Winter Fayre 2023 - after

Automatically generated from the audio, so it may not be perfectly word-for-word.

Hi, welcome to the PTA Podcast. My name is Yvonne and I've been a PTA volunteer for a few years now. But I'm just one of thousands of volunteers up and down the country who all want to make a difference to their schools. PTAs are becoming even more crucial in UK schools to boost budgets, and I find it fascinating to talk to other volunteers about the different approaches they take. So please join me in this podcast to share information, generate ideas, debate issues, and celebrate success. And I hope that you can take something away for your PTA today. So I thought I would just tell you how it all went, and this episode I have a couple of very special guests who can also help to tell you all about it. So before we get into the ins and outs of how the fair actually went, I just wanted to talk briefly about how I felt before this big event. Um so I don't know if you've picked up on this through other things I've said on my podcast, but before any type of PTA event, I get really, really nervous. Um not necessarily nervous that something is gonna go wrong because I plan everything to the nth degree, but I get nervous about the uh problems that always, and I do mean always, crop up at the last moment that I then have to try and solve as best I can as the chair, and I also get nervous that um I want the event to go really well so that it reflects well on the PTA um and all the hard work that we've put in. I want the school to be pleased about the events that we run. I don't want anything to go wrong, I don't want any hiccups that make makes anything difficult for anybody. So I do um I do feel pretty nervous and pretty anxious before an event, and the bigger the event, obviously, the more anxious and nervous I feel. Um so our big events at my school um were talking the summer fate and actually this winter fair, um we ended up with about 16 stalls, which is actually quite a lot to keep track of. Um, I know some of you at larger schools have a lot more than that, but uh 16 for a what was going to be quite a small event at our school is enough to keep track of, I think. So in the week leading up to the event, I actually felt quite chilled out for once. Um, I think that's because quite a few of the stalls were being organised by other people, and other people were bringing all of the items that they needed to do that stall, so I knew for certain that I didn't have to worry about finding gift wrap paper, or I didn't have to worry about baking a cake because those stalls were already completely covered by other volunteers, so that did help me feel a lot better. Uh, in the last episode, I also talked about getting enough volunteers to cover the stalls, but we did get to a point where everything was covered. Um, I think there were a couple of stalls we decided not to do just so that we could have some volunteers taking shifts on some of the existing stalls, which was great, I think, because you know it gives people a bit of a break. Um, but I just wanted to touch on on that really because it it sometimes is a big problem for me. So, you know, a couple of days before the event I do have sleepless nights, things are going round and round in my head, even though I've made a massive list and written everything down to try and minimise those thoughts that just buzz around in my head. I just can't help it. I'm so anxious for things to you know go as planned and go as we have advertised it to the parents and all of that thing. Uh so um I did also talk about this when I think it was episode six when um I talked about the Rainbow Run event that we tried to organise. I called that episode the event that all went wrong. Um, if you haven't listened to it, do give it a listen because I explained there how we had to basically reorganise our summer fate three times for various reasons, completely out of our control, and the impact that that had on me. Um I basically couldn't really organise anything for quite a few weeks after that. It it just took so much energy to keep repeating the same event and then not being able to hold it and then having to do it all over again. It was a very strange set of circumstances. Um and a listener contacted me, um, which I'm very grateful for because she also um was saying that she's the chair of her PTA and she completely gets the feeling of responsibility uh that rests on the chair's shoulders. So in the uh rainbow event, um one one of the times we were supposed to hold it, I was really worried about the weather. It was supposed to be an outdoor summer event, and we ended up holding it at the end of September, and I was avidly watching the weather forecast, praying it wasn't gonna rain, and then a storm was coming in, and I just did not know what to do. There were a couple of days where I just did not know what to do, and and I kind of felt quite alone in making the decision about whether to keep going with the event or hold it inside or to attempt to have it outside or whatever, and I I did feel quite alone with the decision there. Um so I completely understand what this listener is saying, that as chair, you are the ultimate decision maker, and all the responsibility lies on you. Um and she goes on to say that she had a really successful summer fair in June, but um despite a few things going wrong in the background, she she felt um that it went really well. Um but she says during the morning of the event she had a massive anxiety attack, managed to get through the day, um, and it was very strange afterwards um with parents going up to her on the playground, telling her how great it was and how much fun they'd had. Um and she was kind of receiving all these compliments with a smile, but but inside she was just not feeling the same. Obviously, it had taken a lot of energy out of her, and she says that um the same as me actually, that a few weeks after that summer event, even though it was hugely successful, she felt um a huge amount of fatigue and had a wobbly few weeks and basically couldn't do very much for a little while. Um, but she's she's got through it now, and um she's still chair, and her PTA team is going strong. Um, but she says she has um learnt to be a little bit more careful perhaps with what she takes on as chair, um, although she's found her motivation and is loving her PTA work. So I just wanted to reach out to that listener who contacted me and say, thank you so much for um actually reassuring me that I am not the only chair who gets incredibly anxious and um sometimes finds events a bit too much, uh, and it takes, you know, sometimes a few weeks of recovery from a big event. Um, even though it can be very successful, it does take a lot of energy out of you. So thank you so much for contacting me. And I hope that anybody else on their PTA who often has feelings that they're overwhelmed when perhaps they feel that they shouldn't have feelings of overwhelm. Uh I hope that reassures you that other people are in exactly the same boat, and what's important is that we can carry on and overcome those feelings of anxiety to then hold successful events. And I think what is also important is to identify when we do feel anxious, when we do feel overwhelmed, and to tell our team