available, so we ended up with a bouncy snow globe instead. No one minded the Christmassy addition. To cover upfront payments, we pre-sold 100 bounce bands at £10 each. We used a ticket system for the stalls and games and sold strips of tickets in the week leading up to the fair. Visitors could also buy tickets by cash or card at the gate and inside the fair. The ticket system encourages people who have pre-paid to show up whatever the weather, and we find they spend more if they aren’t searching around for change. On the day, 115 volunteers worked
a combined 178 hours. We were lucky to have an experienced set-up team of dads who knew where everything went. They arrived early and walked around with site maps, handing out tables and gazebos. At the end of the day, the whole thing was deconstructed in under an hour. We sold out of sweets; the
barbecue team had to restock part way through the fair and the bar staff sold all the Pimm’s. There’s a photo of my son running towards the bouncy snow globe holding hands with a little girl friend. To me that really encapsulates the joy of the day. Rebecca Geitgey, PSA chair, Queen’s Church of England Primary School, Kew, Richmond, Surrey (360 pupils)
Fair facts TIMING: Saturday, 11am-2pm ENTRY FEE: Adults £2, children could come in for free HELPERS: 115 parents, four teachers and the headteacher BEST MONEY-SPINNER: The bouncy castles and barbecue. The barbecue made over £1,000 after expenses TOP TIP: Be friends with the site manager – we paid ours to stay all day and gave him a free lunch. Having someone on site who can fix things and knows where all the extra supplies are is invaluable PROFIT: £5,219
38 SUMMER 2023
pta.co.uk
Quirky games
‘We wanted all our pupils to join in, whether their parents could afford an evening out or not’
T
he secret of our summer fair’s success was the buzz we created
in the build-up. People couldn’t wait to get through the school gates and some even turned up half an hour early. We’re known for our quirky activities. Potential volunteers could see what we had planned from our online sign-up sheet. We also put a few photos as teasers on social media to help whip up the excitement. News of the Turbo Toilet 2000 (named after the leader of the talking toilets in Captain Underpants) spread through the staff and children while word of The Floor Is Lava leaked out via the PTA. Our new games went down a
storm. Even though I’m an engineer, it took a ‘meeting’ in the pub with an engineer friend and some tweaking from another pal before we finalised the design of the Turbo Toilet 2000. It still involves a teacher getting wet but is less vicious than soaking a teacher in the stocks. Everyone loved it – even the teachers. Next up was Shoot A
Stormtrooper, run by a parent who appears at charity events in his Stormtrooper costume. As well as supplying Nerf guns, he ran the stall with a parent dressed as Princess Leia, his son in Darth Vader
costume and some other PTA children in Star Wars outfits. The kids fire the Nerf guns at him and he’s great at interacting with the hits and misses. For The Floor Is Lava, we used a
groundsheet with an existing climbing frame in the playground to create a trail that participants must cross without touching the floor, just like in the TV show. Our electric Jeeps are a great
favourite. We used one belonging to my son, and a friend loaned the others. We had lines of children waiting to have a go. The parents of the younger children love seeing their little ones driving around the playground just as much as the children enjoy driving.
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