The Fair is fast approaching (26th November) and we need to get organised
As usual we’ll be looking to get as many donations as we can from parents – we will be asking for these to be left in to the school from Tuesday 21st November. We will be sending out more information on this over the next week but just as a preemptive strike:
This year we will be concentrating on quality of offering and choice..To that end group of Parents and teachers have been working incredibly hard on hand made crafts which will take pride of place in the main hall. We are hoping to combine this with a donated gift stall which will include items that may not necessarily be of a raffle standard but ones that people will still want to buy as quality Christmas presents for friends and Family. We will still be asking for raffle prizes too so, again, all proposals welcome. Also in the hall will be the pre-loved teddy stall so please liberate all those fluffy ex-BFFs from the attic
As you know this year we have introduced Class Reps to the Parents Association and, in tandem with this, we have allocated some specific sections of the Fair to specific classes. These are:
Junior Infants – Cakes
Senior Infants – Bric-a-Brac
First Class – Toys
Second Class – Adult Café
Third Class – Arts/Crafts/ Face/Nail Painting etc
Fourth Class – Kids Cafe
Fifth Class – BBQ
Sixth Class – Books
Most importantly we will be sending out another sign-up genius invite where you will be asked to sign-up for various slots leading up to, including and after the Fair. You will see from the options available that there is an amazing level of participation required to make this work and we hope that you will all help out.
You will see from the sign-up sheet that we will be asking parents from those classes to sign up for their own slots. This is really so that we can organise things better but there are lots of other slots available and please feel free to double up. Or if you are passionate about books or BBQs or anything else we won’t hold you back from swapping allegiance. Your reps will be contacting you separately on this. Also – please let us know if you have any suggestions for improving the way any aspects of the fair are run
This year we will be also looking for help early in the week to sort donations so that we can be up and running by the Sunday.
We will be sending out separate emails on the stalls and the donations etc but just as a quick indication:
Our Bric-a-Brac stall did well last year and we hope to do so again. These are good quality items that, whilst not being right up there on the gift front, are still perfectly acceptable for that relative that you prefer to only see occasionally.
Clothes – This year we will not be running the clothes stall
Books – We would like good quality books but please no CDs or DVDs. They don’t sell and the charity shops don’t want them. So much so that I had to buy a couple of my own donations back last year. Please no console games either – unfortunately we’ve had feedback that a number of these have been faulty and the children just get disappointed.
Toys – The majority of the Ballymount recycling runs last year (3 estate-car loads) concerned toys – principally because a large proportion of them were in poor condition. We were actually considering dropping toys entirely this year but we felt that it was an important aspect from the childrens’ standpoint – it’s on probation! A separate email will be sent out on the toys but no bikes or scooters please
Cakes(!) – A separate email will also be sent out regarding baked goods/preserves/sauces/lemonade etc (to be brought in on the morning of the Fair). We need cakes of all standards, either home-made or bought. We go through a huge amount of these so get the Paul Hollywood books out (if only to donate to the book stall)
Last year we raised €5700 for the school and we hope to do as well this year. Thanks for your support and see you there.
