Alternative path to School Christmas Fair of dooooooom

[BirminghamCityCentre]

Our primary school have just done our annual Christmas Fair. We had the usual turnabout of asking people for donations then selling them their stuff back e.g. secret gifts, second half toys, jam jar tombola, booze tombola, cake stall. Plus Santa, cafe, games, crafts. It was an expensive three hours of hell for the parents and the kids loved it, sugar fuelled little monsters that they were by the end. We made money. Hurrah.
I am on my knees at the thought of putting the whole school community through this sht every year, it is so inefficient and we drive a lot of the parent body up the wall with it.
Anyone have words of advice/genius on how their school does an Christmas fundraiser for the kids that they will enjoy, still makes money, and doesn't pss off 80% of the parent body, including the 40% who turn up out of obligation?

We do a small event, mostly crafts and Santa. It is more for fun for the kids than a fundraiser. We do a spring fair in a Saturday that's actually a jumble sale. We sell tables to parents in the playground, get in estate agents boards from which we make all our money, there's no gate fee and no charge for the bouncy castle, but a charge for face painting and craft activities. So so so easy - lots of footfall as we have lots of free or cheap stuff, and parents are happy getting to sell their stuff. We only charge about a fiver for the tables - hardly anything as frankly we make a mint off the estate agent boards. And at the most you only need ten volunteers.

Tell me more about the estate agent boards...

Our Christmas fair is open to pupils on the afternoon and to parents just for one hour after school. Parents are asked to limit the amount of cash each DC can take in with them but parents can always top up after school if they like.

I have volunteered a couple of times. I'd be happy to help out the PTFA but as they won't move their meetings from a mid week afternoon they will have to continue to grumble about lack of support and the same old faces.

I haven't heard much grumbling about the fair from our school although I'm only in the play ground a couple of days a week. Generally the attitude seems to be 'fun for the children' is at least as important as making money. It would be quite tempting to miss out on dragging in old toys, baking buns after a hard day at work and running a stall on my afternoon off.

I had wondered whether a Saturday would be better than a Friday afternoon but actually an hour straight after school is enough really.

As you said, the kids loved it.

We have four, four of these school fairs every year. Always the same families helping, always the same families haemmorhaging money :)

oh dear god Phoenix, how do you bear it?!!!!
estate agent boards banned in our area by the local council (for anything other than advertising houses for sale, obv). boo hiss.

one wag suggested we sell "opt-out" tickets next year for £20 - buys you immunity from donations, attendance and helping. I'd buy that.

One of the most popular stalls is the filled jam jars. Children and parents are asked to donate them. They can be filled with anything: sweets, toys, stickers, coins etc.
Either run it as a tombola- raffle tickets ending in 5 or 0 , or have everyone a winner. Charge £1 a time, or 50p for tombola style.
Also have a treasure map thing. Buy a map square for £1 . winner gets -the prize. Ordinance survey map of local area is a good one.

gaaaaaaaah the jazzy jars. usually we have terrible level of contributions and were keen to ditch this year however pushy reception mother insisted we did them, so turned it into competition between classes for who could get most and we ended up with shed loads of them. Great! Except did any bugger turn up to put tombola tickets on them? did they heck. panicked last minute ticketing all done, they made over £300. Pushy no-show reception mother is smug as smug can be. I want to hit her.
To add insult, I then had close friend complain to me about 50/50 chance of winning, apparently her poor child cannot understanding concept of losing and when he did win on subsequent go, mother and child unhappy about contents (it wasn't sweets. Boo hoo). So she left her jar behind. And i distinctly recall clearing it up at the end, which makes me LIVID. Like some other volunteering parent who has been at setup/fair for seven hours solid on a hangover is suitable outlet/tidying up skivvy for her snotty rejection of contents as not suitable for precious child. She did virtually nothing towards whole thing and could not be ar5ed to even look around for a bin.
Sorry, jazzy jars touched a nerve. Should I look on bright side and think oh goody £300? Am I being ungrateful?

