The fundraising team at Northmead Primary School ran a highly successful Spring fair in September which attracted over 1,000 people. The team of 7 pulled together a great selection of rides and stalls for all interests and managed to raise over $48,000. Here’s the story of how they did it…
Name of School or group: Northmead Primary School
Date and start-end time: 6th September 2007
Theme or Title: Spring fair
Any ‘drawcard’?: No
Number of students and families: 480 students – 350 families
Estimated number in attendance: 1000 over course of the day
Turnover and Profit from the day: Turnover $48,000 – profit $30,000
How many did you have on your committee and what were their roles?
7- left to us by default. We had a main organiser, someone for prize acquisitions, someone to keep on top of everything with emails etc. We all really did everything!
Did you have a lot of support from volunteers? Why do you think this was so, and what helped?
Not really but did get people helping on the day. This was the first Spring Fair that the school had had and as we were all flying a bit blind, we probably underestimated the need for getting more helpers than you think you might need. We are presently organising another fete on 11th September and I will fill in a report for that one too.
Number and type of rides 5- twister, alien attack , mini jeeps, jumping castle, football shootout,
Number of stalls, and examples
About 10 – cake stall, bali stall, crazy hair, sand art, face painting, milk shakes, café, canteen, bbq, chocolate wheel, silent auction
Price of ride passes and rides $20 pre sold and $25 on the day
Did you have a major raffle? If so, what was the prize?
Yes- weekend at the Shangri la hotel and a bridge climb for 2
Did you have an auction? If so, what were some example auction items?
No – silent auction – signed Parramatta football jersey, wall mirror, hampers, movie tickets
Did you have handover notes from the previous organizer? If so, how did they help?
No- no previous organiser !
Did you prepare handover notes for the next organizer? If so, what key information did you include?
Yes… very helpful this time round. I propose to refine these so that we can have the fair again in 2 years without necessarily having to have the same organisers
How did you promote the event? Banners, Council web sites, local paper, radio web sites
What were 5 highlights from the day?
How much fun the kids had, the amount of money that we made, the opening of our bushtucker garden which took place at the beginning of the Fair, the realization of what we had achieved with so few people helping, the Chocolate wheel.
What were 5 things you wish you had done differently?
Enlisted more people at the beginning to take responsibility for their area, charge more for our BBQ, had fewer outside stall holders where we could have done the same ( eg plants), start planning earlier, got more people to help on the day
Do you have any other advice for fete organisers?
Have fun, don’t underestimate what you can do and have a goal of how much money you would like to make