about it, or to share with um school staff if they're particularly supportive of your PTA. I just acknowledge that it's a lot of hard work and um try and get some support where you can, and also you know, just kind of remember the effect that these events have on you so that when you're planning your PTA calendar, you can make sure that you have um the events planned as you need them. So, for example, to uh make sure there's a nice gap after a very large event where perhaps you can spend a bit of time winding down, or if you're anything like me, catching up on all the things at home that you have just let fall by the wayside because you're organising your PTA event. So try and let's all just try and look after ourselves and remember we are volunteers, even though we want to do a really amazing job for our schools, we are volunteers, we have to look after ourselves. We don't want to burn out too early if we want to keep being on the PTA. And if you are a committee member or a a PTA team member, perhaps just check in with your chair and just make sure that they are okay, even if they're coming to the playground and smiling and being very chatty and friendly and looking very happy about everything. Perhaps it's just worth just dropping them a text and just checking. Do they need help with anything? Are they okay? Do they want to chat? Are they feeling overwhelmed? Um, and that would be. I know from uh speaking as a chair, I know that if my team did um that for me, I would be incredibly grateful and um I would feel very supported by somebody doing that. So um, thank you very much to the PTM member who reached out to me. I hope you're having uh a couple of successful terms so far with your fundraising activities at your school, and um just thanks for reassuring me with your kind words. So, my summary of the winter fair that we just held at my school is that overall it went incredibly well, and I'm so pleased. Um we have just had the figures back from the treasurer and we took £892 on the day, which is a really incredible amount for the size of our school and for the size of the event that I thought we were organising, which wasn't going to be quite as big as it was. Um £892. I am actually really gobsmucked. I was kind of expecting £500. Um we do have a small amount of expenses to take off that, but I think the expenses were only about £30. So um yeah, I'm I'm just really blown away when the treasurer gave me that figure. I'm very, very happy. Um, we only had a few little hiccups this time as well. Um I'm I'm so used to organising events now that I know there will always be last-minute problems, last-minute hurdles to overcome, and sometimes I'm kind of excited by that because I like that sort of quick decision-making, problem-solving aspect of the job sometimes. Uh, but this time, to be honest, I was already over it. I did not want any last-minute problems or hurdles. It's that time of year when I have an awful lot of other stuff going on, and I just wanted this event to go really smoothly. So we did have some hiccups, but they weren't major ones. So, one of the hiccups we had was that our school, obviously, as most primary schools, uh, was having a nativity um just the week after this um winter fair, and so in our school hall, the stage was up for all the nativity rehearsals, and our school hall is pretty small, uh, being a village school, and the stage is quite dominant in the room, so we had to do a little bit of negotiation um with the teachers just to say basically we we need to take the stage down for the winter fair because it would just be impossible to run everything we wanted to with the stage um taking up space in the hall. So that was um it wasn't tricky, it was just something that that I didn't realise was happening at the same time, so um we just had to deal with that and spend a bit of extra time working on the stage, which I hadn't budgeted for originally, but anyway, that that was okay in the end, all got sorted out. Um and the um the other thing, which was a last-minute problem, which in the grand scheme of things wasn't a problem, but it was very unexpected, and I didn't really know how to deal with it. So I can't remember if I told you this back in episode 11, um, but again it's linked to the nativity. So the nativity that my school did this year was called the Bethlehem Bake Off, and the teachers decided to run a winter bake-off competition to sort of tie in to the nativity. So children were encouraged to bring in a cake with a winter theme um on Friday, which is the day of our fair, and they were going to be judged by a parent who um has her own cake making business, and then uh the cakes were gonna be sold at our fair. So normally we have a cafe at our fate events, and um we asked parents to donate cakes, so we decided that oh, we'll get people to bring in their entries and then we can sell them at the cafe, and and that's a great way of getting a lot of cake in the cafe. So before our fate, um I was trying to you know get everything sorted out, so I organised for about five people to bring cakes to the fair because I wasn't sure how many people were going to enter this bake-off competition. Um I know sometimes schools have run competitions and hardly anyone has entered, and I was a little bit worried about us being a bit short of cake for the winter fair. I think you can probably guess where this is going, can't you? So I um organised for five people to bring cake as a backup plan if we didn't get that many cakes donated. On the morning of the fair, I was I just dropped my son at school and I just had to take a couple of things in in the morning, so I popped in to school to see an absolutely massive array of cakes. Um, I don't think I've ever seen so many cakes donated for a school cake sale ever. I think we must have had about 30 cakes, and um some of these cakes, because they were, you know, for a bake-off competition, were massive. They were absolutely massive. Some of them were double tiers as well, and we had 30 of them. Um and I did panic a little bit when I saw how many cakes there were because uh I knew that we would not be able to sell all of these cakes. There was just way too many. Um, and then I got a bit worried because I thought parents might be a bit cross if we couldn't sell them all or if we or if we'd asked for these cakes, then we couldn't sell them all. I'm not really sure. I didn't really know what to do. I didn't know if people would be happy for us to sell their cake as a whole cake, because I couldn't go around and ask everybody because um, you know, it was just too difficult. Um, so I was not sure what to do with all those cakes. Um basically what happened in the end is we just had to put as many cakes on our cafe table as we could, but because there were so many cakes we couldn't fit them all on the cafe table. Um, so I just I just basically was worried that people had spent so much effort on their cake, and I didn't want them to think we were ungrateful for their donation if it wasn't on the table, but I don't think anybody did. I was probably worrying unnecessarily, but at that moment, you know, just a few hours before we opened the fate, it it seemed to me like quite a big problem. So those were my two um hiccups, if you like, which I know in the