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 🙂

25% to us, and we agreed on free hire of the bouncy castles (they will man them)

I'm ex PTA and ran several summer and Christmas fairs.

• Bouncy castle cost about a £100 to hire, we charged kids £2 (less in some instances - and we'd give it free to the kids whose parents we knew couldn't afford it, or do a 'pay for 2 of your kids and the other 3 are included' package) for unlimited bouncy castle use, the deal was that they could only use it for 5 minutes at a time, then they had to queue up again.
• Biscuit decorating was always popular and busy, but that was more about community engagement than profit (community engagement was as important for us as profit)
• food was always paid for and always made a profit; we'd have a barbecue with meat donated by the butcher whose kids were at the school, chips, ditto, and in the summer ice-creams/ ice-lollies that I'd bulk buy at Iceland and re-sell
• the plant stall often made money - people would donate cuttings they'd propagated, and we'd also collect the almost dead stuff from garden centres a week before and then bring it back to life by watering it
• the Knock-em-down stall always did REALLY well - donated books and toys, we used to see some of the same ones over and over again as they were fed back in.
• Second hand uniform - a lot of this was given away rather than sold
• at Christmas we ran a stand where kids could buy (donated) items (beauty/ chocolate) for their parents and get it wrapped - that always did really well.

What helped was to have volunteers from every single year group - and the kids in year 6 used to run games stalls (whack the rat/ hook a duck) that they got really excited about being allowed to do. We totally let anyone who wanted a stall to do what they wanted to do without telling them what they had to do (which is not the case at every school...) We all loved the school and the kids and it really was about community- we were a hugely diverse inner-city school of very mixed incomes, and those that could afford it spent really generously and volunteered time and effort and the attitude was inclusive and supportive. (Having said that, we also accepted cash from parents who wanted to avoid the obligation of having to help, but could afford a donation.)

There was a WhatsApp thread for the organisers (though I encouraged everyone to message me separately if it was a question relating only to them) and we generally tried to keep meetings to a minimum as everyone was balancing work/ children etc. Actually we almost stopped having meetings altogether - it was very much school gate/ playground organisation done on the hoof.

Good luck! I used to find it a tiny bit stressful in the immediate lead up, but really gratifying to have done, and some of the other mothers from the PTA are still some of my best friends.

We used to visit businesses with a headed letter from the school to ask for prizes/donations e.g. we use to get vouchers for butchers, bakers, hairdresser, beauty places, etc. Some places gave physical gifts e.g. bottle of spirits, box of biscuits (im in Scotland so one of our prizes was from Tunnocks who makes caramel wafers/teacakes, etc).

Sorry what I meant was to cover the costs you would probably need to charge a lot which parents might not be expecting.
We tried to do everything as volunteers and donations so we didn't have to pay out much to start with and so didn't have to charge much. Games etc were sometimes just 20p a go.
£5 to go on the bouncy castle is a lot.

It's the wrong time of year to be asking.
They will have just donated for xmas stuff.
Ask nearer the summer.

Glitter tattoos is always a great one. Easy/cheap to set up and parents can easily do it.

Don’t forget your Temporary Events Notice, risk assessment and insurance

sometimes there is an advantage to having the externals run the bouncy castle: less money, but they take on the risk.

using tickets really helps relieve pressure on the treasurer and floats: people hand over notes in exchange for a bundle of tickets - each with a ‘face value’ of 50p say - and then the stalls can be priced at 1 ticket per go, or 2, or 3. It cuts down so much running about with bags of cash, and counting of small change.

Join the PTA by parentkind hangout on Facebook and post asking this. It’s a really good site with loads of friendly and knowledgeable people.
Last summer fair we had 3 bouncy castles (3 different types). We charged £5 for a wristband for unlimited bouncing.
This went down well. We did get one grumble but they always complain about everything

Best fair we ever had was lightning stalls (just a few fairground type ones made by volunteers or bought like hook the duck, splat the rat, treasure map, how many sweets in a jar, food stalls (bbq, cakes, ice cream, non alcoholic drinks, penny sweets) hired bouncy castle , classic cars invited, big lorry trailer as a stage and a variety of acts, from school performances at the beginning to an amazing covers band early evening and the local pub ran a bar, £1 per drink to the fair. Made £6k and a small school now 15 years ago. Far less work than previous years as only 10 stalls being run, volunteers did shifts over the 6 hours. Not sure social services would have approved of just how many inebriated parents there were, amazing event and kids had a ball.

At my children's previous school they did £5 for 15 minutes of bouncing. These were in time slots and sold in advance, always sold out I think. The bouncy castles were in a separate area, not visible from the rest of the fair, so if you hadn't managed to get a ticket, your child didn't see them and pester.