by Tina Farmer, Childcare Coordinator Winchelsea Occasional Care
We’ve had a few new families enrolling this past year as well as many of our regulars continuing to attend. All the children are settling in nicely and enjoying their time here. Our service provides quality care and learning for families around the Winchelsea and Moriac areas as well as Birregurra, Deans Marsh, Inverleigh and surrounds. The new Day care centre has now opened but there have been no significant changes to enrolments as yet.
As of the beginning of 2019 I officially began working as Childcare Coordinator. Sandra Dixon works as my assistant Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and Lisa Hodges as my assistant Thursday and Friday. We also have a number of other people available in our casual pool. Our volunteer Sheryl still comes in twice a week, which is very much appreciated as is our other volunteer Harry who often repairs toys and equipment and keeps the grass looking nice and trim.
This year we have opened for both weeks of the March and September school holidays, with reasonable attendances, families are very grateful for this service and often send their school age children as well. For the rest of the time attendances have been pretty good, though Monday is still our quietest day. Numbers can fluctuate due to a few different factors such as illnesses, trips away etc.
Our annual Christmas raffle was very successful raising over $700. We have also been extremely fortunate to receive 2 grants $1500 from Surf coast Shire and $500 from Bendigo Bank. The monies have been put to good use replacing broken equipment (round swing), buying new toys eg kitchen activity set, topping up our arts and craft supplies and installing artificial turf in a small area opposite the sandpit. This project was achieved with the help of parent volunteers, as was topping up the sandpit with new sand kindly donated to us by local business R.A.K Davis. In July we managed to purchase more arts and craft supplies as well as a couple of story books through the Woolworths Earn and Learn program. I am also organizing a small fundraiser in the next few weeks as well as our annual Christmas raffle later in the year.
I have been attending several network meetings throughout the year which has included liasing with other childcare coordinators and sharing ideas. I’ve also attended a couple of seminars covering topics such as “creating a healthy workplace” and “mandatory reporting of child abuse”.
I am thoroughly enjoying my time here as coordinator and I thank all those who have supported this service during the last year thus enabling us to continue to offer families quality child care in a nurturing and fun environment.
