PTA Summer Fete stall ideas

[mrspnut]

I took over as Chair of the PTA this year - I muttered those fateful words "I'll do it if you really can't find anyone else" - and we need some ideas for stalls for our Summer Fete.

The list we have has been cut in half as some of the games were either so outdated or so time consuming to assemble and didn't make much profit.

At the moment we have
BBQ
Lucky Dip
Adult Tombola
Bar
Face Paint
Refreshments
Crazy Sand (if there is an left)
Pull String
Tombola
Coconut Shy
Glitter Tattoo
Hook A Duck
Cake
Test Tubes
Grand Draw

Our Fete is being held on a friday evening from 5:30 and if anyone has any great ideas then please share them. I'd be very grateful indeed.:o

Pick a lolly, always a hit (if someone has or is willing to make a lolly board)

The cake stall always makes most cash, make sure there are whole cakes as well as plenty of cup cakes and individual items.

If you can get a license, Pimms stall can make quite a bit of cash

Splat the rat, if you have it, is old fashioned but kids LOVE it

Throwing sponges at volunteer dads teachers/the HT in the stocks (if they are game!!!), another winner.

BBQ can really do well, especially at tea time, and especially as it ropes in the dads who might otherwise not volunteer (get a group of dads together)

Auction of favours (X will cut your lawn, a home cooked meal for 4 etc.)

Thanks, some good ideas there.

Books, and toys if you can get enough donations. Also toiletries.

Nail painting.

Bottle tombola.

DD's school used to ask for donations of jam jars which the children filled (at home) with sweets, small toys etc and these were then used in a tombola.

Guess the name of the bear/doll, or the weight of a big jar of jelly beans or similar.

Bouncy castle.

Ice creams.

DD's school also used to have one of the teachers dress up as a fortune teller, complete with crystal ball. This was always really popular, and you had to book an appointment in advance because there were never any available on the day!

Plant stall always did well too, although again it depends if you can get enough donations. One year they also had a sunflower competition, where children bought a sunflower plant (numbered) which were later planted in the school and the child whose sunflower was the tallest on a given day won a prize.

Balloon release.

Biggest successes at ours were:

throwing wet sponges at HT's / male teacher's faces behind wooden cut out.

Nail bar for the girls (done by the oldest girls). Can be linked to face painting or washable hair colour spraying.

Those guns things which can shoot foam bullets at a target with prizes (Haribo) for good scores.

Lucky dip is bizarrely popular - especially if split between girls and boys (girls love the costume jewellery/bangles.

One thing that isn't a money maker but popular is getting the local fire crew to park their fire truck in the playground. Allow children (a few at a time) to get in and try on the helmets and get brief explanation. They love it.

We've got the fire station and police coming. We have a bouncy castle too.

The nerf gun thing sounds good as does a fortune teller. I'm not sure the HT would be up for being pelted with wet sponges but I could ask him.

I might be able to stock a book stall from here pretty easily, thanks everyone.

We have had a "Water and Wine" stall that can make a good profit for very little effort.

To make it viable you need to ask for donations of bottles of wine. Wrap each bottle of wine in wrapping paper. Then take three times as many empty bottles of wine and fill with water - screw top bottles are the best as you have to close the bottle and it's a faff re-corking. Wrap each of these in wrapping paper too.

Participants then pay £1 (or maybe £2) to choose a bottle at random. When they unwrap it, they either have a bottle of wine to keep or a bottle of water to return to the stallholder. Returned bottles are not put back on the stall.

The most difficult thing is getting enough donated bottles of wine. Our PTA asks each member of staff to bring a bottle and every parent on the PTA brings one too. We usually end up with about 50.

Then there's the empty bottles to collect. I can usually manage five to ten one or two . The sacrifices I make for my children's school.

If you have the space, try "beat the goalie" (ie football goal shots) and lemon teachers into stints as goalie. (Also good at Christmas if you can persuade them into Santa outfits).

Quoits - get three rings on and you win a prize or a strip of raffle tickets.

Long jump - prize for the furthest jump (can be done by year).

Balloon pop - blow up some ordinary balloons and pin ends to dart board. Use darts to pop balloons. MUST MUST BE RUN BY ADULTS AND VERY CAREFULLY CONTROLLED.

Bowls - roll balls toward a target with a prize for the closest one to the target (best over very bumpy ground with lots of obstacles). Get some Y6 students to volunteer to measure & record distances.