grand scheme of things weren't really that bad, and looking back on it already, and we're now about two weeks out of the event, I can see that they weren't really major hiccups at all. But at the time when I was in the zone of of it being the day of the event, I I wasn't quite sure how to uh overcome those. But what was really great about this event was that the decision um that we had to hold the event all inside. I didn't have a weight on my shoulders of checking the weather forecast, I didn't have to worry at all about what the weather was doing. I didn't even think about the weather, actually, it didn't even cross my mind. I didn't even notice whether it rained or not, or whether it was windy, I didn't even notice because we were inside, it was nice and cozy, um, and it was it was a wonderful experience not to have to worry constantly about the weather and worry about putting up gazebos, is it too hot, is it too windy, is it too rainy? Brilliant! So the whole event was inside. I loved it for that. And I think the key to the success of this event, or one of the keys, is that we doubled our setup time. Uh one of the things I learned, or I have learnt over the years, is that I never really allocate enough setup time to my events. Um and that kind of came to a head in my summer fate just last year. Uh I allocated, I think it was about an hour or an hour, hour and a half. I had quite a lot of people come to help set up, but of course, what I forgot was not everybody arrives on time at the same time. Um many things were against us in the summer fate, but I I knew that if we had a bit more time, it would have made things easier. So for this winter fair, I made sure we had a good solid two hours before the event. Um, and I arrived at school feeling quite calm. I had a lot of um stalls kind of already organised into bac uh b uh uh boxes and bags, so I just need to put a box on a table which contained all the things for that stall, and that really helped. So I I suppose I did quite a lot of the prep at home, and then I knew that other people were bringing their stalls and they were just gonna lay their things out and it was gonna be ready-made, so that really did make it a lot easier and a lot calmer, and I didn't have that last-minute panicky rush around all the stores like I usually do. So, extra setup time or any prep you can do at home in advance that's gonna make it easier if when you get to school. I would highly, highly recommend it. Another thing which I did was I made sure that I did not put my name down to go on a store. So, again, this is a mistake that I made at the summer fate. I kind of thought I'd be over making these sorts of mistakes by now, but clearly not. Um, what I did was I really wanted to be on a stall for a change at my summer fate. I really like welcoming children over to the stall and helping them do the task or the activity or the game or whatever. Um, but I realised because I was on a stall, I couldn't go around and check everyone was okay and check if anybody needed anything. And also I couldn't really get a feel for how the fate was going, whether we needed to change anything. So for this time, I definitely decided I was not going to put myself on a stall, and I was instead going to be an extra emergency person. So if somebody had to pop to the loo, I could take over their stall, or if somebody needed a drink, I could go and get them a drink. If someone needed some change, I could be that person. So I was a kind of floating helper, and it was much much better. And I personally felt a lot calmer being able to walk around and like I say, get a feel for how everything was going and see if anything needed to be changed. So what I did manage to do is I did go around all the stores and check the stall holders were okay. I offered to go and get them a drink or something to eat, so some of them did take me up on that offer, so I scampered off to the cafe and chose them a cake and a drink. Um, I was also able to get a bit of extra. change for some people which was really helpful and um I did take a moment about halfway through the fate um to just look around me and just kind of absorb what was going on and I did say to myself look look Yvonne look what you've organized all these people have come to this event that you have organised um they're all having a great time they're all donating money to the school and it's because of all the work that you and your PTA have done and you know I actually felt really really proud of that um to see the community coming together like we'd basically provided an opportunity for people to all be in the same space at the same time to enable them to communicate to each other and enjoy being part of the school and and I think that's just so special and I was really proud of myself actually for for doing it and for recognising the hard work that I had put in because I think being part of the PTA and being a volunteer sometimes you don't recognise in yourself the amazing things that you have achieved. So for some reason I just took a moment and I just thought that about what I'd done and and that was a really special brief second or two in the chaos of the winter fair. So uh if you're able to do that at any of your events then do take that moment um and I think you'll remember it um later on. So after the fair I felt pretty relaxed actually um and once I heard how much we had raised I was so pleased and well relieved obviously because you know we run these events to raise money for the school and um we always want to raise as much as we can especially with a fate that as you know is so much work. To know that it paid off £850 is a fantastic achievement and as I say I wasn't expecting it to be that much so it was even sweeter um when my treasurer told me that figure I was I was over the moon and Friday night was spent um flopped in front of the TV with a glass of wine because because quite frankly listeners I could not remember the last time I had flopped in front of the TV and watched anything that was on the TV and not cared about doing any jobs at home I gave myself the evening off and uh saved everything like unpacking the car didn't even do that till Saturday afternoon because I just couldn't face it. I knew how rammed that car was and I wasn't going to go in there anytime soon. So um yeah I treated myself to some hours off and um some TV time and tried to take a recovery over the weekend. So um yeah I was just talking about the PTA listener who contacted me and we both felt we both feel often so um so wrung out after events so I purposefully did not book a lot of stuff in that weekend and um I just tried to take some time for myself and I think it really paid off and I I would highly recommend that you do that. Anyway that's enough from me talking about the Winterfare I think it's time that we heard from my very special guests to make the Winterfare work I need to organise a total of 23 adult volunteers and 12 child volunteers to run all of my stalls and I'm excited to say that I have one of the stall holders here to talk about their experience. Elliot welcome to the PTA podcast thank you. Now I know Elliot very well as he is my middle son but Elliot the listeners don't know you at all so could you tell them a little bit about yourself please? Okay.

