Hello Ross Road Parents,

The school year is drawing to a close and we’re looking back to see what we’ve accomplished in the past year!

The Ross Road PAC has had a busy and very successful year! We had several smaller fundraisers such as the ever-popular MjM Family Photo event, a Halloween costume sale, a Twitter workshop and the Park Royal Starry Nights event as well as our major fundraisers: the Christmas Craft Fair, the Spell-a-thon and our Wild, Wild West Spring Carnival just a few weeks ago (Yee-haw)! Our Food Day program was expanded and our valet service program is still going strong!

We raised $42,766 in the 2012-2013 school year, which is an amazing record! We’re proud to say that most of those funds were raised community-building while fundraising! Well done, Ross Road! The fantastic $14,000 earned at this year’s Spring Carnival got us off to a great start of our new fiscal year, which started June 1. We would like to extend a special THANK YOU to Sonia Han and her crew for this spectacular success!

So what have we spent money on this year? Here are some of the main items:

• Bike-to-School week events: Speaker Ryan Leech and Escape Bikes
• 6 laptops (so that our ‘new’ class set is now complete with 30 devices)
• A projector for PAC use
• Laptop + projector for the library + $2,700 extra for library books (Spell-a-thon proceeds)
• Our usual $3,000 donation to the school library
• Three fantastic musical performances at school assemblies (Bluesberries, Duffelbag Theatre and Tap Co.)
• IT Reserve Fund started with $8,000
• Saleema Noon Body Science workshops
• Classroom discretionary funds
• Emergency Preparedness
• Front garden beautification
• Grade 7 Farewell reception
• Up to $10,000 put aside for teachers’ wish list for 2013-2014 (Come vote for the particulars at the October 2013 PAC General Meeting!)

All in all, it’s been a great year! We would like to thank the parents at Ross Road for all their support, be it as volunteers or as participants in our events and activities. We would like to extend a special thank you to the class reps, who are such an important part of everything we do. We couldn’t put on events and activities without their help and we are hugely appreciative of their efforts!

What’s happening next year? A few things are on the calendar already:

• Family Photo days with MjM Studios on September 22 and 23rd.
• Brock Tully anti-bullying presentation (September 25)
• Young Actors’ Project workshops (November). All classes will participate in three drama workshops in French or English.
• Christmas Craft Fair and Spring Carnival: We’re still hoping to find volunteers to coordinate these events. No organizers, no events!
• Four musical performances for the students. We’ve increased our budget for this, so the students will experience four instead of three performances next year.
• Valet Service every school day morning (provided we continue to have enough parent and student volunteers)

We wish you all a wonderful, relaxing and safe summer! Looking forward to next year!

Ross Road PAC Executive Committee
rossroadpac@gmail.com