2021 Gaming Grants Information

PACs and DPACs are reminded to apply online for Gaming Grants between April 1 - June 30, 2021 to receive Gaming Grant funding in Fall 2021 for the new school year. PACs and DPACs must apply annually to receive funding each year.

Similarly DPACs and PACs must report on the spending within 90 days of their own fiscal year end. All reports and applications are done online. See all details on the CGG website.

Community Gaming Grants revised and updated the 2021 PAC & DPAC Guidelines & Conditions. One of the biggest changes is that PACs can now use their Gaming funds to pay for their BCCPAC membership. DPACs are reminded that they can only use their Gaming funds to pay for their own individual DPAC membership with BCCPAC.

We partnered with Gaming branch staff to host a live 90 minute session to share the information including a Q&A session. IF you missed the session Thursday April 8 don't worry - its posted below on this page so you can listen to it all. It ran over 30 minutes as there were so many questions to be asked and answered! The presentation covers a program overview, revisions to the DPAC/PAC Guidelines and the Capital Project grant, advice and examples of eligible uses of PAC funding and commonly asked questions. 

Need Help? We strongly encourage you and your whole PAC/DPAC Executive team review these resources, especially the CGG presentation from April 8. It's hugely helpful.

BCCPAC Presentation Deck from April 8

Gaming Branch Presentation Deck from April 8

Recorded Presentation with Live Q&A from April 8 (runs 2hrs)(Q&A begins at 1:13 mark)

Q&A Document from Presentation

Read the Gaming Grants FAQ

Review the Gaming Grants Tutorials

FYI re Gaming Licenses (raffles etc)

All revenues from any gaming license must go into your gaming account. Section 3 on the Gaming Account Summary Report is where this would be reported. Licensing is entirely separate from Community Gaming Grants, however.

Member Feedback on Uses of CGG funding 2020-21

During December 2020, BCCPAC reached out to members for feedback about how they were spending their Gaming funds in the current pandemic influenced environment. The key themes of the member feedback is noted below and was shared by BCCPAC with CGG as a data point for development of the revised 2021 Guidelines. 

We are sharing the themes here as it may be beneficial to members to see what others are doing - lots of creative ideas!

