Please help a school fair virgin - things I need to know

[FimbleHobbs]

I have to send DS to school with something for the Tombola - Christmas fair tomorrow.

The newsletter helpfully said 'eg tins, bottles, unwanted gifts'. Tins? Could mean a big tin of Roses or could mean a tin of carrots, couldn't it? Ditto bottles - I don't want to send in wine if that is Not The Done Thing.

Anyway I have a never used Mini Trivial Pursits lurking in the cupboard - do you think this would be acceptable? Are tombolas generally aimed at adults or kids?

I would really rather not have to buy something, considering I am going to spend - ? how much ? - at the fair tomorrow. If I take a tenner will that be enough to satisfy my two DC on the stalls? I know this is kind of piece of string length, but it would be so helpful to hear from experience fair-goers please.

Well hard to say because I'm sure every school is different. Our school has an adults' and children's tombola and do get donations from tins of carrots to bottles of wine (and everything else in between). Your mini trivial pursuits sounds perfect.

Our Christmas fair tends to have a lot of pointless moneyspinning interesting games such as "throw the parcel down the chimney" which cost 20p each so you could spend as little or as much as you wanted on stuff like that. Oh, and we also have Father's Christmas grotto which costs a bit more (£2 I think last year) so you might want to consider in advance whether you want your DC to go to that or not.

Has school sent home a flyer saying what stalls there will be? Might give you a clue.

Well in our school wine would be fine (okay maybe we are a bunch of alkies) but what goes down like a (liquid) lead balloon is that mysterious browny liqueur someone thought it was a great idea to buy after two weeks in Lanzagrotty. Mini Trivial Pursuits sounds fine to me. Fraid I normally spend around a tenner per child, so yeah, if you can find something you've already got that's great. I have to work at ours on Saturday - pity me!

At my schools I head for the wine (PTA choose good wine), the second hand school uniform stall and the book stall. I give my kids a budget (usually £5 each) to spend on what they want and make sure they understand they will get NO MORE. Then stick to it. It's a good lesson in economics and all for a good cause.

It's always worth going to the cake stall early as the best cakes get sold first.

At our school tins can mean 'any' type of tin and all bottles are gratefully recieved. The aim is to raise funds for the school, so any donation should be welcomed.

I would check the wine thing because if it's a tombola for the kids to enter then they can't be winning wine. Some schools will have an adults' tombala (exclusively wine and chocolate usually) and then a kids' one - sweets, drinks, toys etc. The Trivial Pursuits would be just the job. A tenner will be plenty.

Thanks all, triv and a tenner it is then - phew!