Hi I'm Elliot I'm 13 year old 13 years old I'm in year eight at school I enjoy math science and DT and in my spare time I like to do art and crafts.

Very good so Elliot when I mentioned that I was organising the winter fair you immediately volunteered to run a store didn't you and then we found out that your secondary school Christmas fair was on the same day at exactly the same time which was rather annoying so I gave you a choice of whether to come and help at your old primary school fair or go to your secondary school fair and what did you choose to do? I chose to go to my primary school fair.

And can you tell me why you made that choice? I enjoy running a stall more than going around and spending money on stalls.

Okay so you like talking to the people that come up to your stall and explaining how your game works or whatever, yeah? So which stall did you choose to run at the winter fair? I did a coin drop stall and can you tell me or can you describe how you make your stall your game?

So you have a clear plastic tub which is quite big you put it on the ground you draw a picture of if it's a Christmas fair you do something Christmassy. Yeah. Like say Rudolph which is what I did. Yeah. You place that under the tub you put water on top um and then you can then you drop your coins in and try another one Rudolph's nose. Yeah. Or if it's a summer fair you could draw say a flower or something.

Yeah just something anything that's fits in with the theme of the event isn't it? So what what when we were testing this at home, what did we discover that we had to make sure we did with the tub?

That the height that you drop it from also changes and you can't put it in the water and drop it otherwise it just goes straight down basically.

Yeah so we discovered that the first thing is that you needed to have quite a deep tub or a deep tank didn't you so that there was enough water in it that it would make the coin go in a strange direction. And then also it was important to drop the coin from a height rather than dropping it just on the surface of the water.

Yeah.

Because that made it also a little bit harder didn't it? But I did you t when the children came to play the game did you have to give them any instructions about that?

Yeah I told them you have to drop it from at least about ten centimetres above water. Okay. Or from the top of the tub. Yes yeah yeah and which coins did you choose to use? I chose ten peas because they they're not too light but they're also not too big so that you win every time.

Because we also tested it with two P's didn't we?

Yeah and you just win every time with those.

Yeah but do you remember what else we noticed? That your Rudolph was brown and the two Ps were brown so when the coins went in you couldn't see where they'd gone so we so we switched to 10 Ps so that you could actually see where they landed didn't didn't we? Um okay and how much did you charge? So it was 50p for go for three coins to drop sorry. Right so 50p for three goes and what did you have prizes? What were the prizes?

Uh you could win a small candy cane one of those swizzled lollies or a glow band.

Or a glow band yeah and uh can you tell me um how the children responded to the game?

I think they really enjoyed it a lot of people spent a pound to get six goes oh wow just 50p. Yeah and one person bought I think it was oh no twelve goes.

Twelve goes two pounds oh my goodness me wow okay so some people really really liked it. Yeah yeah so did they the person that bought twelve goes is that because they kept they didn't yeah they didn't do very well. Okay. So I just gave them two sweets. That's very kind of you and uh would you run the game again?

I don't I think I would yeah I think a lot of people enjoyed it and it was really fun to run. Yeah is there anything you do differently next time? Um maybe a bit more water.

Okay yeah fill it more up to the top yeah maybe a smaller target as well. Oh okay so you think you drew Rudolph's nose a bit too big? Yeah. Yeah. So did a lot of people win? Yeah a lot of people did win. Yeah but that's probably quite good in a way isn't it? Because in a way you c you do want people to win. You don't want it to make it an impossible game. Yeah otherwise no one will go to the stall yes exactly yeah yeah brilliant well Elliot thank you so much for sharing your experience with me and my listeners and thank you so much for being a volunteer and helping to raise over £800 for your primary school. Thank you okay bye Elliot Okay I have a very special guest on my podcast right now he's been to all of my PTA events and he's a great supporter of the PTA and he's only eight years old. Patrick welcome to the PTA podcast hi now my listeners don't know anything about you so would you like to tell them something about yourself? My name's Patrick I'm eight years old and I really like dogs and the performing arts you like dogs and the performing arts? Yes and we don't actually have a dog at home do we? But are there some dogs in our family? Yeah Nanny has a dog. And what's her dog called Bonnie. And is Bonnie a big dog or a little dog? Big dog. And what do you like doing with Bonnie? Play what kind of things?

Throwing a ball and uh just running around with her.

Yeah oh that's really cool. So Patrick I wanted to talk to you on my podcast today because um a week or so ago we did the winter fair at school didn't we? Yeah and you were a customer at the winter fair and I would really like you to talk about the different things that you did and what you saw at the fair and whether you took part in any of the activities.

So first of all could you tell me what it was like to be at the Winter Fair and how you felt it was really exciting because you because everyone knows it's not gonna be rained off.

Yes and why'd you say that Patrick Because it was all inside yes it was so we didn't have to worry about the weather did we? No. Unlike the summer fair what happened at the summer fair?

Oh yeah we went two hours in and halfway between that it rained. Yeah and we all had to scurry inside didn't we? And everyone just went outside to run around in the rain.

Yeah some people like to get soaking but unfortunately all our stalls well they couldn't really get wet could they?

Well still it's to get soaking.

No okay so it was all inside so we didn't have to worry about the weather so do you think that was a good thing? Yes. Yeah and what was it like at the winter fair?