Our best find raisers ( in terms of enjoyment not sure on money raising)

School Discos. We have a parent DJ that dramatically cuts costs but also do sweet stalls , games and tatoo's there.

Film club - The films are free and raise money with snacks.

We don't have external stalls at our Xmas fair - make more £££ without them.

We have a head who makes it mandatory for staff to attend and (help) run a stall - they cover something like 8 - 10 stalls between them. Head also stands at the entrance with a bucket for donations as people come in/leave. She normally makes the most profit!

We have a deal with a local pizza place round the corner, they deliver a dozen or so pizzas sold at £2/slice, this covers the food element, we get through about 50 or 60 large pizzas during the fair usually - there's a stall with crisps, choc bars, cans of pop etc along side it too though.

We have a bouncy castle that belongs to the PTA, £1 a go, massive queue.

We offer face painting, £2/child, also glitter tattoos that was 2 hours of my life painting Olaf onto every sodding face I'll never get back and other than that, and Santa, there's a bottle tombola, chocolate tombola, adults raffle, kids raffle, various craft things to do, lucky dip, etc etc.

We make £4k ish per fair - 2 form entry primary school.

We have a Christmas market instead. Outside retailers pay for a space to set up and they do all the work. The only things we do for it are a cake stall, and a sausage sizzle which the school profits from. We have people who have bouncy castles and kiddy rides, and lots of sellers (mostly handmade type products such as clothing, cards, craft items, soaps, etc, as well as a few others such as Tupperware, chef's toolbox), and a handful of charities selling products like the Lion's Christmas cakes. It's held after school and runs until about 7pm. Sellers do all the set up and pack up, parents run the cake stall and sausage sizzle. We also have a gold coin donation at the gate to get in. It's pretty well promoted around the community, so we get a lot of non school people coming along to do some shopping. All very simple, and actually makes a pretty good profit for the school, without the constant begging for various things from parents just to resell to other parents. Teachers don't have any work to do, most of us bring our own families along and enjoy.

one wag suggested we sell "opt-out" tickets next year for £20 - buys you immunity from donations, attendance and helping. I'd buy that.

We actually do that at our school. If you donate at the start of the year, you will not get any raffle tickets, etc sent home throughout the year. The only ones we still send home are the pie and lamington drive forms because pretty much everyone goes crazy buying those (and if you really don't want to buy any, then just put it in the bin).

Estate Agent boards. Had no idea some councils had banned them. Thought everyone did this.

Organise a deal with an Estate Agents - so it might be £10 a board for example. This looks just like one of their For Sale signs but instead of the For Sale it will say Local Primary School Fair on xx date, 11am to 3pm. They go up about two weeks before the fair and are taken down a couple of days after.

All you have to do is ask your membership for volunteers to have boards put up outside their homes, and give the list to the estate agents. They get free advertising. You get cash and promotion for the fair.

If you get £10 per board then you can see how it adds up. Some agents pay more but put a cap - no more than X number of addresses.

We only have a fair every other year as it is too much work. One of the low effort ways of fundraising is selling Christmas puddings - they are ordered from a company which does them as a fundraising activity for schools.

It sounds as though ours is different to a lot of these as ours is aimed at the school families only, we don't invite the community as a whole (same with our summer fair). It might limit the profits a bit but it makes it very much a school event where everyone knows each other, it has a lovely atmosphere because of that.

Gah! I was reading various descriptions which sounded uncannily like our school's Christmas Fair, and then realising that there were some differences meaning that other poor sods have to suffer it too.

As a fundraiser, the whole thing is so inefficient it makes my head spin.

And don't get me started on how difficult non-school uniform days are for my DS with ASD. And I'm expected to pay for the privilege with a donation for the school fair which I know will raise only a fraction of the value that I paid for it...

We've just had our Christmas fair.

