From our CFO, Marina Cook

Tēnā koutou katoa

Finance 

We have at the time of writing had almost 85 per cent of all finance packs submitted – great work!

But as our audit date gets closer a gentle reminder for those Centres who haven’t completed their pack that our Group audit is creeping up fast and we can’t produce any of the accounts for audit until all our packs are complete.  It only takes a few minutes once your books are reconciled so please do it for the other Centres who are relying on you.

The pack can be found here: https://www.playcentre.org.nz/member/finance/finance-pack-2020/

And more information including FAQs can be found here: https://www.playcentre.org.nz/member_post/finance-update-4/

For extra support email [email protected]

Urgent Response Fund

About a month ago I made a submission to the Ministry of Education COVID Urgent Response Fund on behalf of all Centres to try to secure some much needed additional funding towards Centres’  staff/reliever costs for when qualification holding members can’t attend, as well as additional Centre support worker support and wellbeing resource packs for children who could not attend sessions.

I felt that if I could do one bulk submission it would save you all the added administration of gathering this information and submitting forms in your already stretched lives.

Sadly, the Ministry has informed us that they will not accept nationally prepared applications.

Your region will now send you some extra information to allow you to apply individually for anything you think you need from the list of items they are funding – there is $50 million to be allocated and it would be great for our Centres to get a share of it.

I have worked with the regional managers and a very helpful Ministry representative to create some really good support documents with suggested answers to make it as easy for you to fill in as possible. The application is actually really simple as it is just a survey monkey:

https://www.education.govt.nz/covid-19/urgent-response-fund

I really hope some of you are able to apply and be successful in obtaining a share of this funding – good luck and please get in touch with your regional team or myself if you need any support.

Property Update

This week we discussed as a property team how we could stretch our limited funds as much as possible and make the biggest impact for the largest number of Centres. One of the solutions is that we will be requesting those that can contribute more than 20 per cent to do so. Furthermore, we may not accept the full amount of the application if we feel that perhaps supporting a lesser amount to two Centres might be more beneficial than supporting 80 per cent to one Centre and rejecting another.

So please be aware that we may approve your application only in part, but in doing so we are able to provide more support to more Centres.

Bark and soft fill funding.

There has been a lot of misunderstanding over the past couple for years about what we will fund in terms of soft fill cover, including the previously mooted project to fully fund all Centres. This project never got past the initial information gathering phases when it became apparent that the average initial estimated cost of $400 per Centre was vastly inadequate as most quotes were coming in at more than 10 times that figure. This made the project unfeasible and as such was never signed off.

The current criteria only allow for soft fill to be covered in situations where lack of funding would result in closure through either licensing or financial issues if the Centre covered the cost themselves.
We will continue to try to apply a more timely, consistent and transparent approach to property funding approvals as we develop our processes this year.
Just a reminder the October round will be considered on this week and we have about $60,000 to $75,000 available to allocate this month as we were a bit under budget in September.

Ngā mihi nui
Marina