PTA Stuff 09...

[Ingles2]

Don't know if anyone is interested but thought I'd start a PTA thread.
I'm now so ostracised in the playground I thought I'd see if I could manage it here too.
Seriously though, I'm hoping someone can recommend a calendar company from the many millions that offer fund raising ones?
Anyone had a good experience?
In return I can tell you that Northbrookfundraising / wrapping paper was great at Xmas. Cheap, really good quality, really good service, will definitely be doing it again.
Fingers crossed someone will talk to me....
signed... a very lonely chair

Yellow Moon is another "effort free" one that brought in £374 last year

(can you tell I'm looking at the PTA News thing I did last term?? )

Our annual fireworks display is a good one but hard work - £2400 in 2007 and more in 2008. We have a BBQ and glowstick/flashing novelty [snurk] stall.

We did Christmas cards last year, and this year we did funmugs (part of the Funmats company). The children designed a mug, and you could buy however many you wanted. They sold quite well, (think we made £300+)

One of our biggest profits last year came from a sponsored mini-olympics (and previous year sponsored relay race). Lots of money coming in for very little organisation.

PEACHY DONT DO THE PICTURE FRAMING!!!!!!!

TIS SO TERRRRRRIBLE I CANNOT BELIEVE IT!

really

BEETLE DRIVE??

please explain

Aht ehr easoing behind the frmes is school normally does it and theyre taking a year iout so we thought we'd nab it.

Myself, I agree, was crap (partly because they let SN ds do his alone whilst helping the others and then displayed prominently so might have as well put a sign saying 'This is crap come see!')

beetle drive

We do Craft Fairs for christmas and Easter, dont do it to make money as such but more as a fun thing to do, I think about £3.00 per child which I think we break just about even with taking into account that we have to buy materials.

Looking for a more summer orientated thing to do - any ideas?

We use Paragon for calenders. Made £700 this year with about half of that coming from adverts.

we do;
christmas fair
summer fair
easter egg bingo
bags2school
pampering evening
spuds & puds evening (jacket potatoes with various fillings and lots of puddings to try - v popular)
non-uniform days
plant sales (local supplier does at cost and we take the profit)
barrow of booze at local village fete
school council monthly(ish) cafe, one of the parents has taken control and organises it, parents donate cakes, school council children wait on. quite nice.
ice creams fri after school in summer half-term.

last year we raised nearly £20k for a new swimming pool (usually raise £3-£5k pa).
special events were
300 mile sponsored bike ride by 7 parents (raised £5k+)
village envelope door drop (£3k+)
childrens sponsored swim

GIFT AID on all donations and sponsored events, not doing this is throwing money away.

£1k from parish council, £500 x 2 from a couple of local charities.

If you have a specific funding requirement look into grants etc, there are probably local charities in your area who will donate.

We also got some National Lottery funding (well in school name for admin ease, but we did the application) for anciliaries for the pool, extra lessons and lifeguard costs to open the pool to the public over the summer hols.

co-op local communities grant is a good one to try

we also have a christmas hamper raffle

ChasingSquirrels - great ideas here.

I have some questions.

How does the cafe work and when do you run it?

Gift Aid - what is it?

Village envelope door drop?? Tell me more.

One thing we did was stop asking people to pay a fee (of £1) to get into Xmas Bazaar or Summer Fete. People balk at paying it.

By asking for a contribution people threw in £5 and £10 notes and we tripled our takings on the door!!!

how does the easter egg bingo work?

bump

We're having a Promises Auction. An evening of drinks and nibbles where people offer material things (a week in their house in France or a home made cake) and also services (a manicure or an evening's babysitting).

You need a good 'teller' and to round up the promises well in advance.

And avoid having too many small lots as this drags things out. Put, say, chocolates, wine, foodie gifts in a hamper; likewise with smellies etc.

.....

Lot's of great ideas here already.
we're having
3/4 discos
beetle drive
Easter bingo or treasure hunt
some affiliate selling
the dreaded ball
a fun day bbq, sport etc
a quiz night
bags 2 school.
and a calendar this year
Talking of which
geogteach I've googled Paragon but can't find them, don't suppose you have a link please?

Does anyone remember that treasure hunt where you had to fit load of things in a match box? I fancy doing that myself

BTw the school organised the picture framing just before Xmas for the voluntary fund and made a fortune. Everyone loved it!

Gossipmonger - fab idea re entrance to summer fayre.

We do fireworks night (successful)
Xmas fayre (reasonably successful)
quiz night - great fun!
ladies night (fashion show/try & buy/booze!!)
planning something for kids - maybe film
summer fayre

various little things (not little for the poor souls who had to organise) - tea towels (success for infants, loads left for juniors!), yellow mooon, www.buy.at, invitation books, studio, sutton seeds, etc etc

Summer ball next year. (our first so we'll see!)

Think the hardest thing is to go out asking for help. And basic apathy of most parents - it's always same crowd that help.

I like the sound of the Spuds and Puds evening - tell me more! Is it held at the school or at someone's house? Do you have any kind of entertainment or just people eating and chatting?

No other ideas to offer (though will be watching this thread with interest)

Re calendars. We used Hampton International School Calendars link hereand were pleased with the results. We invited local companies to sponsor a month for (I think) £10 each which helped.

Every child in the school (approx 700!) was included in the calendar, each drew a picture (head only) of themselves, and wrote their name underneath. Pictures were put in the child's birthday month. It took a lot of organisation, especially when cutting up the drawings to fit into each month. But the company gave us a lot of help and advice. In addition the children were invited to submit a seasonal picture for inclusion in the calendar. One each of spring, summer, autumn and winter were selected for the calendar.

Finally (sorry this is turning into an essay) we displayed a "sample" calendar in the school office and invited parents to place orders based on this. It was an old calendar, and nothing to do with our school, but we just felt that if parents could see what they were getting they may be more inclined to order in advance. We also made it more advantageous to buy multiple copies - eg in advance they were £3 each or 4 for £10. It went down well (but not something we could repeat for a few years)

Hi all, Can I join you please!

We are a new PTA and have quite a lot planned for this year. We have learned a big lesson from our christmas evening- always sell tickets in advance! The evening should have been a huge success but only 5 parents turned up! From now on we will sell tickets to everything and only go ahead after a minimum number of tickets have been sold.

We are doing discos, a year 6 leavers ball, Murder Mystery night, quiz nights, fashion show (company do the organising, we provide models, sell tickets & drinks etc and take 3-10% of profits from clothes sold.) We also have a local stationary firm who donate their unwanted stationary so we can sell that on a stall once a month. Will be doing summer fair as well.

Te biggest problem we have is the parental involvement- no helping but actually coming to the events! The school is around 500 children so a turn out of 5 parents is not good!

we are exactly the same SB. Getting people involved is really hard. We have about 13 on the pta. 50% are men which is fantastic, but they work and so are never around to actually do any of the leg work.
I've decided I'm going to stand at the gate asking for email address for casual volunteers. Have no idea if it'll work, but very very few respond to letters.

I think thats a good idea Ingles, so many people I have spoken to have said they would help if I asked but not one person has reponded to any of the letters!