Use Ice Breaker Games to Get Your Fundraising Events Off to a Cracking Start

Use Ice Breaker Games to Get Your Fundraising Events Off to a Cracking Start!

Use Ice Breaker Games to get Your Fundraising Events Off to a Great Start!

Why Use Ice Breakers?

Icebreakers are great for bringing people together. Having a bit of fun together breaks down barriers quickly, helps people relax and get to know each other. People interact with each other in ways that would probably not happen naturally or would take a long time to do so. Icebreakers speed up the whole process of getting to know you and make the job of bringing people together easier.

When to Use an Icebreaker?

Ice breakers are useful at the start of any training exercise, work project, meeting or group gathering, particularly if people don’t know each other very well.So use them to get your fundraising team gelling together quickly. Ice breakers can also be used to kick-start fundraising events for your school and for parties, reunions and get togethers. Use them to get your parents and supporters mixing and having fun.
To get your sessions off to a really great start learn how to lead an icebreaker well. First know your icebreaker really well. Practise on a few willing friends first! Give an overall idea of the game first to participants and then give step by step instructions. Start with easy non-threatening icebreakers for new groups, but something a bit more challenging for established groups – something to get them out of their comfort zone.
A bell, whistle or some form of getting their attention is useful to make yourself heard above the mayhem when you want to close the game or make another announcement. Try this easy Icebreaker Game:

Get in Order!

Equipment needed: tape to mark out lines
Group size: 10+
Time: 10 to 15 minutes depending on group size
Mark out some narrow tramlines and ask everyone to stand inside the lines one behind the other. Announce that you would like everyone to get themselves into alphabetical order of first names by exchanging greetings and changing places one place at a time with the person next to them. Lines should be narrow enough to ensure that people have to physically cling onto people whilst moving from one person to the next.
Everyone must keep inside the tramlines to ensure that people don’t step outside the lines to simply go from the top of the line to the bottom. When the ordering is complete ask everyone in turn, from A to Z, to introduce themselves. You could then ask them to do this again with birthdays, ages, years worked for the organisation, distance travelled to the event etc.
Variations
Use other ordering criteria such as distance travelled, ages, years worked for the organisation, birthdays, distance travelled to the event etc

For hundreds of great ice breaker games and ideas to get your fundraising events off to a fantastic start visit www.ice-breaker-ideas.com

Sharon Naylor is a passionate fundraiser and has fundraised for many years for schools, churches and festivals. Her ideas have produced a stream of revenue for all the charities she has been involved in. She particularly enjoyed being involved with the Parent Teacher Association of her children's school where she was able to make and a direct and effective contribution over several years generating thousands for the school whilst enjoying a funfilled stream of fundraising events and activities that captured the imaginations of both children and adults alike. © Copyright easyschoolsfundraising.com

Beatlemania revisited - Organise a Fundraising 60s/Beatles Party

With the 40 year annivarsary of Beatlemania and the release of newly formatted Beatle tracks why not jump on the bandwagon quick and host a Beatles fundraising party? Everyone loves a party and everyone loves the Beatles - children and adults alike.

Are there any budding DJ's amonst your parents, teachers or pupils? Or any budding tribute band wannabees? You could have fun with a Beatles tribute band competition

Charge an entrance fee to cover costs and sell food and drinks

At the very least you could get a whole collection of Beatles music together and have a disco or a sing song. Make your money on the entrance fee and food. Get people to come dressed up in 60's gear and have a prize for the best turned out adult and child.

Great Fundraising Opportunities for Schools with Corporate Christmas Cards

Here's a great fundraising idea for schools that I wish I'd been able to do when I was Chairperson.

On the lead up to christmas why not run a Christmas card art competition. Instead of selling the winning design to parents and grandparents get yourself a portfolio and put all the artwork in the portfolio and hawker it around to your local businesses.

Ask them "Do you buy Christmas cards to send to your customers?" If they say yes then ask if they'd like to support the local school instead of buying commercial cards. Ask them to take a look at the children's designs and pick one to be made into a Christmas card.

You will obviously need to have a table of prices ready in advance. You may be able to take them to a printer or print at school depending on numbers. You may be able to customize for your client too. Make sure you add in a margin of profit. If the company says yes but numbers are low see if you can persuade another business to choose the same peice of artwork. You can customize cards easy enough by printing logos and messages on seperate sheets of paper and sticking inside the cards. You might also suggest that the business might like to reward the child with a small gift.

Once they see the portfolio or sample cards I am sure they will be keen to pick one

The following year you could approach them again and ask and maybe the business could sponsor an art competition itself to design them a specific card according to their theme or type of business. if it works I could see a little business blossoming here!

Organise a Halloween fundraiser

·  First of all decide when & where? Consider how many helpers you might have as this will determine the number of kids you can manage. If you have young children, it’s a good idea to get their parents to come too, not just to make sure the young children are looked after but you will also hopefully have an army of helpers as well. Where possible always enlist the help of teachers too.

·  Other questions to consider – will you have music? Do you know anyone who could do a Halloween disco cheaply or instead use a large volume hi-fi system.

·  Consider the venue for a moment – a good place is somewhere like a church or school hall with limited exits and entrances, so you can have people on the door to take money and/or tickets and you can monitor who comes in and out.

·  Consider using a PA system for announcements – with lots of children it’s sometimes difficult to make yourself heard.

·  Send an invitation to each child explaining the date, times and cost of the Halloween fundraiser. Much better than a boring letter. Do you have anyone with design skills that could produce an exciting Halloween themed invite?

