May I plunder your fundraising ideas, that I may appear sage and oracle-like at the Parent Council Meeting? (winning smile)

[keeptakingthetablets]

Please?

I don't think anyone can hear the words "Sponsored .... (insert suitable disclosure checked, health & safety approved activity)" or "Beetle Drive" again without crying.

How do you raid purses subtly, and with flair?

oh good timing, we are raising money to replace the school swimming pool and need ideas.
I have our events list here...

• new parents coffee morning
• cakes stalls
• sale of winter plants (we get a percentage)
• childrens cafe (run by a couple of parents, the older children serve, I presume parents make and donate cakes - I think it makes about £75 a time, we have then once a term)
• Christmas fair
• mulled wine and mince pies at the nativity
• 100 club
• christmas hamper raffle
• easter egg bingo
• sale of spring plants
• spud & pud evening (was v v popular last year)
• barrow of booze raffle (in conjunction with a large local fair)
• small change event (kids bring small change to school and make a picture with it - think this raised £100 last year)
• summer fair

Other things

• Gift Aid
• Bags2School
• www.everyclick.com

we are doing a 50/50 bike sale at the next children's cafe, bring along old bikes to sell - keep 50% / 50% to the PTA.

spud and pud???????

We're trialling bag2school tomorrow.

Another "effort free" one is Yellow Moon.

Not huge amounts of money but every little helps.

get the kids/famillies to fill a smartie tube with 20p's or £1 coins and when filled bring in

They hold a small fortune, kids like to eat the smarties and spare 20p's aren't to0 hard to find

the spuds & puds one apparently wend down v v well. Early evening event, jackets potatoes the loads of yummy puddings to try.

Soupy - did you have any objections to Bags2School? We had a couple of people who weren't happy with the ethics of it, so have put it on hold atm.

We are holding a casino evening soon (obviously aimed at parents not the children) at local golf club. It uses fake money but the person who has accumulated the most at the end of the evening gets a prize. We are holding it at local golf club, and will be dressing to the nines and imbibing considerable amounts of alcohol

our school has popular wine tasting evenings [run by local company]
quiz night
pumpkin patch fashion show
ladies pamper evening [local therapists give £5 manicures and so on]
upcoming events that have been suggested are a salsa evening

No objections that I know of.

Family Fun Swimming Session -hire your local swimming pool for sole use (usually about £60-80 for an hour on a Fri or Sat early evening) and sell £5 per family tickets.

Friday Cake Sales (after school) once every half-term. Each class takes it in turn to provide cakes.

Parents shop online the school earns money:
www.easyfundraising.org.uk/referral/1852

Abel & Cole - deliver fruit and veg, you hand out bags in playground and the school gets 25% of cost.
www.abel-cole.co.uk/AboutUs.aspx?menu1=13

We bought calico bags and did a very good design on them (yours for a small donation and sold as a eco/get rid of plastic bags theme. We have sold 150 at last count in school of 180 pupils.

Salsa/line dancing/quiz & chips

Auction of promises - the first one raised £3500, the one last year raised a cracking £8500. That is worth getting a sweat up about.

kaz - thanks for the giving link - my mum mentioned this but didn't know what the website was.

Auction - wow! How many children in the school, what sort of promises, what was the average bid, how many promises, what sort of area?

Our school (in usa) does a fair every year that raises close to $80,000 for the school each year. It's mostly consists of filling the playground with bouncy castles of various types (slides, crawl throughs, etc.) and then having booths that the kids can win penny toys at. The bouncy castles are rented and the food booths are run by local restaurants (donated food). And the activity booths are run by parent volunteers (usually sponsored by local clubs/businesses). You can buy bracelets for $20 each in advance, $25 on day of fair, that allow wearer (kids) to go limitless on the bouncy castles. You then buy tickets which let you use the activity booths and purchase food at the food booths. This moves all the money handling to one place and booth are just taking in tickets. I found that I purchased 2 bracelets for my 2 kids and spent another $40 or so on tickets. In addition, the kids had great fun and I didn't have to find other entertainment for them for the day. On top, it's usually held near the start of the year and it's a great way for new parents/kids to meet each other. There are also silent auctions and gift baskets sold/auctioned as a part of the fair. It takes a massive amount of organization, but seems to be the best money raiser per hour spent of just about all the things the parents do.
Another thing the parents organ does is send out a letter at the beginning of the year asking for a specific money donation ($350 per family) and then giving options for doing more or less too. Of course not everyone can give that much, but it did make me give more than I might otherwise have if a specific amount had not been listed. It helps to remind people what previous monies raised have been spent on. In our school, it paid for an extra science teacher, a computer lab and teacher, extra art curriculum and teacher, music classes, playground equipment and beautification among other things.

strawberry tea worked well at my last school.
Always during wimbledon week!

Oh and a 'Ladies night' - local independent clothes shops supply clothes for a fashion show, ours had every day and then ball gown type modelled by mum volunteers, then had various stalls with beauty treatments, alternative therapies, phoenix cards, local gifty shops, pampered chef etc, The tickets were £4.50 ish and you got a free glass of wine and a few nibbles - was very popular.

We are a junior school of 180 pupils /140 families in a very affluent area of Guildford.

• Local estate agent sponsored auction - printing, champagne and provided a sale at a set price any time within a year. That went for about £2000.
• we got stuff from local businesses
• usual cakes/cleaning etc.
• some photographic stuff
• we had a wish list so you could buy a digital camera for the school. That raised about £700 as people were very pissed

Its amazing now I think about it, I have the full list somewhere.

Small school (less than 200 pupils)

We do ladies night (similar to mrs pink)
Bags to school (raised £140 )
Quiz nights
Tea towels/christmas cards (kids draw a picture which gets printed and parents pay for it)
School fetes (summer and winter)
Cake sales
Auctions
School disco's (twice a year)

Every other week I'm rattling a tin at someone (people are starting to avoid me)

thanks Kaz, we did talk about an auction of promises. Will raise it again.

Well if you are interested I can send you our catalogue - its got lot of legal/sealed bid bumph in it too. Just let me know.

ChasingSquirrels, was chatting to the Bag2School man this morning as he filled his van (and he has to come back for a second load!! )

Anyway, our stuff will be going to the Chezch (How do you spell that??) Republic on Saturday. It's emptied from the bags into huuuuge white sacks and sent as is. When it arrives, it is sorted and cleaned by local people (thus employing them) and then sent to large second hand shops where it is sold. The average wage for a teacher there is £150 per month so second hand stuff is away for them to get better quality stuff at cheap prices.

Apparently.

Obviously he's not going to say "it's sorted by underage children and flogged for silly money to poor people" though!