EDP evening at Kimbridge Barn

This is just a brief thank you to everyone for coming to Kimbridge last Saturday, and also an acknowledgement of the many of you who were with us in spirit even if you were unable to make the actual evening.

I am delighted to report that we have raised in excess of £23,000  from the evening’s events, and we would like to express our thanks to everyone who contributed in so many different ways.

Max and James, our doughty Auctioneers on the night, are due to visit the school during the week commencing 17th April.  Whilst there, they will be discussing the options with Peter Donkor with a view to acquiring the first bus, and we will report back on the website once we have news in this regard

We are also grateful to Max’s brother Tom, who is helping us to navigate the mysteries of website design and social media and, as Tom announced at the event last Saturday, we are now in a position  to start really promoting the pupil sponsorship programme.

You can sign up on the website to become a sponsor for a monthly contribution of £25 (£300 per annum) –  via Just Giving.  Each sponsor will be allocated one of our current students who will write to you via EDP UK at least twice a year,  with an update on their progress at the school.

We now have just under 80 students sponsored and with a population of 520 this year we still have some way to go! As an indication of the expenses involved in running the school, each student costs around £300 a year to finance in terms of the infrastructure and overheads; this excludes the general cost of staffing as the majority of the teachers and ancillary staff are financed by the Government, as part of our joint venture. This means we have to find around  £150,000 each year just to keep the school going. This excludes the swimming pool project which is funded by the Princess of Monaco Foundation (over 7,000 kids taught to swim so far!).

In addition to these running costs, over the past 12 years we have raised capital sums of over £1.5 million to fund the development of the infrastructure. Thankfully this is now mainly complete, although there are some ongoing projects – such as the construction  of the Arts and Music Depts;  also the less glamorous reconstruction of the boys’ WC block!

So as you can see, if we could get the number of sponsored students up considerably to around 400, with the add-on of Gift Aid of around 25%, we should then be able to cover the ongoing costs of the school and ensure its continuing success. If any of you are still minded to sponsor a student – or several! –  we would be very grateful for your generosity .

I know a number of you have now visited the school and it goes without staying that you are ALWAYS welcome to return. First-time visitors will be welcomed with open arms – seeing the school is believing!!

So, on behalf of the pupils of Awutu-Winton Senior High School a BIG THANK YOU to everyone for your past – and future – support!

Kind regards

David & the EDP Team