Last night we had a trivia night and silent auction towards a jumps harness for our club. I think we raised over $2,000 which is fantastic. But today a few of us, while we were packing bags for a skating promotion tomorrow, were discussing further ideas to fundraise to help promote our sport and also to raise money for special events. We talked about selling bottles of wines, doing the chocolate thing, doing a sausage sizzle (very popular here in Australia) and even having a games night. We have also had video nights where we show videos of famous skaters and charge a nominal fee for people to attend. Of course we have done the raffle thing too. We are a very active, positive group but always looking for further ideas.

So some of you might have other ideas about fundraising activities you have done or would like to do that are things we could possibly do here too.

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Check out Cool Cat Skating Products - Australian Owned and Produced Skating Stuff.
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One of the best fundraisers my kids school had was a magazine drive. Of course, no one wants to subscribe to new magazines, they think it's more expensive, etc. But www.QSP.com offers a good program: you can renew existing subscriptions or register for new ones. If you get a renewal card for a rate lower than their catalog price, they'll honor it as well.

It's competitive, but 40% of each subscription/renewal goes back to the organization, so it is a very easy way to raise money.

I know you're in Australia, so this may not be an option, but I think Readers Digest (parent of QSP) is international. Maybe they have a "down under" branch.

Good luck!

PS- I had dinner at an Outback Restaurant this weekend and I thought of you. Exactly what does "bonzer" mean? They have it all over the menu.

Last Red Nose Day our rink raised money by sponsoring skaters to have their faces painted (I had mine done and lived to regret it - an awful rash all weekend. But I did know that would happen!). The rink owners agreed to donate an agreed amount per head that night, as did the management company, and the Action Group donated so much for every skater wearing red. I went round with a bucket and shook it at all the spectators until they emptied their pockets (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) into it. And they decided to have as long a chain as possible on the ice, with a child in a wheelchair leading the procession, and about 80 skaters behind her and the very strong skater they got to push her round! They even managed once round the rink....

We were helped, of course, by the fact that this is a national event, and so people came prepared to give money - one child even emptied the money she'd collected at school that day into my bucket. But if you publicise a similar party widely enough.....

Or you could hold a costume party (perhaps at Hallowe'en), with skaters who don't come in costume paying a penalty? And perhaps a tiny prize for the best costume (home-made please, don't let's start rewarding people for hiring costumes from a shop!), and that sort of thing......

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

"Bonzer" means awesome, fantastic etc etc etc, it's never really used unless someone is trying to sound "typically Australian" and then it's probably followed by "mate" - "Bonnnnzzzzer Maaate!"

Just another thing.

We had our promotional family day at the rink and got 200 kids along!!! We advertised it on radio and in newspapers. The rink kindly donated the ice time and we charged only $5 per family (I think next time we will charge more). But with so many people we made quite a bit of money. Most people had a great time. We also had raffle tickets for "Sleeping Beauty on Ice" (a show that is coming to Melbourne at the end of July) which helped raise money. Hopefully we will get a few new skaters for our Skate School out of this.

We will be running another one of these over the next school holidays with a Skate School.

The idea of a Halloween party would be a great idea too. Thanks for the suggestion.

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Check out Cool Cat Skating Products - Australian Owned and Produced Skating Stuff.
www.geocities.com/aussiecoolcat/index