Can a school fair make too much

[Bestbe]

My boys go to a school in a very mixed part of London. It’s not overly affluent and there is a real mix of kids. It’s a 3 form entry school.
The summer fair was last weekend and they have just announced they made £8400.
My reaction was to be appalled. It’s just exploiting parents.
They introduced a no cash policy so you had to buy tokens. But it wasn’t until you got in that you realised that all food and drink had to be paid for with cash. By the end of the fair everyone had tokens over but you couldn’t get them refunded.
The kids had to be involved in the stalls so you had to stay.
At the end there was a massive queue at some stalls because people were trying to get rid of all the spare tokens.
I just feel we’ve been exploited. We all pay taxes so why are we being made to pay again.

[bridgetreilly]

The token system is ridiculous and does sound badly organised and poorly though through. But that's a perfectly reasonable amount for them to have made.

[UrsulaPandress]

Hang on to the tokens for next year.

That'll learn 'em.

[craftymum01]

Our school made £12k which will go towards a new ict suite.
I agree the token system sounds stupid but to say you begrudge it because you pay tax? Have you any idea what financial position schools are in right now? If it was for our wonderful pta our school would barely be able to afford paper.
I agree with pp. don’t moan to us, moan to your mp that schools are having to fundraise.

[arethereanyleftatall]

What an awful attitude you have op.
These are things for your children that you chose to have, to enhance their learning and experience at school.

[toomanycompartments]

Token system is to stop cash handling at every stall and the need for change. Unless you are drowning in volunteers, you can’t expect them to cash every stall because it slows down the turnover and increases the work.

Ask how much money per pupil your school has for non staff costs, and what it goes on, is a pathetic amount of money. Then come back and waffle about the evil pta and their token system.

[Butteredparsn1ps]

We sell tokens after school in the run up to our school fair, it starts to build some momentum amongst the children. It also helps our gate attendance - if people have bought tokens they will come and spend them - even if it rains.

Bottom line, we make more money with tokens, and as others have said school desperately needs that money.

[arethereanyleftatall]

Op - you could offer to run the fayre next year, so can change it then.

I actually really like the idea of tokens, and of kids running stalls though, so I'll be suggesting that for our next one. Making as much money as possible is the point.

[toomanycompartments]

ooh that's a good idea buttered

[Tomboytown]

You all pay taxes? What's that got to with anything?!

[mumofmunchkin]

A 3 form entry means about 90 kids per year, so 630 kids in the school. £8500 raised means an average of about £13-14 spent per kid, which doesn't seem overly excessive.

That's an amazing amount of money for the school to be able to invest back in the kids.

[NotAQueef]

I think YABU. Our school fair just made over £10k - approx 450 pupils. We are delighted as the PSA will now reinvest that in things over the coming years. The money is always well spent and means the funding cuts to the school haven't hit so hard. None of the money spent was compulsory.
BUT I do think the school were being U making people use vouchers instead of actual cash.

[actualpuffins]

Are you quite well?

Where do you think the money raised will go to?

YABVVU.

[actualpuffins]

I would gladly pay a tenner per child NOT to have to donate X, Y & Z then stand on a stall for an hour and also pay for lunch and spends for the kids

Just do it then and stop moaning.

[Foxyloxy1plus1]

What is the money being used for? Presumably it’s to benefit the pupils, by way of equipment and facilities. Would you prefer they asked you for a termly contribution instead?

[Sirrah]

The whole point of a summer fair is to raise money for the school. The children will be the ones to benefit from the money, whether it pays for essentials, or play equipment, or treats for the children. I am shocked that any parent would begrudge spending a few pounds at what is often a fun community event, when the money goes to the children in the end!

[HenriettaArabella]

YABU - stay away and write a letter to your MP if you feel that strongly

[GrumpyMummy123]

Yabu

Don't like it then volunteer to organise it better next year.

The aim of PTA is generally to raise money for additional resources/ activities for the school that they can't afford from main budget - usually 'non essential', but beneficial. Of course they are going to choose the most profitable option.

The PTA is volunteer parents. If you don't volunteer to have your say in how events are organised you don't really have the right to moan!

[Whattheactualfuckmate]

How much was the food and drink though?

How much did op have available to spend. Some people are on a budget and to think your only going to spend X amount then have to pay Y (which you didn’t intend on ) I’d be a bit put out too.

My dd goes to an independent school and they try and squeeze every ladt penny out of your purse at the school fairs. The food is massively over priced for what you get. £4.50 forba small burger, so if you already bought tokens then had to shell out for a few burgers for lunch then drinks (cans of pop) at £1 then that’s an extra £20 in top of your tokens.

[Whattheactualfuckmate]

Yabu

Don't like it then volunteer to organise it better next year

Arf - have you ever tried to be part of a militant PTA .....

[Whattheactualfuckmate]

The whole point of a summer fair is to raise money for the school. The children will be the ones to benefit from the money, whether it pays for essentials, or play equipment, or treats for the children. I am shocked that any parent would begrudge spending a few pounds at what is often a fun community event, when the money goes to the children in the end!

Some people might not go back if it’s too expensive so it’s pretty counter productive

[EleanorLavish]

I wish I knew how you are all making so much money? Ours doesn't make nearly as much.

[LimboLuna]

I suggested contactless payments for tokens at our next one as we had a massive dip this year and i thought it may be a cash issue.


The tokens and food issue is annoying though that should have been better advertised. The token refund though is the same as a lot of travelling fairs though? It is bloody annoying as you always have those few left over which aren't enough to do anything with. But at least its going in the schools pocket.

[awesomeness]

If my daughters tiny 80 pupil primary school made anywhere near that they would probably faint.

Maybe a weird way of going about things with the tokens but to be honest I think YBVU and way OTT about it

[paddlingwhenIshouldbeworking]

I was PTA treasurer when it switched to tokens. One big reason was because we could run stalls with only one volunteer at a time. People just had to hand over their token, no hunting for 9.70 or whatever change every 2 seconds. Person pops their token in the box, then has their turn and moves on.

It also made the Treasurer role much easier as there weren't so many floats to set up and counting takings was quicker as generally we were counting notes. We had to provide huge floats for every single stall before and these all needed counting back in with the takings.

It was also much easier to keep cash safe at the fair as it was focused on the token stall, plus 3 or 4 food stalls.

Remember these things are a huge amount of work and there aren't volunteers queuing up to help.

I think the year after it stopped it for food and drink as we found takings dipped, although I noticed this year some of the smaller items like ice creams & candy floss could be bought with cash or tokens.

Can't remember if we did refunds (haven't been involved for a couple of years) but it was seen as a bit of a bonus that people would use up their tokens.

[Loonoon]

A comp near us raises £30k a year with their fair - if it’s a sunny day. They have rain insurance to make up the loss if bad weather means they don’t reach their target.