Ideas for PTFA fundraising

narabanekeater

Good luck
Im looking froeard to joining th Pta when my little girl starts school. Although when I said that aloud the other day I got weird looks.

funky-footprints

im avoiding the pta at my sons school its very very clicky, full of all the medic parents, they even have arranged drinkies for after the meeting to go and discuss the meeting in medic language, if you aint a medic you dont get invited, and your presence at pta meetings is not required. saying that thier nomination for chairman couldnt make the agm this year, it was assumed he would just get the position as no one would oppose it, on a spur of the moment decision another dad (not a medic utter scandal!!!) decided to go for it and all the other non medics present jumped at the chance to get him in, so its all about to change.

Mumstheword

I thought our pta was clicky, and felt very unwelcome for a long time, but persevered. As time went on and I spoke to people individually, it became apparent that one person was causing others, not just me, to feel that way. She has gone now, and we have a laugh at the meetings, and noone is afraid to make a suggestion any more!

We do an easter egg bingo, asking local companies and parents for donations. It's always a huge success.

Becles

funky-footprints wrote:

im avoiding the pta at my sons school its very very clicky,

Sounds like ours

A form went round to fill in to see what skills parents could offer that might be of use to the PTA/school. My b/f volunteered our mobile disco, and said we'd do all school discos free of charge.

They used our services in the summer when the disco they had booked dropped them in it at the last minute. Everyone gave us loads of postive feedback and asked if we could do more in the future.

We've been very hurt this term as they've had a family night with a disco and have childrens discos planned in December. They are paying an outside company to provide these, and we have no idea why we've had our free services snubbed

Savvy_Sue

jellyhead wrote:

an extra way of raising funds is to do a raffle at each event that's put on. if there are no prizes available our pta does a 50/50 raffle where half of the money raised is used as prize money and they keep the other half.
<snip>
some of us were discussing how xmas fetes aren't as much fun nowadays because they're just about buying things, and seeing santa. we all remember fondly the fetes we went to as kids, with games such as guess how many sweets are in the jar etc.
<snip>
i might be old fashioned but i think those kind of things make a fete more interesting.

The sad fact is that in my experience of school fundraising the things which make the most money are the raffle, the tombola, and anything like that. The games just don't rake it in in the same way. You need a mixture, but anyone looking objectively at which stalls made money last time will lean towards what made the most money!

When ideas were put forward that I wasn't convinced by, I used to say OK, we tried that and found X, Y and Z happened, what will we do differently this time?

jockettuk

our primary school do a bonus ball sheet basically you pick wed or sat nights lottery and do a sheet with boxex 1 to 49 and you sell them off at £1 a go you split the money £25 winner £24 school we do this on a weekly basis and it brings in over £800 a year.. we basically let one parent do it and if they want to change we get another parent and the teachers get involved.. mabey at a secondary school you might even get 2 sheets running a week .. could even do it monthly

MDUK

Mumstheword wrote:

We do an easter egg bingo, asking local companies and parents for donations. It's always a huge success.

What is easter egg bingo?

jockettuk

MDUK wrote:

What is easter egg bingo?

i would imagine its a bingo were the prizes are easter eggs.. our local legion does a meat bingo were the prizes are meat hampers

jellyhead

we have a hundred club, not sure why it's called that because there are more than a hundred entries. everyone pays their pound a month by standing order, annual cheque, whatever and is given a number. random numbers win a share of the pot, first second and third prize with half of the money collected going to the pta.

savvy i realise that the pta are more focused on the stalls that make the most money but it's the games that make the children want to come. after the last couple of fetes there have been lots of comments about it being boring for adults and children alike, just things to buy. people have decided not to bother with future fetes. this time around there are a few games and they'll be mentioned in the newsletter so people know it's not just like walking around a market/jumble. the newcomers who made suggestions were sneered at by the old timers 'we've tried that and it failed' etc. but the newcomers said that it hadn't been tried in the last few years and parents change all the time. any ideas that the old timers think are iffy could always be given a trial, after all it's just another table somewhere, as long as the person making the suggestion is going to staff it and organise prizes etc. it's not going to hurt anyone.

i usually do a playstation room, very cheap. it raises next to nothing, less than £20 but it's the reason a lot of the older children ask their parents to take them to the fete. without the dance mats etc. there wouldn't be such a high turnout. silly things that make no money might not look like much good to some members of the pta but they all add to the fun on the night and help keep people wanting to come (and spend on the raffle and tombola while they're there).

one sneaky idea favoured here is to get the children to decorate a jar and fill it with sweets etc. there are prizes for the best and all the jars are tombola'd. people pay huge amounts trying to win back their own childs jar.

Lindyloo2_2

funky-footprints wrote:

im avoiding the pta at my sons school its very very clicky, full of all the medic parents, they even have arranged drinkies for after the meeting to go and discuss the meeting in medic language, if you aint a medic you dont get invited, and your presence at pta meetings is not required. saying that thier nomination for chairman couldnt make the agm this year, it was assumed he would just get the position as no one would oppose it, on a spur of the moment decision another dad (not a medic utter scandal!!!) decided to go for it and all the other non medics present jumped at the chance to get him in, so its all about to change.

LOL - I know a place just like that!!!!