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.

I don't mind the tokens actually, as long as it's fun

Only one of my kids schools has actually had fun events, the other 2 were just lacking (and had PTAs that were resistant to new ideas...) - so we'd go, drop 30 quid on whatever there was, and head off. It was things like, in a tiny school, having us pay a fiver per kid for 'unlimited' bouncy castle (mini bouncy castle) but then not letting the kids go on and off as they felt, making them stick to these wierd (and pointless - there were only 60 kids in the school anyway, and they didn't all want to be on the castle at once) sessions. When it would have been better to just take 2-5 quid of everyone and let the kids enjoy themselves, with a couple of us watching for if it got crowded.

And don't get me started on the burgers/hotdogs they bought, which were so cheap they shrunk to almost nothing - I have an awesome picture of my two taking their first bite, and the confused faces on them as they tried to figure out what they were actually eating.

To answer some questions as my DC is at the same school as OP's and I was at this Fair. Not a militant PTA (I'm not a member) but one that works hard to create events that are fun for the kids and parents, and raise money for the school (and they do so pretty well). The PTA are a nice bunch and try to get people involved but funny enough when it comes to volunteering, it's like pulling teeth. The prices for food and drink were reasonable (£2 for a hot dog, £3 for a burger, 50p for bottle of water/can of fizz, £2 for a glass of wine or bottle of beer/cider). Tokens info was provided in advance as was the fact that food/drinks was cash payments though you could actually pay for drinks with tokens too. They've already announced what the money will be used for. It's something that'll benefit the children, and is not a vanity project or unnecessary rubbish.

Tokens seems like a good idea as it means no cash on the stalls so that children can help out without having to worry about looking after money and giving change.

Wow. Having organised our schools summer fair-raising £7000 I'm suprised people moan.
Schools have severe deficits. Trust me, the money is spent on the kids!

I gave my MIL £30 at the fair (I was on a stall so she had 2DC) and told her to spend it however they wanted but to get some food.

We now have a house full of absolute shite the DC bought from the various craft stalls!!

But I viewed that £30 as my donation to the school. I wasn't expecting anything back from it - tbh at least a handful of leftover tokens are easier to dispose of than the homemade crap I now need to slowly smuggle out

Absolutely shocking that they didn’t explain the token system to you! How can they introduce a system like that and not explain!!!

Similarly my children’s school announced their profit yesterday too at just under £8,400. We are also in a London Borough. We are a 3 form entry school so pretty large. We were also really lucky to get match funding from Google of £2,000 so it really boosted our funds this year. It was such a beautiful day that the fair really did bring in the crowds.

We also had tokens for the first time but our PTA communicated it super well. We were updated via Facebook groups and letter in the book bags and were explained the token system when buying them. Our tokens could be used everywhere. From food/drink to any stall run by the school. Obviously not external sellers. Our PTA had the challenge of it falling on the day England played Sweden so they very kindly got hold of a big screen and extended the fair so people could watch it.

The token thing was so well communicated too and the reasons why it was introduced. Apparently it used to take around 6 hours to count the pennies at the end of the day. Poor PTA.

This week we received a letter breaking down how the money was spent. What was raised and what it’s being spent on. I loved to be able to see how our children would benefit. This was also shared on Facebook.

Maybe you could ask your PTA chair for a breakdown of this. Seems weird that you aren’t being kept in the loop. Maybe you missed the correspondence?

I reckon your PTA would love to hear your feedback and suggest ways for you to get involved. You sound like someone who would be really good at running a fair. Apparently it’s worse than a full time job with the hours they put in raising funds for the children. They’d probably be sad to read you’re disappointed with over £8k. Our pta have bought amazing playground equipment, reading books and put on free events like discos and Easter egg hunts so it’s all about giving to the children rather than just taking.

I’m so grateful to be part of a school with a group of parents who spend so much of their time working on behalf of our children.

I think tokens is a good idea so not such a large cash float has to be held on the stalls where it can be lost or stolen. I think they should have been accepted for everything though.

If the money is for the school, I really couldn’t care less. I do balk a bit at the things my DC’s school asks me to pay for (a canvas painted by my DS last year for example) but I realise they are a fairly skint school and need all the dosh they can muster.

mum2two1979, I think that you, I and OP are from the same school. As you say, things were explained very well indeed. The OP must have "missed" the PTA's multiple communications.

The only thing the PTA did wrong was not to make it clear that food and drink didn't require tokens. At our fair we allow tokens or cash for food. I tend to buy two bags, ours are ten tokens I think in a bag and £5 for a bag.
I give the tokens to Dd and then pay for my food and drink with cash. It's so nice not having to give her money and explain change to her when she was an infant.
You say that you are scandalised by the money the school took, which incidentally looks about right for a school that size, but really it's about how you feel about the token system.
If you aren't already a PTA member then join! You can't complain about things like the fair when you haven't lifted a finger to help organise it.
You will also find out how much they do to prop up the schools failing budget and you will see that that £8k is utterly necessary to your child/ren getting a good and rounded education.

Keep the tokens for the next one, if there is a next time to use them. 3 form school is 600+ kids so £13 each. I think that's pretty reasonable, as a family of 4 we spent more than that at my son's school fair on his behalf. Many parents contribute time and money for their stalls, so a food stall doesn't all come from PTA funds if the parents cook etc. Were there independent stalls? If local business, selling groups etc go to a fair they usually pay to be involved which adds revenue. Don't see the problem myself.

