PTA fund-raising - what do you do at your school?

[Pheebe]

We're looking for inspiration! At the moment we seem to do the same old same old:

Bingo
Quiz nights
Summer/Christmas fetes
Prize draw
200 club
Discos (money made selling refreshments)
Bags of clothes
Yellow moon
Beetle drive

Anyone with any original fun ideas? Especially those that involve the kids too?

ta

[twinklytoes]

book people magazines
easy 2 name labels
car boot sale on school site
new to you sale (NCT style but sell table space) - run clothes one in spring and toys in october
2nd school uniform
weekly / termly cake sales
race nights (akin to bingo but horses)
ice-lollies at school gate during summer term
fire work display with hog roast and fairground rides
moonlight walks
treasure hunts in local area
craft day (buy up baker ross and charge per item made)
sponsored sports event

[Pheebe]

Thanks twinkly, great ideas, I like the sposore sports day

[racmac]

We are having an Easter Day and looking to organise a pamper night next term.

We also do bags for life - you basically hand out these bags - people fill them with old clothes and bring them to school - the Co collect them and you get paid

[Pheebe]

OOO I like the idea of a pamper night! How would that work then?

[racmac]

A friend has organised one for Thursday - basically contacted all the local businesses - hair, beauty, avon, etc etc and charged them £10 a table. Then charge all ladies £1.50 a ticket for entry

Make money on tea & coffee etc

Will let you know more on Thursday!

[agalchchangedhername]

Have helped to organise a few Pamper Evenings.

Have made loads of money from them.

£5 per ticket (ticket includes a free soft drink or glass of wine)

We had jewellery stalls,make up stalls/nice candles etc. Charged each stall £10.

Also had Tarot readers which were really popular. Think they charged &10 for 15 min reading which nobody complained about.

Also got local therapists and beauticians to come along (charged £10 again) and do treatments. Therapists charged clients $5 for 15 min treatment and £10 for 30 min treatment. Had Indian Head Massage, Reiki, Reflexology, Hot Stones Massage, Waxing, Manicure/Pedicure etc.

Am doing another one in June arghhh!!!

We got an alcohol license and got the therapists and stall holders to donate a small raffle prize too. Made a fair bit from that.

[lostinwales]

Made a fortune with a ball race with a licence to sell alcohol last year. We also have a genius on the committee who has organised everyclick and www.easyfundraising.org.uk/ which have been great, not masses of cash up front but a steady trickle.

[ChasingSquirrels]

pamper evening
easter egg bingo
barrow of booze raffle (at large local fair)
summer fair
christmas fair
spuds & puds
bags to school
plant sales
cafes
portrait sessions (pre-a-portrait will do them, £32 for a photo session including 1 photo, PTA gets £10 or 10% of sales - whichever is more)

[suecy]

We do some of the above, also do Funamts (google it) where your child does a design and you can get it made into coasters, bags mousemats etc etc. Make a good few hundred from that.

Also active on a cashback charity website www.netfundraising.org.uk/ where if members click through from that site and then shop/buy insurance online etc the PTA gets cashback - we've found this very good to promote as it doesn't cost anyone anything - so far this year we've raised over £500 promoting that - not bad for a scholl with only 60 families!

[paulaplumpbottom]

Trampoline-a-thon
Rock-a-thon
Have a tuck shop at a regular sports field
Cake auction
Haunted House and costume parade at Halloween
Sell Shopping bags with school's logo

[Elibean]

Great thread

ice lollies in the summer (not every day) make lots of money, and Pamper Evening along the lines of the one described did too (but much harder work!).

Danceathon for Foundation and KS1 was great fun, but didnt' make much money.

We have just set up a web page through which PTA members can buy stuff (from just about all the major retailers) and the school gets a percentage.

Christmas cards designed by kids.

'Fun Fridays' where we have games and tea after school...they don't earn a huge amount, but are worth doing.

Mufti days, but they are often for charities rather than PTA.

A stall at our local summer fair, our local annual jumble sale, etc. They do quite well.

We're a small school and very small PTA, so I'm watching this thread for new and modest ideas!

