At Catholic Schools they are called the Parents & Friends (P&F) Association while State Schools are P&C's, at least in QLD.

I am the Treasurer of our P&F and it is difficult to get enough parents committed to coming to the monthly meetings. We have 4 people on the P&F (President, Vice-President, Treasurer and Secretary). We only have another 3 parents who turn up regularly to the meetings who had all held positions in the P&F in the past. It does seem to be the same parents who commit every year. We work closely with the Executive Committee at the school. In our case, that is the Principal and two Deputy Principals who attend every meeting.

Basically we are the fundraising arm of the school. Without the P&F, no fundraising can be done and all of the costs must be borne by the school usually funded via school fees. We do fundraising such as Rides Days, markets, sausage sizzles, family photo days etc. The money collected goes directly back to the school via buying iPads for every classroom, touch screen interactive whiteboards in every classroom etc. Our last donation to the school was to help fund the refurbishment of the play area for the Grades 2 to 4. The P&F donated $110,000 so the school could organise a smaller loan to fund the rest of the works. This amount took a few years to accumulate. Our next project is the play area for the Grades 5 and 6 plus the school façade.