School fairs can't make too much. I'm on the PTA and we organised ours, the proceeds won't quite cover the cost of the new climbing frame we were raising money for. It's desperately needed, DC are getting splinters from the present one. Luckily, the HT has wangled the rest of the money from the academy trust.

Oh, and DS2 caught chickenpox the day of the fair, so when I went to pick him up I left £10 in the office for DD and asked them to remind her to buy something from the BBQ out of it, because that was tea. Even with £2.50 for hotdog and ice cream, she still came back with £5.

The token stall should have had a large sign saying "Tokens to be used for all games, bouncy castle, x, y and z; cash only accepted for food and drink". Otherwise well done to the school, it sounds like a good effort.

Our 8 person PTA made around £1800 all year (2 fairs, 3 raffles, 3 discos, and a couple of after school mini sales) for our 260 pupils.

maybe you could move to a less affluent area like the one in which we live, that would solve the problem for you! But you swap that worry for my current one which is " I hope my kids' friends have enough to eat this year through the summer holidays" since at least one family is going to struggle to feed them - and there are several where the mum will be going hungry to feed the kids. When it's term time at least they all get one meal per day 5 days a week. I'd much prefer to have your worry!

You are right about the tokens thing, that's unfair and a waste of effort.

@englishbreakfast
Do you think? There did seem to be a few similarities but there were a few things that don't quite add up. Our tokens could be used on the bar and bbq and there was sooooo much communication about the tokens it was unreal. Surely no one would have missed that? Would they? 😳

Our Primary school has tokens for stalls, games and bouncy castle at Summer Fair. Money for PTA drinks, PTA bbq and the external ice cream van. It works well as no faffing about with finding/giving change and delaying. It's much easier and I prefer it. If I have any left over, I keep and use tokens for Christmas Fair. Our school sounds same size and affluent area. We raised around £5K.

mum2two1979, I'm pretty sure. There are too many similarities - the timing of the OP on the day our Fair profit was announced, the amount of money raised, tokens being introduced for the first time this year, description of the school, etc. I agree though, if OP is from our school, how they could have missed all the comms is mind boggling.

Indeed @englishbreakfast the comms were everywhere. Very clear and concise and the fair was organised exceptionally well in my opinion. Maybe OP will be first in the queue to offer to run it next year. 🤣🤣🤣

Could be our school which moved to tokens 4 years ago and raises about that much. First year had a few issues and people who really hadn't understood were helped to sell their tokens to parents entering, but since then all the kids have managed to understand just fine and explain it to the parents. Pretty much every parent buys a few tokens to start and then their kids wheedle until they buy more. And two adults turn up every time and try to steal tokens and then claim money back...
Tokens mean many more people volunteer to work at the fair and thus more money can be made (and less burn-out for the main volunteers).

So this school appears to be my children’s school. I can categorically tell you that the bar and the bbq took both cash AND tokens - all the other stalls only took tokens (to save on administration) but those two took both. This was clearly communicated via email, Facebook and a book bag flier - how could they be any clearer?! They also communicated that there would be not refund on unused tokens, and you could buy them at the event - so why not start with £5 and then top up from there?!
Your PTA work so bloody hard to raise funds for your kids. Did you help them? The money will be put to good use, in fact you received a flier about that in yesterday’s book bag.
I’m assuming because your child was helping out that you are a year 6 parent - so you will never have to endure one of our successful fairs ever again.

Unreasonable? I think so! Appalled at the amount of money the fund-raising school fair made for your child/ren’s school?!

I think OP and others on this thread are at same school as my children (too many concidences in key info for them not to be).

Was this OP’s first summer fair experience at our school?!
For a long time this event has been the biggest fundraiser of the year and I fail to see how they missed the communications about the new tokens, the PTA made sure it was shouted out everywhere! In fact, they promote information about all manner of things all of the time!

Having supported the fair in previous years, the cash counting at the end of the day was always a very lengthy and exhausting process - the introduction of tokens was a great one this year and I’m sure made the cash handling so much easier and safer for all involved.

I wonder if OP has raised their concerns directly with the PTA? Surely this would be the only way get an understanding of how you missed so much communication?
We are so lucky to have such fab group of committed parents as we do on our PTA and each and every one of them is really approachable. I can’t see how a ‘rant’ on here is effective at all.

Perhaps next time, ask the question on the day if you’re not sure how something works?

The fact that a (very small) group of parents come together and commit to raising some very much needed funds for our school is fantastic and we should count ourselves lucky to have them. Through promotion of match-funding, they were able to secure an additional £2,000 from Google, which was brilliant and possibly the largest amount raised from a single event to date!

I take my hat off to them and stick my fingers in my ears to ridiculous and unreasonable comments such as yours.

Blimey - this is a popular school for MNers

@EleanorLavish I'm with you. My dcs' school TA fair used to raise £600 - £800. OK, they are at the end of senior school now, so you could add on a bit for inflation, but my mind is completely boggled at some of the amounts being quoted on here .
Once again demonstrates the imbalance of posters on MN, compared with society generally.

The OP ranted and ran, so we can’t know for sure.

It’s a little odd to say that your kids also go to the OP’s school and the food stalls definitely took tokens when the OP’s main issue is that the food and drink stalls definitely didn’t take tokens and this wasn’t communicated.

I’m guessing a lot of schools had fairs at the same time.

If the OP is correct, then even as volunteers the PTA has a responsibility to do things properly. It’s hard when you’re on a limited budget and something you planned for ends up being a lot more expensive than you expected.

I know being on the PTA can seem a thankless task, but if they cocked up, they cocked up.

Are all the Bromley Mum’s on Mumsnet then?

Assuming we all belong to the same school