Thank you so much for your input. We have a meeting coming up to discuss next year's fundraisers and we need "back up material" for the pros and cons. I do think running the event for back to school would be better, but then again, 1-2 weeks before "picture day" might work as well.

Thank you again for letting me pick your brain and I'm sure I'll have more questions. I'll let you know how it works out.

No problem! I would definitely recommend it, and getting even more hairdressers involved is a GREAT idea, IF you can get them to participate (in essence what you'd be doing is asking them to work their butts off all day and give you the money [img]tongue.gif[/img] ). We were approached with the idea, and it just never occured to us to as other salons to particpate, since it was giving this salon some good promo.

**If you have to pay for your copying (we're not allowed to use school copiers), the salon(s) pay for the flyers--it's advertising for them, and that way you don't get stuck holding the bag if no one shows up.

**Make sure any "extras" are being paid for by them (Ours suggested having a clown, which we assumed they'd pay for, and then at the end he took that money out of our profit to pay for it . That took about 10% off our take! But, it was a lessoned learned and now I know to MAKE SURE what's being paid for and what's not. I would have NEVER agreed to a clown, it just wasn't necessary.

**In hindsight, I'd have done it right before the kids go back to school--it makes sense.

**Definitely lower prices for the day (and make sure this fact is a one day only offer)--it takes from you total profit, but it DEFINITELY draws more people in.

**We did ours on a Sunday, and it worked for us since it was easier for people to schedule it in. Plus the shop didn't lose business from their normal hours of operation.

**Have people on hand to assist or act as thier receptionist, and sweepers to take care of the hair--it's a big help, and keeps people moving. We had a sign in list (no appointments for the day), and it helped them a lot to have us doing that.

**One of our members brought them coffee and doughnuts, which they really appreciated--I wish I had thought to bring more goodies.

**Make sure you tell them to tip their hairdressers, and in our case one of the hairdressers donated her tips too!

Having cooffee/snacks for the patrons is a nice idea--again, I wish I'd thought to do it.

It's definitely a piece of cake for the PTO/PTA benefitting from it--in our case we got 100% (well, ALMOST) of the money for really not doing much. What was nice about ours was we met some really nice people we'd normally never have approached for a donation, and they felt good that they were helping us out.

Hope this helped; if you have any other questions feel free to ask!

KMA - Wow, it looks like some things really do work out in the end. If you don't mind I have just a few questions for you.

Would you recommend this to other groups/PTOs? I am looking for a couple of new ideas for our playground project and this sounds great.

Do you think getting all the hairdressers in your town to do it together and on the same day might work? Maybe by putting them all on the same flyer, it might not show "favorites".

Now that you have 20/20 hindsight what are the questions/concerns you should, or wished, you had thought of?

(am I asking too much?) Your info and experience is greatly appreciated. And congrats on such a wonderful event.

UPDATE:

Handing out the flyers, as much as I moaned about it, was well worth the effort. We brought out quite a few members of our town we normally would never had made contact with, and who we wouldn't have even thought about approaching (people with grown children, older people, people from other towns, etcetera). As a result we made $725 in about 5 hours! The people from the salon were the best--very nice, and genuinely happy to be helping us out. Having lowered their prices for the day helped ($10 for boys, $12 girls, $15 men, $20 women), but all in all we felt it was woth the effort. The only thing we'd have changed is to have done it right before "Back to School!"

Update--I will NEVER-- EVER-- take the "carrier pigeon" express for granted again! I (and several pairs of younger, more energized legs) just finsihed handing out 3,800 flyers DOOR to DOOR in our town today. We started on Thursday with sectioned off maps of our town, and 12 other people helping (THANK GOD!!!), and ended today with me, our VP and a friend of our's son whom I paid to help me at the very end.

At first I was afraid we'd run out too fast and not hit enough homes, and by the end of today I was cursing the never ending pile in my hands!

UPDATE:

The Cut-A-Thon is on!

I spoke with the superintendent to see if it was the event or using the kids he had a problem with, and he said in this case it was using the kids. He had no problem with us doing this on our own. He admitted that the advertising issue is very gray, and they take it case by case. In this particular case it's a local business, and the BOE is very nervous about any hint of unethical behavior. (I understand, but still feel they're overreacting a bit). They were also afraid this would lend itself to opening a flood of local businesses "wanting to help the kids out," but in actuality NOT being so much interested in the kids, but themselves. The logistics of having to determine the good from bad and potential fall-out from the people who were turned away was too much a of a headache, as would be hearing from our favorite Ps in the A who always find something to make noise about.

So in my ever solicitous way, I said as a courtesy I'd change the flyer, and would made sure he saw it before we took it to press in case he still felt uneasy about it. (We have someone who may be able to get it inserted as a free flyer in the local newspaper, which would save us from going door to door). He was appreciative that we understood his position, and we left it at that. I may have inadvertantly made problems for my favorite PTA board members though, because I mentioned that the PTA has a similar event at a restaurant a few towns over in the hopper, and he wasn't too happy about it. It turns out that our PTA never runs anything by him as a courtesy and he may be requesting they pass everything by him now...just in case. [img]tongue.gif[/img] Apparently the only time they let him know what's going on is when they want to do someting with landscaping or painting etcetera.

So all's well that ends well!