school fund raising

[jlimum]

hi there., just hoping any of you class rep/p.t.a type mums/dads can help with some advice for profitable stalls at either summer fete or christmas bazaar events? we are a relatively new school and need lots of funds to develop facilities. hoping for some great tips (why reinvent the wheel i say!!). thanks in advance

The raffle's always been top earner at our Christmas fete.

Also successful are the cakes, teas and lunches.

Craft stalls, whilst busy, cost so much to stock that the profits are not always that significant.

Name the teddy etc - low cost, but low interest.

We rent out stalls to local craft businesses - only £15 a stall, but it's "free" money, and uses up space that we don;t have enough activities to use ourselces, so is like free money from that point of view.

We have a visiting Santa - a good earner.

For summer events - throwing a sponge at the teacher in the stocks is unsurprisingly popular. And a funny veg creation stall we ran once was popular.

Good luck.

we tap local garden nurseries for donations of plants for the plant stall and then ask parents if they have any. herbs and edible stuff like courgettes, peppers, lettuce sell really well. so grow your own in large yoghurt pots from seed and sell those.

christmas time we contact supermarkets for donations and they normally give £5 or £10 vouchers which we either pu in the raffle or buy stuff for the raffle if it is short.

We also have non uniform days where the children wear normal clothes and bring in a donation of produce for the christmas or summer fair.

We do 'sweetie jars' We have mufti days, where everyone can bring a jam jar full of wrapped sweets, little tioys (Macdonalds ones, pocket money toys, just things lying around the house)

They are ticketted up and tickets sold for £1. Every one a winner, Zero outgoings to the school, lots of profit, and always the first stall to empty its shelves.

Yes, I'd forgotten about jam jars. Our committee used to do jars, but then after concerns about H&Sswitched to lucky bags - same principle, no glass! Last Christmas, I picked up a load of Christmassy party bags cheaply on eBay and we filled them with sweets and toys - some donated, some bought. I like maidamess's idea about getting the pre-prepared jar donated.

You are right, jam jars are a H&S issue which I'm surprised my school hasn't picked up on!

Book stalls are always good, people always want to get shot of, and buy books.

We have a cuddly toy tombola too, again, donations from mufti day are sold a pound a ticket.
We had a 'wheels' stall this year. People either donated for free or were willing to give half of the selling price of wheeled things...can be buggies, scooters, outgrown bikes, anything.
You just need to take the details of the 'seller' to make sure they get their half.

Bottle tombola - like other's we have a non-uniform day and price is a bottle - as it can be a bottle of champagne or unwanted bubble bath it means everyone can donate.

Summer - ice cream is incredibly profitable,just buy cones and tubs, but can be a problem if weather is not good. Far easier (but less profitable) is to contact a local ice cream van - ours comes along for 2 hours and gives us 14% of profits.

Beat the goalie is good for getting Dad's involved. Pick up small football related prizes at Baker Ross
Another good game is marble pot - get a big terracotta flowerpot with a marble sized hole in the bottom, upturn and put in a tray. Fill tray with marbles. Provide various sizes of spoon. Contestants must put one hand behind their back and use the spoon to get as many marbles into the pot in 2 minutes. Best total of the day wins a prize (we have 3, KS1, KS2 and adult).
Another one on the same theme is hammering nails into a huge wooden log- fewest hits win.
If you have some competitive dads like we do they will spend a fortune trying to beat each other!

Name the teddy - the only outlay is one unwanted stuffed toy which someone will have knocking around
Tombola - same gifts recylcled each year
Sweet Stall - 50% mark up
Bottle stall - who can resist
Treasure Map
Teas and coffees - massive mark up

Charging stall holders for tables ie Usborne, Pheonix, Emma Bridgewater, Anything that appeals to kids and parents - You can contact the companies direct to ask them to get a local rep to contact you so no scouting around.

I did a fair recently where kids brought in teddys and charged 50p a go for "Win every time".
Splat the rat ( one of my faves )
Guess the name/birthday/beans in a jar.

