What do your schools all do?

LJM

we have christmas disco plus we sell dvds of the xmas play, spring fete that is for school funds but we also do alot of charity fundraising for our local hospice/ children in need

flea72

lately weve had pamper evenings, where local mums who are beauticians, come and do mini treatments, charging about £5 for a mini manicure or head massage, etc. - however you make the most money if they are prepared to give their time for free, rather than a % of revenue - also book appointments in advance, so they arent having to queue up, or wait around

catwalk shows are quite good - the kids get to take part as models, and usually talk their parents into buying what they wore - attendance is usually limited to parents of kids taking part, but with 30 kids modelling, parents spending about £15 on clothes, and charging an entrance fee (including drink) and raffle, you can usually make at least £300, and not have to do any work yourself, as the catwalk company do all the setting up, and compeering

Personally i hate sponsored events. id much rather pay to attend something myself, than pay a kid to do a pointless task

As already said, keep the amount of events you have to a minimum, and dont just limit the events to things aimed at people with school kids - do things in the wider community like a carboot sale, or a garage sale, where people pay for a map showing all the houses that have signed up to the sale (you can charge a sellers fee too) - then have a base where you sell teas, coffee, cake etc. Also open gardens are quite popular with older people (again sell the maps), who dont necessarily have school age kids - get the families of kids in the school to open their garden, advertise in the press and you should get quite a good turnout, if the weather is good - certain houses can lay on cream teas, and raise more money that way

hth F

msb5262

At my school we have a cunning plan to raise money - when we have a raffle/tombola/bottle stall at any event, the school holds a mufti day and instead of paying 50p or £1 to wear non-uniform, each child is asked to bring one item for the raffle/tombola/bottle stall.
This way nobody resents sending something, especially since parents can send something tiny if they like - packet of pasta, bag of crisps, bar of soap (might not go down too well on the bottle stall) - or use it as a way to get rid of presents they've been given but don't want (eg. chocolates if trying to lose weight, wine if not drinking alcohol etc etc).
HTH
MsB

pammyj74

This is a good thread for ideas and I too used to be one of those parents thinking oh no they are asking for money again! It needs to be something fun that the parents will enjoy as well as the children. I love the idea of bring a present in for Mothers day/Fathers Day. also for xmas. People can 'regift' an old present they dont want and the children can then buy it at school and maybe helped to wrap it at school
I think its good for the children to be able to get a present that hasnt been helped by anyone in the family.

balletshoes

Millie's_Mum wrote: »

Our school had a thing today which was called Bag2school which was basically a textile recycling bag (like a charity bag but just textiles) given out a few weeks ago and then we all filled them and took them back to school this morning,

It pays £200-£400 a tonne, I don't know yet how much was raised but there didn't seem to be much effort involved for the PTA, the company who run the scheme were there collecting and loading the bags.

Our school did that last year, it was very popular .

My sisters kids school runs a school uniform stall for about 2 weeks before the end of each summer term - the PTA runs it and gets all the profits from it. Basically each child takes in any items of school uniform clothing which they've outgrown but is still in good condition, it goes to the stall, and then other parents can buy those items for their children at very reduced prices (very handy for parents who go to schools with logos all over their uniforms ). This is a very popular thing at their school, theres no outlay at all, doesn't take much organising (a flyer printed and sent home with the kids), and is only for 2 weeks every year.

gill_hc

If you have a Venture photography nearby then they do a card which the parents fill out their details (to get hassled by junk mail) but venture give £5 to the PTA for each completed details card. We did a letter to the parents basically explaining this making it very clear they would get junk mail and that the PTA do not advise using venture and we got about 150 replies. Also our local bowling alley donated 6 lanes on a wednesday night free of charge so the PTA did a bowling night where we charged £5 per person for no outlay. Also did a raffle at this night. These were all minimum effort for a decent sum of money. Some companies do "matched fundraising" whereby if one of their employees raise x amount of money for a charity they match it so it might be worth asking all the parents in the school if their company do it then they can say that they raised £500 quid for the bowling night and their company will donate £500 as well. HSBC with us do it but I think some others might ?
We also do the xmas fayre,summer fun day etc but they are a huge amount of work.

jojo1978_3

Hi
I've not read through all the other replies, but i and 1 other organise our Pta events......it does feel like we are banging our heads against a brick wall most of the time trying to encourage other parents to help and get involved. We have about 4 regular volunteers and thats it...but the parents do come and support the actual events that we hold.
We have a summer fair and a winter fair, then normally we will have a table top sale where we charge £5 for a table and then the parents bring all their stuff into sell.
We also do the odd cake sale which raises quite a bit of money.
The big money raisers are the fairs tho, we have refreshments, cake and asian food stalls, toy stalls, tombola (goods donated from Boots) raffle (goods donated from large companies, such as local theatres, pizza hut, zoo's etc....but it is becoming increasingly difficult to get donations these days-be prepared to write lots of letter and not receive many responses)
We also do games, such as hook a duck, tin can alley, soak a sucker (which is a huge favourite as the teachers get soaked by the children) bat the rat etc.
We are fortunate enough to have a TA who has horses, so in the summer we can do horse rides, and in the winter we have a santa's grotto-(charging £1.50-£2 to see santa and the children also get a balloon or badge and aselection box-which can be picked up for 75p from wilko's)
We try to get a celebrity to open the event, that winter we were fortunate ebough to have Sven Goran Ericsson (due to the football team he was manager of at the time and the fact we were the closest school to that particular club). In the summer we had a football player form another local club.
Its very hard work and very stressful, but at the end of the day our fairs bring in at least £1500, which is a great achievement, particularly as the area we live in is a deprived area.
Hope that helps a bit. PM me if ou need any more help :-)

gratefulforhelp_2

Fashion show/quiz night/ball/tea towels with kids self portraits on/same with cotton shopping bags/craft fair.