·  Ask parents to contribute party food to save on costs

·  Ask children to come in fancy dress with prizes for the best Halloween costume

·  Ask children to bring carved pumpkins and give a prize for the most scary, interesting, unusual etc. There are a whole range of exciting stencils that can be used for carving. Download a free stencil at Ultimate Pumpkin Stencils

Suggested Party Programme:
7pm Arrive
Display pumpkins and award prizes
Judge fancy dress and award prizes
7.30 Games such as Apple Bobbing, Eat apples suspended from a string
8pm Food
8.30pm Spooky stories by torchlight
9.pm Depart
Alternative Halloween fundraisers
Set-up a Pumpkin trail – use a nearby private garden or woodland (permission needed) and make a pumpkin trail – hang pumpkins in the trees lit with flashlights. Children with parents follow the trail – when they set off they should be able to see the first pumpkin and when they arrive at the first pumpkin they should be able to see the second pumpkin. Everyone to carry a flashlight. If you don’t have many pumpkins available make sure each group has a flashlight and tie bits of material on the trees to make the trail visible.
The trail doesn’t need to be very long but should end up at a campfire where spooky stories are told and hot drinks or soup are offered.
Alternative “Trick or Treat”
Get a group of adults and children together and dress-up in Halloween fancy dress. Put a tin inside a carved pumpkin and instead of going around doing trick or treat go collecting instead – door to door, pub to pub, bar to bar, business to business. Tell people what you’re doing – collecting for the school/church. You may need to bring an official document which you can show people with school name and address

More great ideas at www.easyschoolsfundraising.com

Make Money With Wreath Making at Your Christmas Fair

Christmas is approaching fast and you should be turning your attention to the biggest fundraising opportunity of the school year - the school Christmas Fair or Fayre. After people spend money at Christmas, just make sure they spend it with you!
This is the time of year to be harnessing your volunteers, getting a publicity programme together and making sure the timing is right - too late and people have spent their money elsewhere. You don't also want to be clashing with other Christmas events if you can't help it. The last few days of November or very first few days in December are best. The more advance publicity you get the better chance you have of getting people to your fair. Put it on your web-site, ensure parents put it in their diaries well in advance and then plan a publicity campaign to include local radio and papers, posters and leaflets. The more publicity, the more punters, the more volunteers, the more stalls to prise away your punter’s money for your fundraising efforts! Today we’re looking at your Christmas Fayre stalls and in the coming weeks we’ll do a countdown of activities you can put together for the day – so you can be prepared well in advance

Wreath-making
We have made spectacular evergreen door wreaths over the years at the Christmas fair and 1 year I even took orders in advance. Children and adults have been very happy to spend a quiet 20 minutes or more helping each other make a fabulous wreath.

Preparation
• Evergreen material. You will need to gather as much evergreen material as you can on the day or the day before. Long fronds of Ivy are great, so are Cypress, Bay, Laurel, Mistletoe etc. Look around your garden and hedgerows and use any nice looking evergreen leaves. Holly is not such a great choice for obvious reasons!
• Bases. ou will need a base on which to build the wreath. Normally I prepare these in advance. You can buy shop bought bases which are relatively expensive and I feel this defeats the objective. When I walk the dog I take 2 long whips of willow out of the hedge, about 3 foot long, and wrap them over each other into a circle. Tuck the ends into each other and it will hold together. By the time I’ve got back from walking the dog I’ve got 2 or 3 of these around my arm. The great advantage of these willow circles are they are FREE and you can easily start your wreath by tucking the evergreen branches into the holes made by the twisted willow to start off.
• Florist’s wire to fix the greenery onto the base though if you are clever you can away without any fixing at all by twisting the greenery around the base and tucking into the willow
• Ribbon – beg, steal or buy. Red is nice and festive. Lookout for rolls of florist’s ribbon – or beg your florist for a roll!
• Decorative cones, baubles etc. You can decorate your wreath further with baubles and cones though I like a plain evergreen wreath with a big red bow. Charge extra for these bits as this is what can add expense and at the end of the day keep your profit in mind. If you do use decorations they will need to be prepared with wire or string for attaching
ON THE DAY!
I think this activity is best done standing up. Have a corner of a room available with a big tarpaulin on the ground – it can be rather messy. Place all the greenery on the floor. Each person gets a base and some wire. It's quite good to have adults working with children otherwise you will need at least a couple of helpers. Tie or tuck a piece of greenery into or onto the base and keep adding pieces as you go around the circle, wrapping and twisting with each other and onto the base. Keep adding pieces to build it up. Finally when you’ve gone full circle the wreath will be much larger. Tie off with wire. Attach decorations if you want and then finish with a big red bow. Have some string or wire to make a tying loop at the top if the wreath. Wow, a fabulous wreath that will last a couple of weeks outdoors. No one will believe you made it yourself.
Charge about half the amount you would buy the equivalent for on the street.

Some we like to do include:
Chocoholic - Give each table the ingredients for a "chocolate dessert" and together they must come up with their own dish, name it, and place it on the dessert table for all to share
Busts - we built one thanksgiving a pumpkin "bust" of the guest of honour using markers, feathers, and other crafty type stuff -- then the guest of honour judged the best one and awarded a prize.
Coffee Talk - I wrote a great little book that I use called "Coffee Talk" (amazon) great little book to put on the tables to create conversations... via crazed questions and open ended statements.
I have a bunch more I can share (I'd keep typing but I'm afraid of carpultunnel - LOL) pop me a note offline and I'll send you our Team Mover catalogue ...
Have fun, play safe
Tyler

Links:

·  http://www.tylerhayden.com