Friends of Chestnut Grove (FoCG) is is a community made up of parents with children at Chestnut Grove, and teachers.

What we do: 

• Friends are parents, from across all year groups, and teachers who work together to communicate and help to support the school with fundraising, communications and community
• We provide opportunities for parents to meet and network with other parents
• We organise opportunities for parents to meet and network with other parents
• We organise and support a wide range of activities and events for parents and students
• The Friends also provide support for events and activities run by the school
• We use a variety of methods to raise money to fund facilities and trips for students

Events

We would love your help with suggesting, organising and volunteering at events. We want the events that the Friends put on a truly represent and celebrate all the wonderful diversity of Chestnut Grove and we would really love to hear your ideas. This could be anything from a food festival to a TV inspired games night, salsa dancing, Park Run take over or even a school bake off, you tell us what you want to see on the events calendar.

Please see contact information below.

Our school is at the centre of a vibrant community and it would be very helpful to the school if you could talk about us to your network of friends, family and contacts within the local area to gain support for our events. It would be amazing if we could get help from local businesses either through sponsorship or longer relationships e.g. estate agents, restaurants, shops etc. For small businesses it is great for them to speak to potential customers. For larger businesses like supermarkets they usually have a specific budget set aside for local community support.

It would be great if you could come and talk to the children about your interesting jobs and how you got to where you are in your careers or, if you have friends who are not parents but have an unusual career or exciting job think about asking them too. Are you in touch with any Chestnut Grove Alumni (like Adele?!) who would come back and talk to the children?

If it is possible at your work, would you be able to offer work experience or apprenticeships to a Chestnut Grove child? The teachers and careers department are keen to hear about any opportunities.

We regularly need home bakers and cooks - there are usually cakes sales, or food for events like International Day that need support from you, and we would like to see all the delicious recipes that you enjoy at home. It is something the children enjoy doing themselves too.

We always need to raise funds for equipment and trips so another way to do this is our raffles. If you can donate raffle prizes and buy raffle tickets that would be a great help.

Click here for events this term

Who are we? The FoCG Representatives

Current officers are:

• Jeremy Hackwell, Chair
• Debby Nelmes, Treasurer
• Matthew Cowley - Secretary

Committee

Meetings

We meet four to five times a year in the evenings at the school. Everyone is welcome.

View dates of meetings and agendas

Annual General Meeting (AGM)

Next meeting:

Minutes:

AGM Minutes - January 2023

We can also send you details of meetings by email if you give us your details. Subscribe to the mailing list here

What can I do?

There are lots of ways to get involved:

If you are able, please come along to a meeting and help us create a strong community for the school and raise awareness and support for school initiatives. We understand that everyone has busy lives so if you cannot make it to our meetings please do suggest ideas to the Friends by emailing ​friends@chestnutgrove.org.uk  at any time and we can make sure they get discussed at our meetings. If you are unable to join in person, we can send a Teams link. This should help if time, childcare or any other reason means you cannot attend the meeting at school. If you would like to be involved but time is an issue perhaps you can tell us what way you would like to help, we are keen to hear of anyway that parents would like to be included in our community of friends.

Get in touch

Email us at ​friends@chestnutgrove.org.uk

Social media is a great way to keep in touch as well so do join our Facebook Group: 'Friends of Chestnut Grove'