So I was there really early and everyone was just setting up and I could see all different stores and how they were different because they all had different things on the tables like the snowman one it was just some pieces of paper and a sign and then the blindfold drawing which is the snowman one was really really fun because it was so simple to do but it was also really hard.

Okay so can you explain what the blindfold drawing was to somebody that has never seen it before?

So it was on a normal table they had loads of sheets of paper and you got to put them on a blindfold and then you had to try and draw a snowman um without looking it's really hard.

Yeah and how did you get on with your snowman? Not very well. Not very well did you manage to put a hat on it or any arms on it or anything No. No you just did the outline of a snowman. I tried to do the outline of a snowman and a hat and arms but it didn't work. Okay so when you finished your drawing what did the children who were running the store what did they do with your picture?

They just kept it and I they told me to write my name on it.

Yeah because why did they get you to write your name on it? Because it was gonna get judged. That's right so we had three prizes for that stall um so at our school we just have three classes don't we? So we had three prizes so we were going to pick a winner from each class and when uh somebody had finished doing a snowman picture it got pinned up on a washing line behind the stall didn't it? Did you notice that? No I didn't okay so because the stall was in front of the um apparatus is that what you call it in the hall the stuff that you climb up um we we put up some string across the apparatus and we pegged up all the pictures so as the fair went on more and more pictures covered the apparatus of loads of different snowmen. Oh yeah and then at the end we took them all down and our head teacher um chose a winner from each class so that's um so that's why you had to write your name on it. So it was it was like a mini competition that stall wasn't it? Yeah it was yeah okay so you saw the blindfold drawing what else did you see there? I saw a chocolate fountain. A chocolate fountain? Yeah so what did you take part in the chocolate fountain? I did. So tell us what you did.

So basically you got one of the cups and you got a like a barbecue skewer. Yeah and it had loads of fruit on it. Yeah and then they put the barbecue skewer into uh the chocolate fountain that got covered with chocolate and then and then it went into the cup and they put it into the cup so the chocolate didn't drip.

Oh that's nice. So you didn't get to put it in the fountain yourself the person running the stall did it for you. Yeah. It would have been better if we could put it in. Yeah it might have been more fun. Could have got quite messy though do you think? No it couldn't you don't think so? No. No. So on the skewer can you remember what fruit there was on the skewer? I think there's like blueberries and strawberries maybe some raspberries. I think there was blueberries and grapes and there was something that wasn't a fruit do you remember what that was a big marshmallow in the middle. Oh yeah Yeah so we thought that would be nice and tasty and was it tasty? Yes did you have more than one? No was one enough yeah because they're quite big aren't they I suppose with the chocolate on as well and we haven't had a chocolate fountain at the fair before do you think it's a good idea to have one in the future at other events?

Yes.

Do you think it was popular with everybody?

Yeah and maybe something to add I think if we can you might want to do an a milk chocolate fountain and then a white chocolate fountain because some people might not exactly like milk chocolate or you could do a dark chocolate fountain. Yeah that's a really good idea chocolate is really nice.

Yeah to have some different flavours so we'd have to see if anybody else had a chocolate fountain um because we don't we don't actually own a chocolate fountain as the PTA that was somebody's that they brought from home so we'd have to see if anyone else had got one. But that's a good idea to offer some different flavours I like that Patrick so you did the chocolate fountain what else did you see I saw the glitter tattoos.

Oh the glitter tattoos yeah so my friend's mum ran it yeah and they were actually really good I didn't do it because there was a really long cue.

It's always really popular isn't it that one and we had two people doing them at the same time which I hoped meant there wouldn't be such a cue but there still was quite a big cue. Why'd you think it was so popular Patrick? I think because you get to keep it as long as you want that's right yeah until you wash it off I suppose yeah for the rest of your life I don't think it lasts quite that long. Did you see any of your friends who's had one done did you see it on their arm or their hand or anything?

I think Rory got a pineapple.

He got a pineapple did you see anyone else's no I saw someone with a lovely Christmas tree like a swirly Christmas tree and they had different coloured glitter on it. It wasn't just one colour they'd mix different colours in it looked really amazing.

That that sounds good.

Yeah so if you had got to the glitter tattoo store what sort of tattoo do you think you would have chosen? Depending on what there were I probably would have chosen does it have to be a Christmas either it doesn't have to they had Christmas options okay so let's say if it was if it had to be a Christmas option what would you have chosen? A mushroom. A mushroom okay and if it was a non-Christmas option what would you have chosen? A stick a stick okay well maybe next time or maybe a pineapple or maybe a car or a stick Christmas tree. Okay right a stick excellent but a mushroom is Christmas tree isn't it I suppose yeah I mean some Christmas decorations have mushrooms on you're right they do I mean I got it from that cushion over there. Oh on our cushion on our sofa yeah yeah but what about a Rudolph? That might be quite nice. No no definitely a mushroom it would have been taken oh do you think no but they can reuse them for stencils it's not just one use only so I would have done a mushroom. Okay well hopefully next time you can get a mushroom what colour would you pick for your mushroom? Purple purple good choice good choice purple with brown spots okay okay let's and blue stripes let's think back to the winter fair Patrick can you tell me about any other stalls that you visited I visited the bracelet the bracing thing okay so tell me what happened at the bracelet making stall so you got a bit of string one side of it can you describe the string?

