Fete Profile - Chapel Hill State School

Fun School Fete Ideas with Chapel Hill State School

Name: Anne Crozier.
School: Chapel Hill State School.
Event Date: 6 September 2014.
How many students attend your school? 720.
Approximately how many people attended your fete? 5000.

 

PLANNING

• Did you have a theme? No.
• How did you set a date? Traditional date – 1st Saturday of September each year.
• How many organising committee roles were there and what were they? We had three main convenors and we then had key people who were helping out. One for sponsorship and raffles (including online auction), logistics of equipment hire, and critical services eg. insurance. One for organising to fix the dates on signs and sign placement, Lord Mayor’s Suburban Initiative Fund Grant, ATM hire, security company, marquees. One for managing the volunteer school parent stall managers. The three together then backed each other up.
• Have you ever been involved in organising an event like this before? Yes, for three years. I have also been involved in organising the country kitchen for five years before that.
• What unique attraction/activity did you have that set you apart from other fetes in your area? We have our massive trash and treasure that opens at 6am in the morning. It is in the school hall and fills the whole hall! We also have a great country kitchen with a pickles recipe that is awesome and has been used for many, many years. One girl comes every year with $50 so that she can buy her Dad $50 worth of pickles as that is all that he wants for Father’s Day. One year she missed out as she didn’t arrive until 10am and it was all sold. Her father was devastated! The next year she contacted the school and got my phone number and bought them before fete day to ensure she wouldn’t miss out again.

 

SPONSORSHIP

• How much money did you raise from sponsorship? Approx $10,000
• How did you go about it? Whole variety of methods – walking around to businesses, emailing and phone calls. First approach was either face to face or over the phone. The majority of those who sponsored came from face to face interactions.
• How does this compare to previous years? Most sponsorship money we had ever made.
• Do you have a sponsors’ tent?
• No. Some of our sponsors have sites at the fete though. We also have a Sponsors’ board and announcing during the day.
• Do you have any advice for others seeking sponsorship? Start early. Work out a good sponsorship package and what you want to offer and know that you can deliver on what you are promising. Have something in writing prepared, write a script if you are doing phone calls. Make sure you tell them what is in it for them so that they can see they are going to get a good return on their investment. Always speak to the decision maker. Find out who the decision maker is and speak to them. A sponsorship team is needed.

 

 

RIDES

• How many rides did you have? 11
• Did you buy your rides outright or have a split percentage? Buy them outright for the day.
• What was the price of your rides? $7
• What was the price of your arm bands? $30 before the day, $35 on the day. $30 for first child. $28 for second child. $26 for third or any subsequent child. Flexischools is used for ride arm band purchasing. 3% of whatever we sell goes to them.

STALLS

• Did you allow outside stall holders? Yes
• If yes, how many did you have? 12
• How much was your stall fee? $80 – marquees, tables and chairs were also given to them as they didn’t have any themselves but we wouldn’t do that again.
• List of side show alley stalls Loo toss, ring a can, various other traditional games.
• Most profitable stalls: Hamilton Island Raffle and Trash ‘n’ Treasure.
• Stalls you wouldn’t run again: Not from this year. Face painting doesn’t make a lot of money but it is very popular and they do such an awesome job – very professionally done.

 

 

VOLUNTEERS

• What is the best way that you have found to get people to volunteer their time?By asking people personally to guarantee we get volunteers. You need to find those people in your school who are conscientious and enthusiastic and then they then gather their friends to come and help too.
• Did you use an online roster? The rosters were up to each stall organiser so some did online rosters and some did paper rosters.
• Do you have a thank you dinner/party for your convenors? We organise a thank you get together but convenors pay for their own meal, it isn’t an expense for the P&C.
• How did you thank your volunteers? We personally thanked them and the put out a special thank you fete newsletter (each stall organiseris asked to thank their volunteers). The Principal thanks everyone in the newsletter and at assembly.

 

MARKETING

• Describe any success you had with your publicity. When we promoted the online auction, we were contacted by businesses who wanted to get on board to donate a prize/s so that they could be a part of it. We had our most number of reaches for my Facebook post when I said that this is what you need to do to like our Facebook page and then asked them to share it. I said that if they lived in Brisbane and wanted one of these prizes that they should head on over to the online auction. Our major sponsor is a real estate agency and they printed community signage all fastened to posts with their business name around the outside of it. We didn’t ask them to do it they just did it off their own back which was so fantastic. They also asked their high traffic area clients if they would like to put one of these signs up out the front of their business. The real estate also have a historical display about Chapel Hill and also hand out balloons.
• How did you promote your fundraiser? 
• Fete website
• Social Media including Facebook
• Letter Box drop
• Flyers / Posters – 11,000
• Your own organisation’s newsletter/ email

PROVIDERS

• Did you co-ordinate bulk supplies centrally? Eg. napkins, plates, cutlery, etc…Yes, and it was really easy as one person organised it. We only have three food stalls: hot chips, BBQ (souvlaki) and nachos. As it was all coordinated through one person we had enough of everything and no one missed out on supplies.

 

PROFIT/ WRAP UP

• What was your fundraising goal? Same as last year $35,000.
• How much money did you raise? $50,000.
• What would you do differently next year? I would change so much. Starting even earlier than this year. Getting raffle ticket team going earlier.
• Is there anything you wish you had known before you started? Everything. Wish I had have known: How much time everything would take, how much work I would have to do, who were the people who would have helped me in advance. It would have made it so much easier.
• What is the best advice that you can give a fete convenor? Stay positive, smile and move onto the next thing on the list.

OTHER FUNDRAISERS

• What other fundraisers do you have during the year? Bush dance. entertainment books, trivia night, MD stall, FD stall and the fete.

Originally published 19 February, 2015

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