to ask you all to consider making Reindeer Food?

[DrSeuss]

Every year, Rudolf and co work hard to bring us our presents, even if they only bring crappy self stirring mugs. If we all pitch in to make them some reindeer food, a delightful mix of oats to fill their tummies and glitter to help them fly, we can sell it at £1 a bag for the charity of our choice and no reindeer will be hungry this Christmas. If you use edible glitter you don't have to worry about any Little Treasures eating it instead of sprinkling it on the garden on Christmas Eve.

laptopdancer is right - they can put up with sharing a single carrot, just like they have done for the past 41 years.

I would feel bad selling it to other people if I wasn't planning to use it myself.

If you did special carrots I might buy them.

They get cookies in this house and had better be bloody grateful too

I tell people all the time to sod off feeding birds. THey manage on their own to catch their own food they don't need assistance.

I presume your "charity" isn't government funded? If not, give me the address and I'll donate a fiver.

Just promise that next year you just ask people to support your local hospice instead of bloody making up some hideous gimmick.

I boycott the stupid Tickle Me Pink campaign too, so don't feel bad.

How about carrots sprayed with edible lustre spray? Gold probably, silver might make them look frostbitten.

That way DH could still eat it (got to to have teeth marks in the leftover bit).

< realises it's not about venison >

< leaves >

< empty handed, because of a recent rat problem >

Jack, if only they would just give the money without the gimmick. But they don't, sadly.
Presumably you also tell farmers not to put out cattle cake or hay?
The charity, not sure why the inverted commas, it's totally genuine, is
www.zoes-place.org.uk/
Check out the web site and then let's see how the cynical thing works for you. If I can make a few hundred quid for them, then I will. My purpose in starting this thread was to give others an idea for fundraising. People rarely just hand you the cash for nothing, you know.

Thanks for the idea! I have done this with the nursery children I work with, but hadn't thought of using it as a fundraiser.

I think I might just do it for my charity.

What sort of bags and labels are you using?

I have tiny ziplock bags which go inside coloured gauze bags, labelled with tie on card labels. All of that plus the edible glitter and coloured sugar came from ebay. But sandwich bags tie with cheap ribbon and a sticky label work fine too. If you use non edible glitter you must label it clearly as non edible. The non edible stuff is also bad for wildlife. What you're really selling is the childlike suspension of disbelief, I suppose.

Slave, how nice to find someone who understands what I was trying to do. My filofax is actually on my knee as I write :)

I just bought a 1000 6x6 clear front paper backed bags......can I use them?

By accident I hasten to add - I thought I was buying 200 or something

Thankyou! I will get searching on ebay, I'm quite excited about it now! And I just mentioned it to DH who now thinks you are a fundraising genius!

Yes because if it's an actual charity then it's government funded and my fiver won't go very far. If it isn't a registered charity then it isn't. DO I get the gift aid option?

Katy-use any bags you like but make sure they don't leak or you will regret it, believe me!
Slave-thank you! Acclaim at last! I think I spent about £30 at most for bags, labels, glitter and so on but that should earn £400+ and would have been less if I'd done without the cute gauze bags. Be aware that you will need to lay down a dust sheet wherever you are working as this stuff gets EVERYWHERE! The poem that some one mentioned is available in various versions online.
Good luck!

Eh? Why are we not supposed to feed the BIRDS???

PLEASE someone explain?

Erm because it encourages rodents and therefore foxes.

Some of us keep live stock. It isn't all window boxes in the city.

Zoe's Place Trust - Middlesbrough

Registered charity number 1092545

Gift aid available.

Your £5 won't go far, that is certainly true. Could that be why some of us are trying to take a small amount of cash and multiply it?

OOoooH! We raise money for Zoe's place. Tis an excellent charity

Love your idea :)

Thanks for that. I buy fat balls/seed bells/fat filled coconuts to hang from trees from the RSPB so little rodent problems as they're up high.

I keep chooks too, never seen a rat either (must be all the neighborhood cats)

oh..... I was going to get DH a self strring mug...

Love the idea. :)

Bah humbug to the nay-sayers.

I am not really sure how people feeding birds in the middle of a big city has such an impact on the rodent population in the country side

But then I am just an ignorant townie.

As for the 'charity' not being government funded. Children's Hospices receive no statutory funding. Imagine that! Having somewhere safe and homely for your child to end their life depends on people giving their useless little fivers.

Mumble-nothing wrong with a self stirring mug per se, just there were a lot of murmurings about them last Christmas. If he'd like it, then get it! Zoe's Place is fantastic. It's my little thank you to the Man Upstairs for letting me have a beautiful, healthy, much wanted daughter at last at the age of 40. Despite a minor placental abruption and the cord being round her neck, she is perfect. Despite the complications and the risk factors due to age, she is healthy and happy.

Cynicism is always so much easier than getting off your arse, isn't it? :)

It's a lovely idea, good on you.

we'll continue to feed the birds too. In deep Winter when the ground is too hard for them to easily find food, our feeders are filled once a day.

My DP refuses to ask the man in the petshop if he's got Fat Balls.