Our 2017 summer holiday sessions are aimed at school-aged children and will be running Monday-Friday from Monday 24th July until Friday 1st September. We will be closed on Monday 28th August for the bank holiday.

Our theme for play sessions during the summer holidays is Around the World – Families and Cultures. As part of this we will be making culture boxes and focusing on the following:
Week 1 Great Britain
Week 2 Eastern European
Week 3 France
Week 4 Asia
Week 5 Africa
Week 6 All countries

Some of the regular activities we have planned include fabric painting to make bunting, cooking in the kitchen, den building, cooking dampers on an outdoor fire, icing biscuits, water play and making finger puppets.  Our adventure playground and city farm will also be open daily.

We will be having drop in workshops to design and make a mosaic coaster, do food tastings, and paint using spices.

And we are also holding more of our popular Eco Sessions on the following dates 9.30-12 noon. Cost is £3 per session if registered with New Ark, or £5 as a one off.
Tuesday 25 July
Thursday 27th July
Tuesday 8th August
Thursday 10th August
Tuesday 15th August
Thursday 17th August
Tuesday 22nd August
Thursday 24th August

If your child is particularly keen to attend any of these activities, please speak to a member of staff to book onto them/find out when they are running.

To find out more about our school holiday play sessions and childcare, see here

 

This letter is currently being given out to parents who use our playground holiday sessions. For further details of our playground holiday registrations please see here, or for one-off visits during school holidays see here.

 

June 2017

Dear parents

Our funding continues to reduce, but we still have to pay more for materials, running costs, and maintaining our building which is now over 40 years old.

We have made the decision to make changes to our holiday registration and charges to suit parents working patterns and to make ends meet.

After talking to parents and understanding their needs for childcare, below are the changes to our registrations. Registration 1 is similar to our existing price structure with slight registration price increases; Registration 2 is new.

Registration 1

• A termly registration fee, which varies depending on time of year/number of children in family.
• This option allows the registered children to attend between the hours of 10am-12pm and 2-5pm, on days when our school holiday sessions and after school sessions are running.
• Any wrap around care is still charged at £4 per hour/per child.

Registration 2

• A one-off admin fee of £10 per family, which covers the year July 2017-July 2018.
• Half day sessions costing £10 per child per session, covering either 8.30am-1pm or 1pm- 5.30pm.
• All day sessions costing £18 per child per day, covering 8.30am-5.30pm.

All of our sessions will have to be pre booked a week in advance (not on the day) as we need to make sure enough staff are working to cover the ratio of children. We will give a week’s grace for those parents who have not had communication with us before the summer break.

There will be NO refunds for places that have been pre-booked, if cancelled.

All of our playground holiday session prices are summarised on the attached page. If you have any queries please do contact us by telephone on 01733 340605. We ask for your patience while we implement the new admin processes associated with this change.

We hope that you understand why we have had to make this change. If our fees prevent your family from accessing New Ark please do talk to a manager in confidence.

We are grateful for your continued support.

Staff and trustees of New Ark

Masquerade Ball by Vixstar Events

The Masquerade Charity Ball will be hosted by Vixstar Events at the Holiday Inn West in Peterborough on Saturday 30th September, in aid of Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) Disease and New Ark Play Association.

 

Tickets cost £45 each, or £400 per table of 10 seats. Local businesses and organisations can sponsor a table and receive further discounts.
* Arrival Drinks
* Music
* Photographer
* Charity Auction
* 3 Course Dinner
* Prizes to be Won
* Sweet Cart

Full event information www.vixstar.net

To reserve your tickets, please contact Charlotte at New Ark on 01733 340605 or message through Facebook www.facebook.com/newarkplay.

Vixstar Events is a small group of volunteers who organise events and activities where all profits go to charity. 100% of the proceeds for this event will be split equally between VHL and New Ark Play.

The New Ark Trustee Board would like to invite you to attend New Ark Play Association’s Annual General Meeting at 6pm Wednesday 12th July 2017. Please ring to let us know that you are coming.

