Yellowknife Day Care
Association
Executive Director’s
Report
1st Meeting Board of Directors
Jan. 25, 2012
Months in Review
December: - As
usual December was the most exciting month.
We wrote letters to Santa, practiced long and hard for the concert and
worked hard to decorate the place for Christmas. We also had our inspections from the Fire
Chief and Health Inspector but missed our ECE inspection. That was put off until next month.
January: - this
is the month when the decorations come down and the place looks a little
plain. This is also the month when we
typically spend more time inside. Our
small dance class and gymnastics class has begun and so far the children are
enjoying them. January is also a busy
month in regard to our finances as well, with budget work and the beginning work to get ready for our yearly audit.
Audit
Mr. Charles
Jeffery will be doing our audit for the third year. The work takes about six weeks and must be
complete for our AGM in May. My
pre-audit work has begun, but I must fit it in around the job of getting parent
Tax Receipts and staff T4’s, done as well.
Fundraising
At the request
of many parents, the Board changed over from selling “items” to doing “projects”
such as grocery bagging for 2011. This
year, our fundraising dollars fell far below any other year in last several
years. The Board, and our parents, may
have to reconsider the “selling” aspect of our fundraising. I know that lots of parents don’t like to
sell, but with the plan to upgrade our yards, we must be able to generate more
money this year than in 2011. Perhaps, a
combination of both, if possible, would be more accepted by our parents
Sleep Over
This year marked
another successful sleep over with no panic calls for parent pick up or upset
children in the night. Although we had a
smaller number of older children this year, the toddler section was almost
bulging. As usual though, everyone was
up, dressed, packed up and fed but about 8:30 and pickups started about
9:00. It seemed everyone had a fun time,
including the staff members who joined us.
Christmas
Concert
This was the
second year of the new format of “mini” concerts. It seemed to work out well although I did not
get much feedback from parents as to whether they like it better than one large
concert at a bigger venue. It means a
lot of movement around the building and being right on schedule, but it is also
easier for parents to focus on their own child in a smaller group. We also have less room to accommodate
extended family and siblings, but the short timing of the concerts makes being
somewhat “squished” OK.
Staff
In consideration
of lower numbers, our staff numbers has also decreased. Miss Suchi continues to do an excellent job in
our Cook position and with the departure of Miss Emily at the end of Dec., Miss
Carol has taken over that group. Miss
Gayla returned to us Jan. 3 and she and Miss Sol have traded classes for a few
months. Hopefully, we will fill our
empty spaces soon but in the meantime this is the very first time in the years
that I have been here that we have had to consider staff lay-offs.
Empty Spaces
For the first
time in about 8 years, we will have empty spaces in our 12 – 24 mo. old
groups. This has been a serious concern
for us and I will be recommending to the Board that we close 4 spaces until
Sept. 1, 2012. We also have 6 empty 3
year old spaces, consequently we have only one 3 year old group open at this
time. I have spoken to other day care
operators, and they too have lower than usual numbers in the 12 – 24 mo. and
three year old groups.
Month Ahead
For the
children, the month of Feb. is dominated by Valentine’s Day. They get busy making bags or boxes for the
Valentines they hope to get from their friends and on the other side, send
Valentines to their friends. Of course,
there are always the decorations to get ready and that is always a big
job. We will likely do the “Candy Gram”
again this year. This is when the
parents pay $1.00, as a fundraiser, to send a Valentine and heart shaped candy
to their child, child’s teacher, to other parents or anyone else chosen. Feb. is also the time for parent Tax
Receipts, which hopefully will be ready by mid Feb.