PTA - What are your fund raising plans for this year?

[Ruprekt]

We have a meeting this week so I need to look prepared and thought I would steal your brilliant ideas.................

film night - 2 this term
Shopping Night for parents
Bags to school
Christmas Bazaar

What are you up to?

Fundraising ideas are:

Music magpie-if kids bring in old DVDs and CDs. Only worth a few pence but add up quickly.
DVD of the nativity
Halloween disco
Quiz night for parents
Easter egg/chocolate bingo for parents-all kids to bring in a donation of some sort and bingo it off
Own clothes day
Car boot/jumble sale
How many sweets in a jar/guess the name of the bear or similar
Cake stall once a month for the kids and parents to buy cakes. Cakes either made in school/donated by parents/made by parents
Nativity photos

Will keep thinking...

Quiz night
Bingo night
Ladies night
Halloween disco
Xmas Fair
Harvest Festival - donations to our local foodbank
Tea towels (kids draw their picture and it gets printed on in classes and ket stages)
Raffle

That's just what we're doing up until xmas. I've just been made chair so I need some fantastic ideas for next year.

Squishy - Film Night is a huge earner!

Yes to Cake Sales too.

A great earner we have found is selling glow sticks in the run up to bonfire night.
I don't want to upset anyone but we found the tea towels to be a complete waste of effort and funds. Our PTA cupboard is full of boxes of them unsold (that we can't get rid of) from years ago - complete with the old head and children who have now left secondary school (we are infants only)

How about a Halloween Cake Decorating competition - pay to enter, and then sell the entries off afterwards. Also, we're doing a 'blue bag' event - send home the special bags and ask parents to fill with old clothes, including rags, and they they get collected from the school and we get paid by weight. We do go through them first to remove the decent uniform that we could sell second-hand for more money though!

Monthly car boot sale, in the winter it's table top sale
Family bingo night
Quiz night
Uniform sale every term
Christmas raffle has been the best money maker

We did a version of the tea towels (shopper bags) ;ast year but sold via pre pay orders (with a display version on the notice board). We ordered about 25 additional bags for the 'opps I forgot brigade' and sold out all. We made about £300.

I felt it was MUCH easier than the hassle that is the school Fayre's for not a bad return.

One coming up here is the International Food evening (works better for an urban school..) people donate a typical dish (fingerfood-friendly) from their country, we usually end us with tables representing most European and many World countries, and then everyone else pay one entry tickets to sample the goodies, plus a quiz and raffle.

Otherwise this year:

Bag 2 School

Yellow Moon Catalogue
School Disco
Wine Tasting (for parents!!)
Santa?s Grotto
Family Evening Ceilidh

Summer Fete
Summer Picnic
Second Hand Uniform Sale
Refreshment stalls at School events
Swimming Evening (hire local pool)

We've also had a Ladies' Pamper evening (& Christmas shopping) a few years back

We find that events that just involve the children with little parental input go well.

We charge £4 for film night inc popcorn and drink and that gives the parents 2 hours extra of cheap child care!