Fundraising - Bottle Tombola

Fundraising could not be simpler with a Bottle Tombla. We are about a 20 person band so we asked everyone to donate a bottle for the tombola, this could be squash, alcoholic, soft drink or fizzy.

We had about 50 prizes with a couple spares in case of breakages etc. Each bottle had a cloakroom ticket ending with a 0 or 5, the rest of the strip was thrown away and then the other side of the raffle tickets were folded and put into a box for public to buy and try and win. This gave a 1 in 5 chance of winning, it has been known to add all of the raffle ticket numbers - including duplicates to give a 1 in 10 chance of winning, however we didn't want to do this given the size of our event.

This was one of our better earners as it attracts children and adults, again we charged 50p a go - given the bottles we had on offer this seems a good deal as there were mainly branded bottles.

Fundraising with Carnival Games - Hoopla

This is another of Andy's makes, again using leftover wood from another project in the garden. Very simply he cut half the wood from the middle in each piece and slotted them together nicely. We screwed ours in place to keep it from wiggling around.

Then each point has a long screw holding a wooden dowel in place as the targets for the rope hoops. The hoops we used were also made from garden supplies and they were held in circle form by wrapping the end of each rope individually in electrically tape and then taped together. This held up surprisingly well!

Our Hoopla fundraising carnival game also raised a respectable amount for us charging 50p for 3 hoops. We took the same two successful hoops won a prize.

We used rope along the ground with tent pegs holding them in place as adult and child lines.

Fundraising with Carnival Games - Whak a Rat

Luckily for me Andy is happy to give making things a go, he had a look online to find the best looking Whak a Rat fundraising carnival game. He had some wood from taking down his old shed and the building materials of the new one. So this cost us very little. We did have to buy the drain pipe brackets but the drain pipe was a spare too. Honestly our garden is full of 'useful' things. But I can't complain because my craft room is full of equally 'useful' things!!

Anyway, the back board is from the old shed, the legs are from the left over shed materials and attached with screws. Obviously the further back the legs go the less of an incline making the rat slide slower. We painted ours with a brick effect and think that this worked well!

I used some ends of brown spotty material and plaited woollen tails to make the rats - double stitched to ensure the filling of split peas did not come out! As this was all being used for a Town Band fundraiser it had to cost as little as possible. We are thinking about using the games in the garden when we have Belle's birthday and Zak's baptism.

We brought a foam bat from our local B and M so that hopefully players nor the board got damaged. It seemed to be a success!

We ran the fundraising game so that two or more hits won a prize. This seemed to work well because we charged 50p for 3 hits and made a reasonable amount from this carnival game.

Weekend Fundraising - for the Town Band

I have just finished one of the biggest projects of my life! Fundraising for the Town Band is part of my role as secretary and most of the time it really consists of booking the band at existing events.
This is was my first fundraising event solely run by the band. My organisational skills were well and truly put to the test!! Luckily I was given compliments on the day by stall holders who attend many craft events a year, which obviously made my day!

Not only was the event itself barely stressful for me it was an actual success. We added a very respectable amount to our funds and now the dilemma is what to spend the money on!

I will be writing out what we did and what fundraising activities worked best for us - a sort of evaluation for me to look back on should I do anything similar again (there are already plans) But also to try and help anyone else who is jumping in at the deep end like I did!!

Just to note too, I had about a year knowing this event was coming and did a lot of thinking and planning with the support of band members. Personally, I was pregnant and had a toddler - then a toddler and a new born whilst planning and executing this fundraiser! So believe me, anyone who puts their mind to it can achieve great results with the right planning and organisation. I also have excellent support from my family that looked after my babies, ran stalls, carried out jobs on the day and built so many things for the day. Truly blessed with my family.