FOxHS - Senior
(Friends of Oxford High School)

FOxHS is Oxford High School’s Parent Association at the Senior Dept, responsible for fund-raising and providing social events for the whole school community. We are currently a committee of seventeen, including three staff representatives, and we meet twice per term to plan events and discuss ideas for marketing etc. Although we have a full committee for this year we are still looking for parents with new fund-raising ideas and for those who will help at events on an occasional basis.

We began this academic year with a new fund-raising project ‘Spring Bulbs’. Parents were invited to buy their bulbs from the school and FOxHS were able to retain just under 30% of each order. This was a great success for a new project, raising £370 in total, and we have already committed to ‘The Bulb Man’ for next autumn.

The biggest event on our fund-raising calendar is Fireworks! This is now an annual event where we serve home-made soup, bread, hot chocolate and mulled wine, followed by a truly amazing display from Skyline fireworks. This year the event was more successful than ever, being attended by over 850 parents and children from both the Junior and Senior departments. Figures aren’t yet finalised but, hopefully, we will have raised over £2500.00 for the Senior Dept Annual Fund.

During this term we also sell Northbrook Giftwrap. The Christmas and birthday wrapping paper from this company is always of excellent quality, with packs of inexpensive cards, tags, ribbon etc. This is an annual fund-raiser, requiring relatively little effort from the committee, and yet we retain 25% of all sales – this year we have raised £530.00

We will start the spring term with ‘Bingo Night!’ on February 8th. Another annual fund-raiser, this is a light-hearted event aimed mainly at girls and their parents in years 5 - 9. Last year we were completely sold out, with 22 tables filling the school hall, and we played numerous rounds of Bingo followed by a fish and chips supper. The event raised a total of £1750.00. Look out for orders forms as soon as we start back in January!

Quiz Night, an enjoyable battle of wits between teams of Governors, teachers, staff, girls and parents, will be on Friday 14th March. This evening is always great fun (usually selling out) and last year a team of parents won the title ‘Brain of OHS’! We serve a ploughman’s platter and wine and beer is sold throughout the evening – last year 120 people attended the event and we sold 78 bottles of wine! Last year’s profit, including money raised from the raffle, was £1500.00.

To open the summer term, we will be offering parents a Garden Tour of one of the Oxford colleges. Last year we hosted a tour of St Hugh’s - these gardens were in the process of being prepared and pampered for the National Gardens Scheme and we were invited to hold an evening tour followed by a champagne reception at the Principal’s Lodgings.

Although these will be the main fund-raising events for 2007/08, FOxHS will also run the second hand uniform shop throughout the year. The shop has been refurbished and continues to sell uniform at amazingly cheap prices. Parents can donate unwanted uniform and FOxHS recycles them effortlessly. Dates when the shop is open are always advertised in INFO (the school newsletter that is sent home to parents by email every other Friday),

FOxHS raises money specifically for the benefit of the girls. Without these funds the girls wouldn’t be able to have all those ‘extras’ that they desperately want. Last year we gave our profit of £9050.00 to the Annual Fund and helped transform the area behind the Art Faculty into a stunning garden, with a large wooden summerhouse which is now used to display sculptures and other artistic creations produced by the girls.

This year on the ‘wish list’ for the Annual Fund at the Senior Dept is the opportunity for us to buy and erect a large canopy over the outdoor chequerboard and patio to make a cool, shady area where the girls can relax at break times. This project, along with many others, is explained in detail in the Annual Fund literature and we will be concentrating all our fund-raising efforts this year on helping to make this happen.

We are always looking to raise the profile of FOxHS throughout the school: we advertise all events in INFO, we send emails directly to parents on the FOxHS class lists and we also send adverts home with the girls. Since last year we have started to advertise all FOxHS events on pink paper, so please read anything that’s pink!

If you would like to know more about the committee, or you have any fund-raising/ marketing ideas, please contact Daryl Back, Chair of FOxHS, on 01865 731445/ onefrom.theheart@virgin.net.

FOxHS Quiz Night – March 2008

   

This year the quiz was set by a team of teachers – Wendy Burdett, Mike Gallacher, Mari Girling and Jonathan Nicholl. Many people took part, including a team of the new prefects. The victorious team – The A-Team (A for Admin) – beat the teacher team by a very exciting ½ point! The team that came third was a parent team 13.5 points below.