P.t.a. Help & Ideas Needed!

Peakma

Ours does bingo in the local pub twice a year,they ask parents to bring donations for prizes to school,usally themed for Xmas or Easter.Then buy a few bigger prizes(Chocolates and spirits etc) if nesseccary, and usually manage to blag free tickets for local day trip attractions.They usaually put some things together into several hampers.
The pub is always packed out for it,they have a proper ball machine,and get a good volunteer as caller, buy sheets of bingo cards,£1 a game,smaller prize for 1st with a line,bigger prize for 1st full house.
Works really well,and usually make around £500 for the night,with not a huge anount of effort.

seven-day-weekend

Our local infant school did a car boot sale. My friend took some stick insects with a bit of privet in jam jars and they sold like hot cakes!

kiwichick

hilstep2000 wrote:

We did a Race night, where you get local companies to sponsor a race, get people to bet on the night, and sell Irish coffees. We made £500 doing that.

Hiya,

Can I ask how a race night works please?? I would love to bring up the idea for a fundraiser for our PTA. Do you need a license in order for people to bet on school premises?? Do you use money for bets or do they buy chips?? Did you run it yourselves or did you have an outside firm come in and do it for you??

Huge Thanks,
Allison.

PS-Has anyone held a general casino evening?? I've heard these are popular too???

Savvy_Sue

Can't help with the race nights, I'm afraid, but from my days of PTA-ing, the stalls at summer / Christmas fairs which make the most money are the raffle and the tombola.

and another good moneyspinner we had was Jam Jars. You ask the children to bring in a filled Jam Jar. It doesn't have to be a jam jar, just any glass jar so you can see what's in it. And what's in it could be pasta, toiletries, stationery, sweets, small toys - anything really! Then you run a tombola with them, BUT you charge 50p each and it's a prize every time. Actually it's a long time since I've done this so you might now be able to charge £1 a time, depending on where you are. But the important thing is to make it a prize every time!

You can also ask the children to decorate them, and have a 'best jam jar' competition beforehand.

parsnips

what about a sponsered bounce, how many bounces can a child do in one minute, ask around if a company can donate the hire of a bouncy castle for the day and you can get at least 6 children on the bouncy castle at a time. its fun and its exercise for the children too.

Mrs_Cupier

Brilliant thread - I'm pinching ideas like mad!

Anyway, my son's infant school does Frankfurter Friday once a term (£1 a go, get a frankfurter in a bun and a chocolate biscuit - the idea is it's a treat, I know Jamie Oliver would go ballistic), a disco once a term (top tip - while the clocks are on GMT so it's dark outside. Makes it seem more like a proper 'late' event to the children), and Christmas Fayre and a Summer Fayre. None of these things are without a lot of hard work!

The easiest thing we do is a plant sale. There's a company in Norfolk (called C D Bell, I think, but it's worth googling) that sell bedding plants in the spring and bulbs in the autumn at very low prices compared to the local garden centres. The school orders them direct and then parcels them out to parents who have placed orders. The key advantage is that unlike things like yellow moon where parents pay and then the school receives a cheque later, in this case the school banks the money first then pays the nursery out of the takings, getting their cut immediately.

Hope this helps.

Mumstheword

We do secret shops for mothers' and fathers' day.

At the disco, we've sold glowsticks as well as sweets/drinks recently. These are really popular, and the parents are happier that the kids have bought those than stuffed themselves silly with sweeties!

We also do easter egg bingo. It's so popular that we have to hold it over 2 evenings now!!

jellyhead

i sell glow sticks at the school discos (we have 2 per year). you can buy in bulk off ebay, 500 sticks cost less than 8p each i think and then resell at 25p (for bracelets, the necklaces cost a bit more).

at our PTA meeting the head mentioned new laws coming in about junk food, so the tuck shops and selling ice creams in the playground might have to go. healthy tuck shop would be okay though.

our PTA asks for ideas but does nothing with them. there's a shopping portal that gives the school a comission when parents shop at amazon etc. online - they give you flyers to promote the site etc. and hopefully somebody will give you the web address if they know what i'm talking about.

we have webb ivory xmas catalogues but the stuff comes to the school or home of the organiser and then they have to bag it up, collect money etc. and storage is a massive problem. catalogues cost money too. nobody here wants to staff it this year. yellow moon catalogue would be great of course but despite 2 of us separately suggesting it we have been ignored. oh, the joy of PTA politics :rotfl:

sadly the biggest moneyspinner at the summer fete seems to be the bar. a local pub supplies a license to sell beer, PTA buys the beer/wine and sells at a profit.

we have to buy tickets for the christmas and summer plays. £1 each. it's school fund money rather than PTA but the PTA produces the programme, asking local companies for donations in exchange for an advert in the programme.

Lucie_2

nikiyoung wrote:

We have written to loads of big company's asking for donations of gifts but out of 80 letters NOT ONE PLACE has donated a gift!

I've never been on a PTA committee, but have certainly sent & received my fair share of begging letters in my time!

The most success comes from asking for non-tangible items, such as theme park tickets, zoo, hotel stays, health club memberships etc. You need to think along the lines of it not costing the company anything to donate - ie the theme park is open anyway, so it costs them nothing to give away a family ticket, with the added bonus that said family might enjoy it so much they want to come back again & pay full price! A health club might donate a free months membership on the theory that the person who wins it might want to join at the end of the month. Ask for Sunday night hotel stays, which is a very quiet night. I'm sure there are many more examples......

Alternatively you could go along the emotional blackmail route & get the kids to write the begging letters, especially if it's trying to raise money for a specific project...... "Dear Mr Big MD, we're really sad because we don't have a sandpit to play in etc etc please can you give us some money love from little Johnny age 6"

kiwichick

Hi All,

I have a metting tonight at which we will be brainstorming for ideas for our annual xmas bazar.

I've never been to one and therefor have no ideas save for a cake stall. We always have a Santa's Grotto apprently so have that covered but nothing else on the table as yet.

Can any of you help out??

Any ideas/suggestions VERY much appreciated.

Al.