Wednesday night was the night, people dressed up as their favourite
children’s book character (see below for some pictures), prizes were won and
fun and merriment was had by all. It was also one of the most rewarding nights
of my life. I had helped plan this; I had helped raise over £300 for charity,
not bad for one night!
The party planners
Even though the night itself was a success there were hard times along
the way, it was not as easy as we made it look on the night! Trying to get
people to donate food and prizes, even for a charity event, is difficult. Quite
a few larger companies have a designated cause and won’t donate to other
charities. About 50% of people approached didn’t respond, while I knew from the
start that not everyone would be willing to donate something it was so
disheartening to get rejection after rejection. None of the cake companies that
I approached were willing to donate anything, however, when I started looking
at family and friends I managed to get a few good prizes, success at last! (see below for a selected list of sponsors) When
the whole planning group put all of the prizes together on the prize table it
was actually really full.
'Cruella' winner of the fancy dress competition receiving her prize
Here is a selection of generous sponsors:
Things learnt for future fundraising parties-
-
Be aware that while the cause is important to you it’s not necessarily
important to potential sponsors
- There are highs and lows, prepare for some stress outs
- Get a good team of people to plan the event
- Have a good theme, children’s book characters is a good one as you can
create a good costume with minimal effort, or for the more creative types you
can go all out
- Start planning well in advance and have regular meetings to discuss
progress
- Get a good venue, the function room we used was long and thin(ish) with
it’s own bar so drinks were handy and the shape of the room meant people could
cluster in groups without the room looking empty, and most importantly it was free!
- Have a flexible timetable with events planned, for example, we had a
guess the number of sweets in the jar which was a good icebreaker as someone
went round all the tables asking people, a quiz and a raffle
The 'Wallies'