Oh yeah it like faded from one colour on one side to the other and on one of the sides it was tied up and it had a bead in it. Oh so it had a knot ready on it and a bead ready on it okay yeah yeah and then uh you got to put all these different beads because they had so many beads you've got to put one loads of them on and then and then they tied it up at the end.

Oh okay so was the string that that you put that you put on was it stretchy string? Yeah it was really stretchy so it could just stretch over your hand when you put it on. And what were the choices of beads like? Can you describe them?

Uh so there was letters of different colours there was tiny beads there were big beads and there was just normal beads and there were some stars.

Some stars okay and but there was also some little animal charms weren't there oh yeah I couldn't want that. You put some on your bracelet didn't you? I put an owl you put an owl on your bracelet yeah and what else did you choose for your bracelet then?

I put my name Patrick and then I put three initials Rory's initial my initials and Luke's initials.

Oh because they're your friends.

Yeah that's really cool with them.

Yeah. And then next to the bracelet making store what else was in that room?

Rudolph's carrot. You need to choose the right carrot for Rudolph That's right so how did that how did that game work? Basically you had a basket loads of carrots in it and you can only see the top and at the bottom on some of the carrots there's special tape on them.

Mm-hmm some of them it doesn't have that if you pick out one with tape then you're lucky and you win a sweet yeah and how many did you get to choose? Two. So you got to choose two carrots you pulled two out and if it had special tape on the end Christmasy tape you won a prize and what were the prizes? Sweets. Just a sweet okay and when you got hungry Patrick You went to the cake store.

You went to the cake store so tell us about the cake store uh so it it was just basically 50p or one pound for a cake and something for a drink I think it was like one pound for a drink or 50p for a cake. Yeah um I only got cake because I didn't see that there was a hot drink.

Okay.

That's kind of sad.

So yeah we offered hot drinks so we offered tea or coffee or hot squash or hot chocolate.

Yeah should have chosen hot chocolate.

Oh is that what you would have picked cake so which cake did you go for?

So I went for my cake that I made.

Oh yeah okay and and what was yeah what was special about the cakes that were at the cake sale? Everyone made a cake that's right and why did everyone make a cake?

Because someone might win. Because of what?

What was it? It was a bake-off competition. That's right. We had a bake-off competition. We had a winter bake-off competition because the nativity that our school was doing is called what was it called? You remember Bethlehem Bake. The Bethlehem Bake Off. And so the teachers decided to run a bake-off competition and we made it so that people brought their cakes in on the day of the winter fair, and then they were judged by a parent who is who has a cake making business. And then the cakes were donated to the fair, and we had so many cakes, didn't we? That were donated. Our table at the fair was covered with cakes. I've never seen so many cakes at one of our events before. Was it hard to choose one to buy? Yeah.

But I chose mine because mine was the best. Yes.

Um can you describe what your cake was that you made?

So it was just a rectangular chocolate cake, except it was chocolate orange. Yeah. And it had really nice sprinkles on it. Yeah. It had a bit of holly.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, we found some Christmas sprinkles to sprinkle on the top, didn't we? Yeah. To make it look all festive. Can you do can you remember what any of the other cakes looked like though?

So I also got this flapjack womb which was covered in chocolate and cinnamon or something, I think. It was really nice. Yeah. Bonnie made this really, really nice wom. I I didn't try it. What did it look like? It it was like a round white cake with a snowman on top. Oh okay. Then other people made other things, so one of them was just like I think some reindeer maybe. Yeah. But most people use fondant icing to make pictures.

Yes, because that's easy to m to m move into shapes, isn't it? Fondant icing. Yeah. Brilliant. Okay. Um and then you were extremely helpful at the winter fair, weren't you? Because um what did you do that was really helpful to me?

I had to run this shop, well shop game. Yeah. Coin it was the coin drop. So basically you had some coins and you had to drop one through the water onto Rudolph's nose. It was really hard because the coin automatically changes direction when it hits the water.

That's right. So it makes it, it looks really easy, doesn't it?

Yeah.

But then when you try, it's really difficult. And how popular was that game whilst you were running it?

Not as popular as I thought.

Oh really? Okay. Did you try and encourage people to come over and play it?

Yeah.

Yeah. Well that's the right thing to do, yeah.

They didn't.

They didn't, okay. They were distracted, were they? Yeah. Yeah. Perhaps they were distracted by the glitter tattoos, because you were quite near the glitter tattoos there, weren't you? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so Patrick, I think you've done an excellent explanation of everything you did at the fair. Do you think there's anything we could do better next time to make it better?

Well Oh, I also did the reindeer food. Oh, the reindeer food, yes. Tell us about the reindeer food. So you got a cup, and there are loads of different boxes with different things. And you've got a spoon in each box. So you've got to put different seeds in your cup. Yeah. And then you've got to mix them up.

Yeah.

And then you put it in a bag and you make a label for the bag with different stamps. Yeah, that's right. And and you've got to write your name on it. Yeah. And then you just got to pour in the cu think the seeds from the cup into the bag. And then you just got to take it home. Yeah, and what are you gonna do with it? I'm gonna put it out, sprinkle it before we go on holiday.

Yeah.

Yeah. Uh out on in the garden. Yeah. And then and then um the reindeer know that it's safe to land there. Yeah, and they can have a little snack, can't they?

Because they're probably tired from all their flying around.

No, they eat the hedge, don't they?

Well, they might eat the hedge as well. They normally munch on the hedge. Do they? Have you noticed in the past?

No. But that's what it says in the book. Oh, okay. They munch on the tasty hedge.

