ideas needed please

ozskin

how does the race finish?

kiwichick

Hiya,

I am co-chair our my daughter's school's PTA and we are doing lots of fundraising this year including;

Summer Fete - as suggested earlier our local estate agent does boards for us to advertise at no cost to us. We also write to all local companies and nationwide supermarkets etc explaining our event and what we are raising money for, they are very happy to donate raffle prizes. We have LOADS going on and serve food and have a liscenced bar. There are stalls for adult, for children, an entry fee is charged and we kick it all off with a parade down the high street. We have people come and do puppet shows, magic shows, demonstrations from brownies, girlguides, scouts etc. We do a pig roast and BBQ. The whole community looks forward to it.

Quiz Night with raffle - as above for prizes. We offer £50 cash to quiz winner but it is always given back to the fund as a gesture of goodwill. We serve food and have a liscenced bar.

Monthly Lottery

Selling Bulbs/Hanging Baskets (we get a comission)

Collecting old clothing/shoes/fabrics etc for "BagIISchool"

We sell hotdogs to the children each friday lunchtime and we generally make around £70 doing this weekly.

We print up our own edition of a thompson local type thing which we distribute to all surrounding villages. Advertisers pay for space.

Xmas Bazaar - much the same as summer fete but with am xmas theme. We have a santas grotto which always makes a healthy profit, we also ran a farmers market last year and invited butchers, nursery's etc so people could order turkeys, xmas trees etc. We took either a commission or a flat fee for the stalls.

We recycle all our ink cartridges and mobile phones.

Catalouge sales which give either commission or vouchers are also popular.

Also, do ensure you register as a charity, this means you can claim back gift aid on any donations made to the PTA. You've got to do it properly, lots of paperwork to stop money laundering etc. But as its something like 28% its well worth the hassle.

Am sure there are other things we do but cant think off the top of my head. I will say though that it is hard, hard work and requires a hell of a commitment. Having said that, we do raise over £10,000.00 a year for our school.

If you join in then do, its a great feeling!!

ozskin

10 k wow, we are new parents but as ever it seems to be the few who get involved, how do you rope everyone in? i assume you do minutes of your pta meetings, with the events etc listed. My OH is the secretary and if these were available as templates ideas etc that would be great. we are a registered charity but not much gift aid any tips would be welcome, also what do you end up spending all that money on? great post thanks

kiwichick

We spent the money on a variety of things. We fund the library for new books. We fund each year group fully for 1 coach trip per term.

We fund prizes for school competitions.

We fund things which are requested by staff and we then vote on, this could be any type of classroom equipment books/toys etc.

Last year we fully funded a complete refurbishment of the school kitchen. We did all the work ourselves barring the electrics and it looks great. Its is much more child friendly and accessible now.

This year our school are building a new ICT suite which requires 16 new computers with all relevant software. We have agreed to fund half of this which comes in at just under £6k. The money soon goes!

If there is anything which you think you would like to undertake them do PM me and I'll do my best to help.

Al.

dianadors

Things I have done:
(easiest of all) Ask if any of the parents work for RBS. If they do, they can claim £250 Community cashback award EACH YEAR from RBS for being on the PTA at school. Drag them onto the PTA!! Me and another girl used to donate £500 PER YEAR!! to our school this way. We did help out at all the disco's etc, but they never asked for proof - The treasurer used to have to sign to say that we were on the PTA. This may happen in other banks and building societies too.

Another easy one - use an A4 sheet of paper contruct a "treasure hunt" with about 12- 20 items for the kids to find eg 1p piece, a button, a holly leaf etc etc. Get them to do a sponsored treasure hunt. This was money for old rope as they took the sponsor sheet home first, then a week later took the treasure hunt sheet home - they did the hunt at home and stuck the items with sellotape to the sheet. Brought the sheet in so that the teacher could sign to say it was completed, then brought the money in!! Even if they only raise £1 each, if you have 500 kids, thats £500.

We organised Family disco's occasionally on Friday nights. We charged per ticket and one of the parents did the disco. Families were allowed to bring their own drinks (including alcohol for the adults) and snacks, but we also sold drinks and snacks too. These were lovely, popular nights out and both kids and adults enjoyed them.

Table top sale - not for the feint hearted but we sold tables for £5 each and had a stall ourselves where people could donate unwanted goods. We also had refreshments which netted a load of cash. One of us rang local bakeries etc for donations and we asked for donations from parents. Very succesful but the first half hour was a bit (actually a lot) of a scrum.

kiwichick

Just thought of a couple more things we do;

We run disco's for the pupils twice a year, at these we charge a £1 admission and sell penny sweets, free squash though.

We also go to a cash and carry and purchase gifts for mothers day and xmas. We buy enough for 1 per child and at mothers day and xmas they come in class groups to purchase a pre wrapped gift that costs between £1 and £3.

We had an xmas card designed by a local artist free of charge which we then had printed and sold door to door. We made over £600 doing this last xmas.

Last year the PTA did a "May Ball" in a huge marquee on the grounds. That made

a huge profit of over £3k.

In the past the committee have had children bring in recipies and had a book printed and sold to parents/family members. Likewise a calendar.

Its only my first year on the committee so I am still learning the ropes. And yes, it does tend to be the same few committee members who organise things but we do have a lot of "Willing Helpers" that commit to maning a stall for 1/2 an hour at each fete or bazaar.

HTH
Al.

ozskin

thanks will try to find all our bankers

Dustykitten

ozskin wrote: »

thanks will try to find all our bankers

Most banks/building societies do some sort of scheme - we have had parents from Halifax and Bradford and Bingley before and Barclays do a very generous £for£ scheme where by at a fete the parent who works for them goes on a stall (choose your highest eg cakes/tombola) and the bank match what the stall raises £for£. There is a list somewhere of heaps of other companies that do schemes - I will try to find it later.

ozskin

look forward to the list and happy easter

Dustykitten

I have not forgotten about the list - but it was not where I thought it was but I'll look for a paper copy in my notes and type it up.