School fayre advice

[cyty]

The school has just started a PTA so we are all new to this. We are organising a summer fayre and wondering what the best % share is for each external stall/bouncy castle etc? The bouncy castle people said they would charge us the hire but give us 25% of the earnings. I’m really out of my depth with this bit and don’t want to get taken advantage of 🙂

Does that mean if the children want to go on the bouncy castle parents have to pay?
Forget that for a start. It will annoy parents.
In fact I wouldn't bother with anything external. It should be volunteer led.

Hire them
and have pta members run it if they’re charging you hire and 75% takings?!

It is totally normal to pay for the bouncy castle. Our school you buy tickets for 50p each so payment is via 1 or more ticket for each stall or ride.

That's literally how you raise the money, right?

At ours we used to hire the bouncy castle and they would set it up and leave it a few hours and come and pick it up. Normally about 200 quid depending on size of bouncy castle. Then it would be staffed by pta members/ volunteers at 50p or something for 5 mins. All the profits to the PTA. Plenty of profit too.

We only ever did "X to have a stall at the fair, you keep all the profits"

X varied!

Then PTA ran stalls where there was 100% profit - bottle tombola, raffle, selling second hand books, games, cuddly toys etc with everything donated by parents and/or local businesses.

We charged for food (usually stuff like hot dogs with Fruit Shoots, cans of cola, crisps etc - bought in bulk from a cash n carry to save money).
Cake stall was always donated cakes (90% shop bought).
There was usually a raffle and/or tombola which was donated prizes (so free to run).
Book/toy stall - again donations so free to run.
Simple games like chucking a bean bag at a target. Prizes were usually "penny" sweets (either donated or bought in bulk).
There was usually a face painter. Always volunteers doing it. Obviously we had to pay out for the equipment to start with but again bought in bulk directly from a wholesaler saves money.
We made a lot of money by not spending much.

We used to have local crafter stalls where they paid an amount to have a table (might have been about £20 each) and then sold their own merchandise. We also had tombola stalls, raffle prizes, games that you had to pay for and a bouncy castle with a charge for a certain number of minutes. I used to do basic balloon modelling for ours back in the day. Face painting and a tuck shop was also popular

I've never been to a school fair that didn't include a charged bouncy castle.

The model here is a flat rate for hire and set up then all takings are yours (over and above). I wouldn't agree to a rental fee and a percentage of takings, it should be one or the other.

As well as the free-to-run stuff listed we have stalls at ours that are local craftspeople who pay a flat rate for the space.

Ask the school is you can do a chocolate mufti a few week before. Children bring in a bar of chocolate in exchange for wearing mufti. Makes an excellent tombola

Ours try to have all different stalls so keep a list of what they sell so you don’t end up with 10 cake stands. They charge a small amount for stall but be aware lots of other schools might have similar dates so planning stalls in advance in key and locking them in.

An ice cream van is always a major hit and asking if you can get the local emergency services to attend (fire / police / ambulance) to attend with their vehicles. Small fair ground rides of you have the space are also a winner.

If you can hire the bouncy castles for a set cost then run them with PTA volunteers it’s an easy way to make your money back and normally keep the cost down. The company running might charge £3-4 where as ours charge more £1 a go.

Ex PTA treasurer, chair, secretary here.

I don't like externals, they suck money away from in house stalls. Have a smaller fair where all the cash spent goes to you.

Or. Go for loads of externals with just a few stalls for you, less trouble (but less money).

@LayaM I remember a couple of times there being a bouncy castle but the noise of the air thingy was so loud it was really annoying (small playground) and the younger children would have to be dragged off kicking and screaming because they only got 5 minutes on it.
It was more trouble than it was worth (in my personal opinion).

We have 2 bouncy castles - an obstacle course style one and a small one for younger children. I haven't been on the PTA for a few years so don't know the cost but it was a flat amount; children are charged to go on and it's manned by PTA and/or staff.

We have a mufti day in advance where children can wear their own clothes to school in return for bringing something for the fete eg unwanted toys or books for the toy stall and book stall, a bottle for the bottle stall or something for the tombola (we have an adult tombola and a children's tombola).

Stalls include:
Tombola
Lucky dip
Hook a duck
Books
Toys
Bottles
Spin the wheel
Sweets
Candyfloss
Strawberries and ice-cream
Gunge tank
Coconut shy
Smashing crocker
Raffle
Name the teddy
Guess the number of sweets in a jar
Crazy sand
Face painting

Teas, coffees and cakes are inside, in the Hall
Bar and barbecue are outside

We use PE benches to create an arena in the middle of the field and have a timetable with little displace from local dance, gymnastics and karate clubs - they do it for free because it's good advertising for them.

We ask local shops and businesses for raffle prizes and sponsorship. They get name checked in the programme.