Excellent. Well, we've got some of those in our garden, haven't we? Yeah. That's handy for the reindeer. Okay, so can you think of anything else we could do at the winter fair next time that might be fun? Or anything that you'd like to see again at a different event?

Well, there's always going to be the glitter tattoos.

Yeah, yeah.

I think the coin drop is a really good one. Yeah. I think I'd like to see that again. Okay. I think the drinks could be a separate store.

Okay, so they don't get mixed up with the cakes. That's an interesting point. Alright. I really like the chocolate fountain. You really like the chocolate fountain, yeah. Yeah, I think everybody liked the chocolate fountain. We haven't had that before, so it was a new thing.

I think this time next time I want to do the tomboler because I didn't get time to do it.

No, and then it ran out because it always runs out really quick, doesn't it, our tomboiler? Yeah, yeah. I I was gonna do it when they were packing up. Oh, that's a shame, Patrick. Oh, did you did you have a go at Guess the Name of the Elf, or did you not do that one?

No. You didn't do that one. Okay. Because it was a fake squishmallow.

Okay.

So you only like real squishmallows, do you?

Yeah.

How did you know it was a fake squishmallow?

Because Milo said and he can tell them.

Oh, can he? Okay.

It's got tiny squishmallow gonk. Okay. It's really cute. It's got a nice rainbow beard.

Oh, that's that does sound nice. It's cute. Oh, so you didn't feel it was worth having a go at the fake squishmallow? Yeah. Did you have a squish of it?

No.

Oh, it might have been nice.

It would have been.

Yeah.

Dinkando.

Okay, never mind then. Well, Patrick, thank you so much for being part of my PTA podcast today. I really like talking to you, and I think my listeners will have really enjoyed hearing what you thought of the winter fair. So we're gonna say bye to you now, okay?

Bye. Bye.

