FOxHS - Senior
(Friends of Oxford High School)
FOxHS is Oxford High School’s Parent Association at the Senior School, responsible for fund-raising and providing social events for the whole school community. We are currently a committee of fifteen, 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 coming 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 started the academic year with the biggest event on our fund-raising calendar - 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 900 parents and children from both the Junior and Senior schools, and raising just under £4000 for the school. We have already confirmed Skyline for 5th November this year.
Each autumn 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 raised just under £500.
Our first event for this term is Bingo! on Friday 5th February. 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. This event usually raises somewhere in the region of £2000.
A new event for us this term is a talk by writer, broadcaster and garden designer, Jane Owen. Jane’s talk, Erotic Gardens, is being held at the senior school on Friday 12 March at 7.30pm. Please look out for more information and ticket order forms in INFO.
Quiz Night, an enjoyable battle of wits between teams of Governors, teachers, staff, girls and parents, is being held this year on Friday 23rd April. This evening is always great fun (usually selling out) and last year a team of teachers won the title ‘Brain of OHS’! We serve a hot supper 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 was £2100.00.
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 Worcester College - these gardens are absolutely stunning and we had a beautiful, warm evening to enjoy a glass of champagne on the terrace.
Although these will be the main fund-raising events for 2010, 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 alternate 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 £11,500.00 to the Annual Fund and helped to buy a harp for the orchestra, a keyboard lab (16 keyboards linked to new computers with Sibelius software for composition) and many other items from the Annual Fund wish list. A full list of purchases from funds raised by last year’s Annual Fund is on this website under About Us.
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 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/ E-Mail
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.