Monmouth Comprehensive School (MCS) are celebrating the exciting news that the National Lottery Community Fund Wales have awarded the Friends of Monmouth Comprehensive School £19,850 to help purchase equipment to increase their community engagement within Monmouthshire.

The charity has a small but dedicated team of skilled volunteers that, with a collaborative approach, organise and support many events for the community to engage in.  

The chair, Harriet Jones alongside Ceri Jones, and the MCS Friends committee worked closely with the School’s PEA Department Miss Ritter and Miss Pearce, students, SMT & Governors to see how we could work together to listen and support the community.  Determined to understand the best ways to do this the Friends sought views via a survey and informal discussions to help develop future plans.

The initial costs to organise events are normally reflected in the pre-purchase tickets, we wanted to explore other avenues in the hope to offer a more responsive approach for the community, this supported a NLCF bid.  It’s very difficult to organise events when there are 1700 students and families to cater for, but our research showed that families wanted to come together again.  Monmouth town is renowned for musical talents, Monmouth Festival, famous recording studios, Live on the Wye.  The school is also well known for the quality of its junior and senior productions, as well as its musical talent, which is often on show, but also fun events like Curry & Quiz, and Bingo, which brings the community together;  with these funds we will be in a position to open the doors to larger audiences without the need to hire expensive equipment. 

We are very fortunate to have been introduced to Matt Culpepper from Future Primate, who will be supporting the charity in the purchase and training of audio and lighting equipment. Matt has a wealth of knowledge in the industry and we are very excited to be working with him! 

Friends of Monmouth Comprehensive School has just appointed a new Chair, Abbe Opher and Vice Chair Emily Ryder -  ‘we are all very excited to begin planning the year, with these funds we will be in a position to 'dream bigger'!