We ry to run events that are fun for the children or adults. Our problem is that there is a small number of hard core volunteers so we have to put on events that aren't too difficult to organise.

We do a raffle at xmas, we send out letters to local businesses and ask any parents who have buisnesses etc to donate prizes.

We also do a Breakfast with Santa for the Infants,on a Saturday morning close to Christmas. We get one of the dads or grandfathes to dress up and take a photo of the child with Santa, one of the mums is an Art Teacher so she designs a card for it, we buy book collections from the book people as presents which are nice and sell teas/ coffees for the adults.

We have run a Christmas shopping trip (boozy lunch and chats). We do a few games of bingo on the bus plus a raffle and this always makes money.

We also do "letters from Santa" at Christmas its a templatte and we ask for the child's name, presents etc so we personalise it. These are always really popular.

We also do a mobile phone recycling collection with one of the commercial companies. Its very easy and involves next to no effort from the volunteers. We do this usually after christmas and last year earned £900.

We usually do termly discos.

We get a local ice cream van to come to sports day and we get a commission from his sales.

We also run an end or term/ Summer fete with a raffle. Stalls include chinese auction, pick a straw, hook a duck, bottles and toiletries (relies on donations from parents)
face painting cake stall, etc

Our school does cake sales once or twice a term (get 2 different year groups to make/bring in cakes - charge £1 for 3 cakes) and have a small jumble sale at the same time.

School disco is usually popular but I guess it depends on the size of the school. Ours sells food, soft drinks, wine and beer.

Summer fetes also good but require a lot of organizing.

wow! what a great response. thanks for all these great ideas! i'm going to have lots to say at the next p.t.a meeting! keep 'em coming the more the better. i'm sure our head will love the idea of 'free money'!!

Cake sales always do really well -- particularly if cakes are homemade. You can guarantee to sell everything that is produced.

Auction of Promises is also a really good way of raising money.

At dds school the kids have a non-uniform day a week or so before the fete and ask the kids to bring in stuff for the tombolas. e.g. year 3- toiletries, year 4 sweets, year 5 biscuits,year 6 tins and bottles.

We have a cake raffle every Friday, we have a rota of mums who bake a cake for us.

On Thursday we sell raffle tickets at 20p a ticket, drawn on Friday in Assembly. We are a small school (80 pupils) and normally make £20.00 a week, so it all adds up.

On the last Friday of the term we a do a big bake off with 8 cakes, and that raises £50.00 normally.

The children love it, they take turns selling the tickets.

I would say that if you are getting outsider's into the school as well as charging them entry (one school I know charges £70!) then you should as for a percentage of the takings. We usually say 10% based ont he fact that if you have a local toy shop selling bits and bobs, they make the profit and not the school.

eg - your own school's toy stand (with donated toy's will make the school 100% profit but the stall holder could be taking away money from the school funds as kids/adults might choose to spend with them rather than the school stalls.

Most people I know do this and stallholder's expect it. They think they are on to a "Good un" when asked not to contribute.

(I have experience of both being PTA and stallholder in a previous life!)

We did a few years ago, a Sponsored Pram Race, (in that Dads had to build a 'pram', and dress up as Mum,and push it with Mum, dressed as the baby in it)

It was brill, at the finish we had a BBQ, we raised £1000.00 or just about.

mumwhereareyou - unless you are getting your own raffle tickets printed you aren't allowed to sell raffle tickets and not draw the raffle same day (I mean, I'm not going to shop you, and I'm sure none of the parents are, but I found it out recently).

There's a really good info sheet on fundraising legislation here

Hi Thanks Prufrock

will have a word with the PTA then, as i know when we have our summer and christmas fair, they do as you say sell on the day only, because as far as i'm aware they know the rules and thats why they only sell on the day.

I know the cake raffle tickets are normally just the cloakroom tickets, but see where you are coming from and will raise this point to them. See if we can sell them just before assembly on the day.

hi welshdeb, what is the chinese auction you mentioned??

also get in touch with Krisy Kreme donuts who do a fanastic fundraising opportunity in return for marketing and sell out within the hour!