Well, I hope you enjoyed hearing from my special guests there. Um, my family is often involved in my PTA events, especially if it is a fate style event uh with lots of stalls, because basically I am so desperate for volunteers that I have to ask everybody that I know. But um, on a serious note, I feel it's a great thing to share with your children and something very positive to get them involved with, and you being a volunteer in anything actually that you do. It's I'm not just talking about the PTA here, I'm talking about anything, it's fantastic role modelling to your children to perhaps encourage them to have a go at volunteering at some point, or you know, they might look back later in their life and remember that you did a lot of volunteering, and when they have their own children, they might want to get involved in the same way that you did. So, um, my elder son is doing his Duke of Edinburgh Award, he's working on his silver award at the moment, and there are elements to completing the Duke of Edinburgh Awards. Uh, there's four elements in total, uh, one of which is volunteering. Now, unfortunately, him volunteering for my PTA does not really work because you need to do very regular hours. I think he needs to do an hour a week every week on his volunteering. Um uh, and um I need volunteers to help um all times of the day, but mostly basically when my son is at school, so he's not going to be able to help uh my PTA, so he can't volunteer for my PTA, which is a real shame because I could really do with the extra help. But um I think being a volunteer is such an important lesson in life, too, uh, to give your free time or to give your time away for free to help somebody else or an organization you believe in, um, to develop new skills or even just step a little bit out of your comfort zone, and that all of those things are really important skills to have, and it's important to be able to try and do those things. So I think any way to encourage your children to be volunteers, whatever it might be, can only be a really good thing. Right, so let's talk some figures. So I have now received the stall takings from my treasurer. My treasurer is Fab, he knows how much I love to do a bit of data crunching after um an event, and basically I'm just really interested to see which stalls were popular and how much they all raised and how they kind of compared to each other. So I'm just gonna give you a quick rundown of um the takings from our stalls. Um now I know that if you're in a very large school, these takings are going to seem really small, um, but I will point out the ones that are particularly good for us so that you can get an idea of um a sort of I don't know, a comparison from my school to yours. So uh so to kick off, we have the winter cafe, but so this was the store that had all the cakes, and we also offered hot drinks, and everything was a pound on this store. Now I asked my friend who ran this store how many hot drinks she thought she sold, because we can't tell from the figures whether this money is for cake or hot drinks. And she got back to me and said um she bet she felt like she hardly sold any drinks at all. So let's say there were less than 10 drinks, I think, um, and the rest was cake, and we made £152 on that store, which is uh which is a lot for our cafe. Our cafe doesn't normally make that much, uh certainly not as much as £152. I think normally we're looking about £100, so for it to take £152, that's brilliant. And of course, all of those cakes were donated, so that's great. Uh the next store we have the chocolate fountain. Now, the chocolate fountain, as you heard um from my children, was very popular. It was also quite um an expensive stall to actually run because buying the fruit and the marshmallows and the chocolate, those are all quite expensive items. So the stall itself took uh £43.50. Um, but after the expenses, it made a profit of just um just under £18. So I was I was quite pleased with that actually. Um I wasn't sure if we were going to make a profit on that one, but I still wanted to run it because it's such a lovely fun stall, so I was very pleased with how that one turned out. Then the glitter tattoos we made £16.50 from them, so we did charge uh 50p per tattoo. Then we had stamp your own gift wrap, which um uh did very well actually. We made £27 on that, so that was £27 children making their own gift wrap, um, which I thought was pretty good actually. Then we had our charm bracelets, and we made a profit of £24.50 on that one. Um, we charge £1.50 to make the bracelets because we did buy some special lovely uh wooden beads and some silver charms. Um we don't have any expenses for that one because we bought all the equipment for the summer fate and we still had loads left over, so that was a kind of freebie. And it's probably a stall that we're gonna be running for the next 10 years because we still have loads left over. Um anyway, I think it's nice to have quite a lot of choice when you're choosing charms for a charm bracelet. So I possibly maybe ordered a few too many, but anyway, they're lovely. Little um animal charms look really good. Uh then our raffle did incredibly well, and we sold 303 tickets for our raffle. So we made a profit of 303 pounds because all of our prizes were donated, and I think this time at our raffle we had I think it was 10 prizes on the list, so it was a nice, nice sized raffle, easy to draw at the end of the fair. Nobody was hanging around for a really long time waiting for the results of the raffle. So um, so that was really good. Then the coin drop game, which my son Elliot ran, um, he actually made a profit of £28.50 on that game, which was pretty impressive considering it was 50p per go. So he obviously had a lot of players on that. And again, the coin drop game has absolutely no expenses at all apart from some sweet prizes. So um that's a really good one if you're looking for something that's very low cost. Then our tombolas, our adult tomboler made £77, our children's tombolas £59, and our Teddy Tomboler made £44, and all of the prizes for the Tombolas were donated. So, again, that's just pure profit, an excellent way to make a lot of money there. Um, we had the blindfold drawing competition, which Patrick talked about, but that was just £50 ago, and we made £20 on that. Again, that's a lovely store, very low cost. You just have to put out some paper and a pencil and uh something to use as a blindfold, although we made sure that um it wasn't compulsory because obviously some children might not have liked to put the blindfold on. Um and you just have to get some prizes, which I bought from um I think it was the works, and I just got a couple um a couple of festive activity books or sticker books or something, something appropriate for each age group, and they were not very expensive, so that was uh very straightforward. Then our reindeer food, that was 50p to make a bag of reindeer food, and we made £14.50 on that. We had the pick the carrot game that uh Patrick talked about. We made £30 on that, which was again a very, very low-cost stall, and that was £50p for a go. So there must have been 60 people playing that. That's really incredible. I didn't realise that was going to be so popular. Um, my husband actually ran that stall, and he said that some of the really little children from our nursery actually wanted to win the carrots, so when they pulled out a carrot, they um they took their carrot home. So that even cheaper prizes, if you can give a carrot as a prize, amazing. Um then we had the name of the squishmallow elf, which as Patrick pointed out to everybody, in case you weren't aware, it was a fake squishmallow. Um, I don't know if that bothered any of the other children, but um I know that they sold uh all of the names on that, so we made about £25 from just naming the Squishmallow, and then the final store that we had were secondhand books, and again all of the books were donated, so that again was a stall of 100% profit, and we made £23 by just charging 50p for one book. And there was uh just a few expensive, about £30. So um I'm really really pleased with how the winter fair went, and it it's a great uh end to term two to raise that much money. Um we also got the parents to pick up their tea towel orders at the fair. Uh I'm not sure if I mentioned about this, but we sold £161 or two tea towels. So we actually made a profit on the tea towels of about £350, which again is a really excellent uh profit. So very pleased with how those turned out. And then just to round the term off, we uh decided to offer mince pies in the school hall after the end of term church service. Uh, we did this last year, and it was a really lovely way to just have a bit of social time as parents. So we bought the mince pies um and decided to give them for free to the parents along with tea and coffee, just as a kind of goodwill, nice festive social occasion. Um, but we also put out our secondhand uniform for sale at the same time. Um, and we sold uh £14 worth of uh secondhand uniform. So that was really great. You know, all these all these little bits add up. Um, especially I know if you're in a village school, you will totally understand this that an extra £14 here and there does make a difference and it all adds up. So, and you know, putting out some jumpers on a table is so easy. Again, it's all donated. We just sell um our secondhand uniform at one pound an item, um, and it's very straightforward. Uh so and parents could could browse that whilst their children were just getting ready to come out of school, so it's a really good way of just kind of cycling through the secondhand uniform. And I think I said in a previous episode, I really want to try and make the parents more aware that it's there, so putting it out at the social events is is a really good way of doing that. And then the final, final, final Christmas thing that we did was we had uh a non-uniform day on the last day of term, and we just charge a pound for that. Well, we we say that the suggested donation is a pound, but we ask people to give whatever they can. If if they can give a donation, we understand that not everybody's able to, and we don't want to put pressure on people. Um, and we just said to the children, come in non-uniform and if you want to wear something Christmassy, then do that. And uh the kids bounced into school because it was the last day of term and came and put their money in our pot. And um, I think we got about £50 from that, so again, it all adds up um to you know, more books in the library or extra things in the classroom. So I will never say no to any any fundraiser, no matter how small. And so there you have it, that is my summary of how our winter fair went and the last couple of little tiny fundraises we had at the end of term two, just before Christmas time. So I just want to take this opportunity to wish you all a very, very happy Christmas if you celebrate Christmas and a happy new year. I won't be releasing another podcast episode now until the new year because uh we're going on holiday for Christmas, um, and I'm gonna take a well-earned break from everything PTA related. If you want to contact me about anything you heard in this episode or in any of my other episodes, I would absolutely love to hear from you. My email address is hello at ptapodcast.com. And if you can leave a rating or review for me on wherever you get your podcasts, that would also be wonderful and it would help other PTA volunteers find this podcast. So I wish you all a very restful Christmas. I hope you can take a break from all of your PTA related work and really give yourself a bit of me time before we open the doors again in January and get on with the fundraising in terms of so bye for now.