• Allow PACS to use gaming to cover costs of BCCPAC membership, parent education, childcare for meetings, costs of running a PAC -photocopying etc.
• Our school cohorts are color coded with designated areas for play during lunch and recess. We have just purchased color coded outdoor equipment for each cohort. There won’t be any confusion on who’s is who’s. They will have more choices for play since not everyone is on the playground at the same time.
• Perhaps not quite in line with the purpose of the input, but apparently there is an appetite at both the MoE and Gaming (it would require the participation of both) to add/amend language that would offer brand new PACs an opportunity to not have to suffer the 1 year 'penalty' of waiting to apply for gaming funds. PACs are established by school Boards (they must be upon application under the School Act) and whereas other groups may have to establish some sense of history and/or longevity or the ability to maintain, PACs are by nature and legislation, 'permanent' and already 'established'. Gaming and the MoE would have to work together to make those revisions happen. I had started this conversation with them both some months ago, and then like many other things fell by the wayside.
• So far we have purchased grade 6 hoodies for their grad year, school wide gingerbread houses and supplies for a competition and a school treat at Xmas.
• We are having a mural painted in recognition of last years grade 7 class to beautify one of our school walls.
• We are looking at possible virtual STEAM learning activities or even some school yard enhancements...nothing yet.
• We are purchasing a gaga ball pit as our intermediate students(4/5) are only allowed on the field and where the basket ball hoops are so they have nothing to do.
• We are purchasing a GagaBall pit at one school and a walking track at the other. Trying to spruce up outdoor spaces that will help during and after the pandemic.
• We are purchasing concrete tables for outside at the middle school. Enough for a whole class.
• We are purchasing inclusive playground equipment to upgrade one of our playgrounds so it is inclusive to children with various disabilities. We decided on this before the pandemic and will use next years funds to complete.
• We are using funds to enhance our outdoor space use (concrete tables, recess play equipment).
• We are using some for a local Indigenous artist to come to the school and work with the children for artwork that will greet all visitors to the school.
• We brought small pumpkins to the children (no field trips to the patch). Big hit, so now we are getting small lemon cypress trees. We also used grant fund for bringing a speaker (on zoom) for workshop for the children and our librarian is looking into author visit (online). Will also use the fund for adding graphic novels/comics. magazines orders (among other books) to the library as these are popular among students and pricey.
• We have not utilized our gaming funds beyond bursaries and agendas this year however this thread has been extremely helpful and will be referenced at our meeting this week. Thank you
• We ordered all students and staff a school t-shirt.
• We purchased some new sports jerseys at the end of last school season but won’t be seeing them used for a while yet. Put some money towards a bin of sports equipment for each class to use during recess. We usually use it for transportation for field trips but that is not required this year. We do find the rules for spending the money restrictive
• We updated our first aid/emergency supplies
• We usually budget most of our gaming funds for busses on field trips. This year we moved some of the things we normally pay out of general funds to gaming; presentations (virtual this year) being the main one.
• Amounts are allocated for club supplies and equipment, tournaments and competitions, athletic equipment, workshops, awards, prizes, scholarships, food. We're still fundraising (via Purdys) mainly for our annual staff appreciation lunch.  At last count, we have 140 staff and with COVID restrictions, our previous home-cooked meals (ie last year's Butter Chicken lunch cooked by a few PAC Execs) most likely will be replaced by individual meals which will cost a lot more. Currently we're saving on the coffee/tea & treats offered at each meeting and the occasional desserts/appetizers mini buffet offered at special events (first/last meetings and the occasional holiday themed meetings).
• And I am a bit concerned now about the budgeting decision we made at the outset, which was largely mirrored on past years' practices.  We have planned to spend $2,500 on an all-school field trip (or else in-school cohort fun days, if the typical end of year off-site fun day isn't possible).  We have planned a further $2,000 for classroom / cohort field trips, and $500 for some kind of grade 5 grad celebration.  So far, for the classroom / cohort field trips envelope, one of the presentations where the nature society was going to come to the school was cancelled and no more are being scheduled right now.  We have a fairly unique and specific challenge at our school in that it has a very tiny footprint of land that actually belongs to the school district.  Our playground is on school property.  We badly need a new bike lock up, and a scooter lock up, but there's virtually nowhere to make permanent or semi-permanent installations like that on our own property.  Trying to work with the city to get amenities for the school community / community centre is fairly painful and slow, and it seems we can't pay for things that would be on city property.  Our swings were taken down three months ago due to a safety concern with the supporting structure and still haven't been fixed.  So some of the things a PAC might be able to just do using gaming grant money or our own fundraising amounts seem to be a bit more limited at our school.
• "In terms of this school year, we have voted on spending our gaming money on the following projects / activities: In terms of this school year, we have voted on spending our gaming money on the following projects / activities:
  • Athletics (registrations & equipment, etc)
  • Seaquaria Aquarium (kept in our science department & enjoyed by all students who (for some) stop by daily to check out the tank)
  • Earthquake supplies (food & water replenishment as it will expire at the end of this school year)
  • Performing Arts department awards & engraving of annual as well as new awards
  • Forgotten Lunch program (lunches & snacks provided to students who didn't bring anything for the day)
  • Breakfast Club program (breakfast supplied to students 2 days a week, delivered in a covid-friendly manner)
  • Student Book Club
  • Poetry / writing workshops
  • Waterloo Math Contests"
• This year has been challenging as to how we are able to spend it. We often spend gaming on educational presentations for students, Field trips for students, teachers clubs etc. Due to COVID these are not possible. We are looking at options for virtual presentations. Each year we put aside funds for playground improvements or purchases and hope to do the same this year. In January we hope to start a virtual coding club where we can help purchase whatever technology is required. Grade 7’s have faced the same challenges we’ve had raising funds so if needed we hope to assist them in their goal to make this graduating year a great one We also have a school name change and logo and will require new sports jerseys and if allowable will help the school pay for those. We also plan to help beautify the school with educational and inspirational sayings. We also use funds for our helping hands program for those kids that come to school with no meals or snacks. We’ll be sure that whatever we decide for this crazy year falls within the gaming grant eligible items.
• This is what we have decided to spend our funding on (student clubs, student athletic teams and supplies, guest speakers, outdoor education).  Every year we host a gaming presentation evening where staff can present requests for funding, this year we had them present via email and we followed up with questions to the staff as well as asked for clarification form gaming to make sure that the expense we weren't positive on were in fact eligible.