Advertise the date in school newsletters well in advance and put out repeated calls for volunteer parents and staff - PTA members aren't enough.

Have a spreadsheet of volunteer roles and how many are needed for each role. Include all the stalls but also the gate, first aiders, money counters, setting up and clearing up at the end of the day.
Make it as easy as possible to sign up eg with an online form.

We give each stall holder a packet with a float, a voucher for a drink and a feedback form (what worked and suggestions of things to make it work better next year) and a pen.

Try to have a few PTA committee members who aren't assigned to a stall and can float - collect money from stall holders, give more coins if they are running low, get them a drink if they haven't been able to leave the stall etc. Walkie Talkies are handy. Hi Viz jackets or PTA tshirts will let volunteers who don't know who is on the committee, know who to speak to if they have a question/problem.

A map or plan (plenty of photocopies) will help volunteers when setting up.

Think about what you're going to do with the money at the end of the day eg ask if the school has a safe where you could leave it.

Lots of people don't use cash any more so you will have some people going to the cashpoint just before they go to the fete and trying to pay with £10 or £20 notes. Make sure you have plenty of change in the floats and if you are able to offer cashless payment, a lot of people will appreciate that.

Actually thinking about it....if the school has a large playing field then a bouncy castle will probably be ok.
I was thinking of my experience of inner city schools with only tiny outdoor space 🏰

Following on from the chocolate 'mufti' - can you still say mufti? dress down.
As a school we did a dress down and each year group purchased items on a particular theme.
Chocolate
Arts and crafts
World food
Pampering/well-being
Baking
Stuff for Dads

We then ended up with 6 hampers and did six sort of raffles.
People purchased tickets for a certain hamper at 20p each or could buy a ticket for all of the hampers 6 for £1. we asked for the actual hamper baskets back.
Sold tickets on the day and on the run-up to it.

We also did something called 366.
You have envelopes with every date of the year written on them.
We got 12 good prizes - local restaurants etc donated
and then had other prizes like free fruit shoot from the burger stall or free hot dog. If one member of a family got a free hot dog this encouraged other members of the family to purchase from the same stall. And then little prizes of lollipops.

Also have some dates more than once, Christmas Day, Valentine's Day etc.
People purchased their birthdays, anniversaries etc.
We had the envelopes on a clothes line across a gazebo - so it looked different and got people over - obviously you have to keep explaining it, but made up loads. I think we changed £1 and bigged up the prize every time.

Bouncy castles are also a risk in wind and rain.

Having just done the Christmas fayre. Raffle ask people to send in a raffle prize and these are made up into sets.

Bottle tombola again ask folk to send in a bottle it could be booze, juice, bubble bath any old unopened bottle.

Kids toy tombola, send in old toys and they get to choose with a winning ticket.

Cake stand ask for cake donations. It’s good to ask local business too. The local bakeries give us a box of cookies and a couple of trays of cakes. A banner to say thank you for donations. Tea and coffee, squash for kids.

Some sort of skill games for 50p

Glitter tattoos or face paint at £1

Businesses can set up tables for 10lots of home crafters or entrerprising people selling jars of homemade slime etc.

I personally wouldn’t have a bouncy castle as it’s an expense that’s hard to recoup. I think you want to be aware of giving fatigue too. By the time I’ve donated various bits and then bought tickets to win other peoples bits and bought lots of quite nice cake I think it’d be fair to sayI’d spent about £50.

Its fine as I’m donating to the school funds but I’d be a bit unimpressed if we spent hundreds of pounds on a bouncy castle or wanted parents to psy £3-4 a go for a private company.

The PTA website is actually quite useful for this sort of info
www.pta.co.uk

Well, yes. How else do you think we are going to make money?

We have agreed on free hire and 25% of takings. Will probably charge £5 for unlimited play on the bouncy castles (one with a big slide) so I think that’s fair? Open to opinions

I wouldnt make it unlimited play. You will have a limit to how many you can have on at once so the first kids on could hog it for ages.

I wouldn't do unlimited play either. You'll have to limit numbers going on at a time for safety reasons and some will want to stay on for ages so you'll have big queues building up.
Also £5 sounds a lot to fork out for one thing when you add up the amount parents will spend on other stalls and refreshments.

I'd charge a smaller amount eg £1 or £2 for a set amount of time eg 10 minutes. Get all the children off at the same time, let the next group on and the time is easy to manage.

You'll make at least the same amount of money because you'll have more of a turnover of children. If it's a small amount, some children will go on more than once.

Thank you! That makes sense

Do you have any advice in asking businesses for donations to the raffle ie gift card for their services? I have been ignored by a couple so far. 😬 (Will ask the parents in school to ask who they know etc)

When you say 25% of takings is that for the owner of the castle or the PTA?
So for £2 a go do you get £1.50 or 50p?