Organising our school fete - anyone got any advice?

[claudiaschiffer]

Hi, we are in Australia and I have volunteered myself to organise the nursery fete. I have absolutely zero experience of doing this so was wondering if anyone here has done this kind of thing before and has any wisdom to impart?

Any thoughts on stalls, entertainment? Anything to raise money? Any legal or health and safety issues I need to take into account?

I have heaps of time and some others will help too so no huge urgency but I am bored and keen (terrible combination) so any help will be gratefully received. Thanks.

[eidsvold]

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Okay - now that you have been sucked in to it here are how we do our kindy fun day.

We choose a theme - farm yard or by the sea etc.

Then have little games that go with it.

Skittles, magnetic fish - easy made - bit of dowel, string magnet on end. fish are cardboard shapes with paper clips on nose.

jumping castle.

For farmyard theme - old macdonalds farm - petting farm

face painting.

cake stall/coffee shop

BBQ for lunch.

Ours usually ran from 11 - 1 or 2.

We also had some craft activities related to the theme in one of the rooms.

We begged, nagged, harassed asked local businesses for donations and that was for raffle prizes.

For the under the sea theme - we bought those small art canvases - you know 1 or $2 from the reject shop or crazy clarks. Kids did a picture, parent's paid $2 for it got to take it home. They were all displayed with the child's name, year ie 2008.

had buried treasure in the sandpit - for by the sea theme.

We then approached local businesses - state rail, government, emergency services, local council etc for bits and pieces and we put them into a 'showbag'. They had things like colouring books/pages, stickers, lolly pops, balloons, colouring pencils etc.

[eidsvold]

the children came in costume. They had a variety of games.

Throw the small beanbags into hoops.

We had a bottle - parents donated empty bottles - then you asked parents to take them home and fill them with sweets, little treats.

You then put number on jar and number of paper - number drawn - you get that bottle.

We charged an entry fee which covered petting zoo etc. It was $2 for children and $5 for adults. We then had tickets in packs of 10 for $10. You then use your tickets to purchase whatever - so three tickets gets you a burger, 2 for a sausage, 1 for a drink and so on. We asked parents to donate prizes for games like stickers, sweets, little sort of party bag tat.

We then asked parents in each room/class to sign up for an hour or 1/2 of their time to help out on stalls or in the coffee shop or lunch or raffle tickets.

Anything else you want to ask??

[eidsvold]

craft, all kids got a showbag - some of the bowling places gave us family passes - local gyms gave us weekly passes etc.

[eidsvold]

showbags were free I should have added.

[choosyfloosy]

Splat the rat (or shark I suppose if undersea theme).

Get local competent handyperson to attach a large piece of drainpipe to a board, and make a stand for it. Get local competent needleperson to make a 'rat' which is heavy enough to slide fast. Charge small amount of money for 3 goes to hit the rat. Place somewhere strategic like near the drinks bar. Our school fete made an absolutely ludicrous amount of money on this. You could spot the kids who are going to have a problem with gambling in the future straight off, unfortunately - one boy spent #4.80 on it, at 20p for 3 goes!

[Anna8888]

I went to a brilliant Wild West themed fête a few years back - children all dressed up as cowboys/girls and Indians, there was a great face painting stand for Indians, an exhibit with tiny calves that looked like a rodeo (but patting only), a shoot-out game, a saloon bar for drinks, a great big wigwam, a "bison" roast etc.

[claudiaschiffer]

Showbags are a fantastic idea - thanks eids. Were local business' fairly supportive or was there a lot of arm twisting involved?

Also great ideas for themes.

We used to have splat the rat when I was at primary school - i think i was one of those kids choosyfloosy

Thanks very much.

[eidsvold]

actually we had a lot of support - we had so many raffle presents. We had a child's bike, we had 12 month gym membership, sciencentre/museum family passes so we put those with sizzler vouchers so you could make a day of it.

Facials, hair cuts and styles - I won a facial and a hair cut, style and blow dry.

We had a huge grocery hamper and so on. In fact we had so many we had to put some together. We had choc blocks with gloria jeans coffee. I was suprised at the response. We blanketed the local area with letters - dropping them off ourselves or mailing them with a follow up phone call.

[eidsvold]

with the bags - I got them from a company that charged up 20 dollars for I think it was 200 paper bags - you know the ones you get at shops - handles. See if I can still find the info for you. They were from down south.

[eidsvold]

with regards to the letters to businesses - we just told them a little about the day and how many people we expected to attend - offered them free advertising through our newsletter etc.

I am just looking at what we had for the raffle - woolworths gave us a $200 gift voucher.

Underwater world on the sunshine coast offer passes at a very reduced price. They said they have so many requests that they decided rather than say no - you could purchase a family pass for about $15. We wrote to tourist attractions and everywhere we could think of.

[eidsvold]

guess the jellybeans in the jar. Had a huge jar at a recent event and I think because it was sooo huge, everyone wanted to guess so we sold a lot of guesses. Did $1 a guess.

[eidsvold]

will see if I can find the bag company by doing a search.

[claudiaschiffer]

Eidsvold you are a diamond thank you so much. I will buy you a virtual drink of your choice for all your lovely help.

Wine? Cocktail

[eidsvold]

I can't find it - I will keep looking later today. If not - I would just do a search and find a company that sells paper bags - see if they can send you some - we got 200 BUT we had 80 families in our kindergarten. They let us have them for $20.