Voluntary Contribution

Each year, the Brisbane State High School P&C Association promotes a Voluntary Contribution Appeal to raise a proportion of the funds we give to the school, all of which goes to benefit students.

With your ongoing support, these funds enable the P&C to provide valuable additional services to the school and all students, including those listed below.

Each year the P&C Association urges parents to help toward the Voluntary Contribution Appeal. In recent years the amount received has declined significantly so it has become even more important to manage the allocation of funds with care. Please help turn this trend around by considering making a contribution each year to this very worthwhile appeal.

You can donate to the Voluntary Contribution appeal online by following this link, or download the Voluntary Contribution Form here.

How funds are used

Some of the services your voluntary contributions enables include:

• funding the Student Personal Injury Insurance Scheme, a facility not covered by Education Queensland
• providing the Executive Principal with discretionary funding to assist disadvantaged families with school costs
• providing additional funding to the Resource Centre to maintain and expand resources, such as online journals and databases
• helping to say “fabulous work” and “thank you” by funding student and teacher excellence awards
• contributing to the cost of the school mini-bus, school vehicle and transportation expenses for school excursions and sport commitments, keeping the cost of bus hire for excursions to a reasonable level for families.

Previous projects

In recent years, P&C Association funds have:

• provided shade structures on the Vulture Street Campus
• fitted out the Performing Arts Complex (PAC)
• constructed the Vulture Street Canteen
• relocated the Uniform Shop into more convenient and spacious premises on the ground floor of E Block.

These improvements benefit all students and families at State High.

Principles for using funds

These Principles show transparently how the funds are used and how decisions are made to use the funds:

1. Funds are to be spent on items that benefit the whole school or a significant portion of the school community rather than a sectoral interest for which sub-committees exist. For example, the funds allocated to student injury insurance or student/teacher awards potentially benefit all students and families. Grey areas will be discussed and agreed by the P&C at meetings.
2. The Funds are not to be used for operational expenses of the P&C.
3. Where the funds are used to reimburse the school, the school must present an invoice or receipt clearly describing the purpose of the expenditure.
4. Expenditure of the funds must be agreed by the Executive and the general P&C at a meeting. This applies even to recurrent expenses such as annual accident insurance premiums.
5. The funds are to be kept in a separate, higher interest bearing, account to other general P&C operating accounts to avoid confusion with general operating cash flows.
6. The annual account balance and ways funds have been spent during the year will be reported to the P&C each year.
7. The balance of the fund may accumulate over years, or be reduced to zero as needs arise, but must be spent no later than 3 years from when they were originally collected.

The P&C Association extends an enormous thanks to all families and school community members who have supported the annual Voluntary Contribution Appeal.