Do you have a passion for children’s play? Would you like to see New Ark stay open and accessible to all in the future? Would you like to help a charity organisation that has worked with children and their families for over 40 years?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, please come and have your say at our AGM. Refreshments and cakes will be provided and the AGM should last for about an hour.

We are also seeking people to join our Management Committee team, which directs the future of New Ark. We ask you to commit 1-2 hours each week to fit around your personal commitments, plus attend our monthly Committee Meeting. If you have a little more time to spare then you can also work on some of our development/planning projects and/or help out at our occasional fundraising events.

What you can gain from being part of the New Ark Management Committee:

• Learn skills: Management, Finance, Childcare, Farm, Funding and Fundraising.
• Gain experience to add to your CV, increasing your job prospects.
• Socialise and work with like-minded people.
• Help direct how New Ark develops in the future.

Roles we are currently recruiting for:

• Funding/Fundraising – planning and organising to help New Ark.
• General Committee Members – helping to make informed decisions at monthly meetings.

Give us a ring if you are interested in joining – you are very welcome to attend a committee meeting before the AGM to see if it’s for you.

For more information, please speak to a manager at New Ark.
Newark Play Association Ltd
Hill Close
Peterborough
PE1 5LZ
Registered charity: 1026751

Now an annual event, our Good Friday Easter Hunt is on Friday 14 April 2017 from 11am-2pm.

There will be all the usual fun including a raffle, tombola, hot & cold refreshments and children’s activities. You can also visit our city farm which opens at noon, and play in the adventure playground with our new trim trail.

Entry is £1.50 per child to include the Easter hunt. Parents and others gain entry by silver donation. There is no need to book – just turn up on the day and every child participating in the Easter Hunt will gain a prize. Everyone is welcome whether or not they are currently registered at New Ark 🙂

If you can help out on the day, donate raffle prizes or home-baked goodies, please contact Charlotte on 01733 340605 or drop off items at New Ark anytime Monday to Friday between 8.30m and 5.30pm.

To help with our fundraising we are particularly looking for donations of:
– Raffle prizes eg bottle of wine/alcohol, cuddly toy, vouchers of any kind, toys.
– Tombola prizes e.g. hand soap, toys, toiletry sets, unwanted gifts, stationary, reading books
– Easter chocolate – Easter eggs, chocolate bunnies, mini eggs
– Boxes of chocolates, sharing bags of chocolates
Thank you for your support

PS Another way to help is to share this page on social media, or print out the below image as a poster and put it up where families will see it.

Have you seen New Ark’s advert in the autumn edition of Term Times Family Magazine? Please like and share it on Facebook.

Come and like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/NewArkPlay. Some of the highlights that we have posted on Facebook recently include:

News of our new mud play area

Details of our Half Term activities

Ways that you can support our fundraising efforts

Craft ideas

News about activities for younger children

Our monthly Nature and Nurture Café is an exciting new project for all families to attend FREE which uses books and play to support children’s learning and education. First we tell a story in a sociable group setting, and then we lay on some activities which are based around the story. We also give parents useful information to take home.

In our first Café we used our farm building to tell the story of Mrs Wishy Washy. Then we played with farm animals and Goop, followed by water play to wash them.  We gave information to parents to take away around hand wash and importance of hygiene.

Thanks to our volunteers Sarah Guest and Laura Anderson for your time in making this event successful.

Our next Nature and Nurture Café is on Wednesday 23^rd November and our story will be Elmer and The Lost Teddy. We are asking the children to bring in a bedtime teddy to hide in our Eco garden, and will be giving information to parents around routines of bedtimes.

Places are limited. For future dates or to book a place please contact laura_newark@hotmail.com or call Nikki on 01733 340605.

We are proud to be part of the Cafés for All project, providing an informal, sociable setting where families learn and share knowledge, information and skills. For more information about the project see http://www.cafesforall.org.uk/