreed to match our funds raised. Wow!! CEFE topped up the pre school fund to bring the total raised to $7000, BVSC would match this and the Federal Govt would give a grant for the other half needed to install a 2kW system. We just needed to organise tenders, paperwork, and cheques and we were there!!!
Bill with the help of Jo Lewis and Lynda put out requests for tenders to install the system on the pre school and the pre school committee decided on Origin as it’s installer as it offered a web based monitoring system that anyone in the community could log onto to see how much electricity the pre school is using and saving. They also agreed to our request for a child friendly, fully operational system to be installed on the cubby house so the kids can get a great understanding of how it all works. This has now been installed and we are so relieved that it has been completed successfully after soo many people have put in soo much effort. Well done to everyone and I look forward to driving past the Pre School every day and seeing those beautiful solar panels shining in the sun!!
Lynda Cantrill
PS. The fundraising committee also made great inroads into the community garden project. In June 2008 Lisa started the ball rolling again on this project by working out a budget required to set up the gardens and by applying for grants. Lisa and Narelle organised the pre school children to hold an art exhibition displayed in the windows of Horizon Credit Union. Using the winning picture from the fantastically professional art exhibition, Lisa organised and ran a pre school label Wine fundraiser. With huge help from Caleb Rose and the Country Club we have had great success, raising approx $800 and increasing awareness of the project.
In November Sundaramani created beautiful Christmas cards from the children’s art work as a fundraiser. These were hugely popular and Sundaramani and Lisa were very hard pressed to keep up with demand. This raised $275 and everyone was very impressed with their Christmas cards this year.
Also in November we held a Christmas Present Extravaganza raffle with big prizes including an accommodation package from the Anchorage and Bridge Motors, a Helicopter Joy flight from Sapphire Heli Services, an IGA hamper, massages, surfing lessons and a psychic reading. We raised another $918 towards the Community Garden project.
In January 2009 the fundraising dynamo team with much appreciated help from Marion van Delft, Kylie Rose and supportive partners catered at the Cobargo Movie Night. This was a lot of fun, a great learning experience and a good way to get the Pre School and our garden project promoted. We ended up breaking even financially on the night but had some left overs that we used at the seaside fair so made a profit in the end. Marion’s father has also been contributing to our fundraising by donating his Barrel-organ grinding proceeds from the local markets. Thank you very much Youst. So far, we have raised approximately $2000 for this project. Fantastic work everybody.
The 2008 fundraising team disbanded after the AGM held March 2009 however the Community Garden project is going ahead full steam with pre school staff and a new group of excited and keen pre school parents. Thanks very much.