[gorionine]

Hi all I started the same thread this very morning!

Paula can you run mee through the trampoline-a-thon and Rock-a-thon?

For the PTA who do Pamper nights or race nights, is it popular? we have realised at our schol that most events tryed where the children were not invited (food and wine tasting/concert) that peole were very reluctant to come. Have ypu got a PTA creche for those events?

[Elibean]

We had no creche for the Pamper Evening, but we held it reasonably early so that older children could come (some helped, and loved it). Because it was just before Christmas, lots of parents were shopping for gifts, and then delighted to hang out and have a glass of wine and a bit of pampering. It was pouring with rain that evening, so its amazing how much money we were able to raise - small school, and like yours, not many people are free to come in the evenings without children.

The biggest tip: make sure wine is on a sale-or-return basis!

[gorionine]

(just copied and pasted from my other empty thrreead)

We do/did try

2 discos a year, one of them with talent competition : works really well

a summer and Christmas fair : both work really well

A car boot sale: was really good in terms of money but took so much organising that we decided to let go

A food of the world + wine tasting : was a success in terms of "customer hapiness" but was really not good as a money making scheme.Had also bothered producing a recipe book of the food presented on that evening but I think only PTA members actually bought one.

good tip about organising things at an early enough time for Dcs to be here as well even if not taking part. I suppose a craft/colouring table could be organised for them in a corner of the hall.

[paulaplumpbottom]

The idea is the same for both. Students ( if you can get teachers and parents to do it thats even better) get people to sponser them according to how long they can either jump on a trampoline or rock in a rocking chair. So maybe somebody sponsers them for £1 every minute they rock or jump.

[paulaplumpbottom]

We are aslo having great success with filling smarties tubes with 20p. The class who fills the most tubes gets a prize. We run this for a month and there is a small treat on Monday assembly for the class who is in the lead. The winning class gets a prize such as a pizza party for lunch one day.

[paulaplumpbottom]

Sorry It just also occured to me that we collected old mobile phones from people and sent them to envirophone and made around £600

[Pheebe]

Brilliant ideas everyone

Gorionine, sorry for beating you too it

I'd forgotten the 20ps in smarty tubes, did that when I was a kid although I seem to remember it was pennies then!

Other ideas I have mulling about (no idea how they'd work though)

A silly or sponsored sports day
Bar games evening (skittles, magnetic darts etc)
Casino evening (catholic school so not sure such overt gmabling would be welcome )
Regular cake sale - maybe a small table on fridays???

[Lizcat]

2nd hand uniform shop (book bags and rucksacs retail through them)
Summer ball
Bonfire night
Christmas Fair
children do christmas cards pta get £1 per pack
quiz night
summer fete
School cook book

[paulaplumpbottom]

Pheebe we have done a few bake sales and they work but only if things are homemade. We have found that when the table is filled with store bought there aren't many takers. If you stipulate that it has to be homemade it can actually make quite a bit of money.

[mummymilky]

Ours is doing a sponsored 10K run - the parents that is, not the kids! DH and I are both taking part (despite neither of us ever having done any running before), but today we got an email asking for £100 minimum sponsorship PER PERSON! OK, if all 20 odd parents doing it raise that much it'll be absolutely fantastic for the school, but obviously DH and I have the same family members, friends etc to ask for sponsorship so it's going to be VERY difficult to raise that much money.

[paulaplumpbottom]

Seems a bit silly to have a minimum. Surely getting involved is what should count.

[mummymilky]

I agree. Especially as the getting involved is nearly killing me - it's a very long way to run and I'm nowhere near yet. We're just going to do the best we can sponsorship-wise. Somehow I can't see that they're going to refuse our money if it's less that the minimum specified!

[Elibean]

I know our PTA wouldn't (refuse money, no matter how little)! Good for you, good luck for the run

Smartie tubes a great idea, ditto mobile phones.

We're doing a school team sponsored power walk, but its for breast cancer charities, not PTA. Wonder if we could do a PTA one some time...

[paulaplumpbottom]

Maybe you could do it on bikes instead. Te kids might be more able to get involved and everyone ould decorate their bike.