We have ours straight after school until 6pm. Seems to be the best time - we've tried weekends/evenings but people never seem to be that keen on going out again on a cold, wet December night or have better things to do at the weekend.

We used to sell pitches to outside sellers, but ditched that last year and concentrated on cheap 20p a go games, win every time tombolas, a raffle with a £200 cash prize, cake stall and selling food and mulled wine and doubled our takings

One thing we tried this year which was a massive success was a Christmas shopping evening at the end of November. Approached a load of small local businesses and sold them a pitch - stuff like Usbourne books, Phoenix cards, a stall selling handmade Build A Bear clothes, cheap make up and that sort of thing. PTA sold turkey baps and mulled wine. We did about £1k in profit. Minimal effort, minimal help required and no press ganging parents and staff into donating stuff or helping out

I don't know the answer but prefer weekend fairs to straight after school.

Our fair made £2.5k profit so is worth doing.
However Xmas trees are a better option I think, or sell the trees at the fair

I am the new chair on the PTA and I only started going to meetings again in the summer! (was a member for about a year a few years ago but couldn't commit the time)

We had basically a month with the new committee from our first meeting until the fair. I have basically lived in school for that time, copying letters and all sorts!

We had to ask for donations in that time too!

We had it last Friday in the afternoon starting at 1pm for children, then parents could come in after school.

We had a jam jar stall (though head has suggested next year sending every child home with a plastic cup to decorate and fill) a teddy bear on a string, bottle and chocolate tombola, gift in a bag tombola, cake stall, book stall, guess the weight of the Christmas cake, and we had a load of novelties to sell which we get as a donation for helping at the local charity bonfire. They were really popular, especially the flashing necklaces.

It's hard work, and we don't have many members at all, but the ones we have will give it their all.

So long as we raise some money and the children enjoy it, we are happy. Though in the last month I have had a cold, followed by a sinus and throat infection! I am exhausted, but all the children talking about it and being so enthusiastic really helped.

What's wrong with second hand tat? That's one of the most popular stalls at ours!

Straight after school seems to work well, just for an hour or two so people aren't having to make a special effort to turn up. Like another PP said ours is really just for the school rather than wider community and it has a lovely atmosphere. Music helps (eg school choir).

Each class/teacher commits to running a stall, and we also do craft activities. The kids really love it and the parents seem pretty happy too - doesn't seem to be any resentment about giving stuff and buying it back AFAIK.

Birmingham, for my sins I am chair . The fair takes a lot of time from me in December but I do it for the children.

Happy to PM to you to share ideas and what we ask for on non uniform days etc, don't want to out myself on here which I am sure you understand.

Our PTA does

Fireworks Night
Christmas Fair
School Disco (one per term I think)
Summer Fair

TBH I skipped the Fair.

I did get DC to fill a cracker with some tat

I got DC1 to empty a half eaten jar of pesto and fill with some tat.

They did wear non uniform and take in tombola items

They spent some school time making decorations they hoped parents would turn up to buy.

But on the day of the fair, we went out for lunch instead - cheaper and more fun. And the school doesn't actually NEED any of the stuff the PTA gets, its lovely luxury extras, but I can only give so much to good causes and I think other children are in greater need than my DC, iyswim.

Chain parties.....raises a fortune.

3 or 4 people each host a small party, of their choice, in a given month. They invite who they want for dinner / tea / lunch / drinks and it could be family / friends / children / adults.

They supply the food (and maybe drink, depending) but all invited guests are charged, say, £5 for tea or £10 for dinner. All guests are then asked to take the next month and do the same, donating the money to the same cause.

4 parties yields 8 parties (or more) which yield 16 parties etc etc. usually runs out of steam in about 6 rounds but great fun and no effort beyond a bit of socialising and selling the idea to your guests.

Do you get much take up for chain parties? I'd imagine it would just be PTA going round to each others houses all the time.