Travis knows what it's like to be sitting around the local school council table and the benefits of grassroots funding programs like TIP.

Travis' daughter Jordan was a student at Apollo Parkways Primary School and a seat on the school council board was one way Travis participated in the local school community. As this year's TIP applications continue to come in, we asked Travis to share his thoughts with us about the importance of TIP.

I recently finished up a six-year stint as a School Councillor (five of those as School Council President).

Applying for grants can be a very time-consuming effort for the school and most of the time they are competing against a group of similar schools for funding. However, there's a certain amount of knowledge required to complete a grant application and you need to understand a bit more detail about the school (insurance cover, names, contacts etc.) in order to be successful. For this reason, it is generally allocated to a member of the office staff to draft on behalf of the Principal or School Council.

People don't generally understand that public schools aren't allocated additional funding from the government for essential things like shade sails, air conditioning for your gymnasium or simple upgrades to the grounds or toilet blocks from general wear and tear.

With the recent changes to overtime for public school teachers, principals are less likely to ask their staff to help out at events such as a family night or fair to help raise funds like they used to as they can't afford to do it anymore.

Bank First's TIP grants has provided that little bit extra for our schools for 30 years.