Hello from all of us at MASKK
As the financial year at MASKK comes close to an end we have been reviewing our business plan, risk assessments and working towards becoming more sustainable to allow us to continue to support local families. In particular developing our offer of affordable after school and holiday childcare to support people in work or training.
In 2019 we were able to keep our fees at the same price as previous years, despite increasing costs to us, with only some changes made to cancelation and late fees. We were grateful to find some of you helped us by including the £2 voluntary donation when booking.
However in 2020 the National Living Wage is due to raise again, jumping a further 6.2%. We hope this will be welcome news to some parents meaning your wages will be increasing, but as an organisation it means our overheads will also be increasing. In period 2019-2020 our afterschool provision continued to run at a slight loss, thanks to donations and income from other projects we were able to break even, but unfortunately we are not in a position to enable this loss to continue.
We have also spent the last year listening to children and parents, you might have been one of the parents interviewed by Students helping us from the University of Sheffield, and to implement some of your great ideas to improve our quality further will require investment. For example many of you have fed back that because we work part time we are not responding to messages about your childcare needs until after 1pm, therefore we intend to increase the hours of staff to ensure messages are handled earlier, as well as using this time to plan for more interesting and engaging activities.
To check you are receiving all the support towards fees you are entitled to please visit https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/. Remember if you are receiving Housing Benefit from Sheffield City Council please tell them about your childcare costs, including showing them receipts.
If you are worried about your fees or have any questions please contact us, email craigjudson@maskk.org.uk or call the office on 01142395739 to speak to myself or Joanna.
These new fees still rely on us subsidising other costs, such as the back of house functions including management, training, development, resources and activities. To help us raise these costs without increasing fees further we have further developed a business support package and from April hope to gain more support from local businesses. For more information download our brief supporters info here. If you work for a business, or run one, perhaps you could share it with the management/owners.
Or perhaps you feel you are in a position to support us with a one-off or monthly donation? If so we use PayPal to securely collect our donations with no costs to you or us. Click here to visit their website and set up your donation.
We are also on Facebook Donate through their Causes, again at no cost to you or us, you can use this to create your own fundraiser page or event, for example get everyone at your workplace to wear a mask for MASKK and donation £1 each. All money raised supports our ongoing aims and supports local families.
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