Please see our Catholic Life of the School page as well.

2024-2025

The Mini Vinnies have started off the school year by nominating a committee and creating a new action plan which can be found at the bottom of the page. The committee this year are Dosbarth St Gwynno and are supported by Mrs Houston and Miss Westgarth. We have lots of great ideas for this upcoming year! 

Autumn 2024

In the Autumn term the Mini Vinnies first event was to celebrate Harvest. We held an assembly for the whole school to invite the children to collect donations for the Harvest Festival. We collected all the food that was donated and we delivered it to the food bank in St Mark's Church. The people there were very grateful. We decided that we would try and help them during the school year. 

In October we were invited down to Nazareth House to spend some time with the residents. We met up with Emma who had organised an arts and crafts morning for us. We made some lovely Halloween and Autumn themed items. We had a lovely chat with the residents and we made some firm friends! We really enjoyed our visit..... So much so that we went back in December! 

In December we celebrated Christmas with our new friends at Nazareth House. We went down in our Christmas jumpers and sang a selection of Christmas carols. It was so nice to see everybody again and they were really pleased to see us. It put great big smiles not only on our faces but on the faces of all the people who we sang to! 

We noticed the weather was getting very cold in December and we needed to wrap up warm! We asked the parents for donations of coats and winter accessories that we could redistribute to those who needed it not only in our school but in the local area. We held a swap shop with the help of Mrs Tuff and we were really happy that we could not only help people who needed it but we are also learning to be sustainable by reusing items of clothing. 

                                                                   

 

Spring 2025

Spring has sprung and the Mini Vinnies are still busy thinking of ways that we can help the people in our community. We decided that we would make the school food bank collection point a real focus of our group. We are going to collect specific items each month and donate them to the food bank. We asked the parents of the children in our school to help and as always they were amazing! In February we are collecting toiletries to donate to the local food bank at St Mark's. We put a post out to the parents in January and by the time February started the food bank was already overflowing! We are excited that these donations are going to make a huge difference to members of the local community! 

                                                            

Nazareth House Visit April 2025 

We were kindly invited to Nazareth House to spend some time with the residents. The Mini Vinnies love going to see our friends there! We were excited to go and see them. Miss Chinnick took a group of us. When we were there, we had a lovely time chatting with the residents, making music, and playing games. We are so very lucky to be able to build friendships that span generations. We know that the residents really enjoy seeing us, and we help to brighten up their day! 

 

2023-2024

This year the Mini Vinnies have made a fantastic impact to our school community! We have an after school club currently running called the 'Community Action Group'. Having chosen our new representatives for the Senedd, (See Photo Gallery) we will work together to turn 'CONCERN INTO ACTION!'

Thank you for all the wonderful donations to our Harvest food bank collection. The Mini Vinnies presented a wonderful assembly to the school, and all the classes performed wonderful songs! (See photo gallery)

A few Mini Vinnies had a visit over to Nazareth House to complete some wonderful art activities with the residents there. They had a wonderful time and have created wonderful links with them! We have been invited back later in the year!

The Mini Vinnie's aims for the rest of the year are: 

• To continue to run a food bank from school. Any donations are greatly received.
• To visit Nazarth House to build our friendships with the residents
• To continue our penpal scheme with other care homes in Cardiff
• To maintain the school uniform swap shop
• To celebrate OddSocks Day- to promote positive relationships with others
• To promote Catholic Social Teaching within our school
• To fundraise for CAFOD

 

Big Step Campaign 2023
Please click here to the press release all about The Big Step Challenge!

Replies from companies on their use of Palm Oil

Campaign letters

The Mini Vinnies have been turning their concern into action! We have learnt about how the rainforest is being destroyed to get Palm Oil to go in everyday products. We learnt about an orangutan called Rang-Tan whose habitat was being destroyed by deforestation in the rainforest. We have now written campaign letters to the companies to let them know our concerns. 

Merit Assembly led by the Mini Vinnies

Every half term, the Mini Vinnies lead the Merit assembly to introduce the Virtues to the school. 

Mini Vinnie Harvest Assembly

Mini Vinnie Committee September 2022

Ribbons for Ukraine April 2022

Thank you so much to everyone who purchased a ribbon that the Year 3 Mini Vinnies made! We were able to raise £53.30!!!! Thank you so much for your generosity and we hope our donation will go towards helping those in need. Thank you!

Microbit PEACE computation project

Ribbons for Ukraine

Forget-Me-Not Prayers for those in conflict

Uniform Sort

Our Mini Vinnies decided that they wanted to help others by sorting out lots of the uniform and anything with no names on could be taken to help others who need more uniform!

Mini Vinnie Committee Members

Our Committee display in the hall and our letters to our Pen Pals in the Care homes.

“I really like being a Mini Vinnie because I want to make a change for the whole world and to be beside Jesus.  In my heart, I feel really proud of myself.”

Please take a look at these home- learning resources from the Mini Vinnies website: https://www.svp.org.uk/mini-vinnies

Mini Vinnies truly turn concern into action as they use the simple formula of ‘see, think, do’ to find people in need and help them. They might help by: 

• Writing cards for children in hospital
• Visiting local care homes to sing or play games with the residents
• Knitting scarves for the homeless
• Running food collections for a local foodbank

What do Mini Vinnies do?

See…

Education and awareness. Becoming aware of some of the community’s social ills and knowing that although the world is beautiful, there are always ways to make it a bit better. 

Think…

Formation. This a chance for Mini Vinnies to participate in spiritual activities, personal development and discussions, and to develop a real understanding of the world.

Do...

Community service and fundraising. ‘Doing’ means supporting the SSVP in its good works, and for the children to do something about the issues that they have seen, thought about or discussed.