We have been having an annual Dinner Dance for the last 10 years or so. It is a night out for parents. We have a Silent Auction & a Grand Prize Raffle. The night includes dinner, dancing, live music.
Most people seem to enjoy it, but it is a lot of work for our shrinking volunteer pool. And now the price to host such an event and still make money makes the night cost prohibitive for some families to participate fully. I personally would like to scale it down, but I will leave that decision to the next crew, AFTER they have done all the work.
Out PTF just hosted a Silent Auction and made over $11000. We held it one night in our school's cafeteria. We advertised anywhere that would let us....local tv, local radio stations, flyers all over town!!! We had over 200 people turn out and it was wonderful!
This year we are having ours during our townwide 4th of July celebration. We are hoping that since this is the only big event our town holds and it usually draws many people, we would have a better chance at getting some people involved that wouldn't normally come to a "school only" function. The town has a parade, car show, flea market, craft show and many other things going on. Maybe we can get more of the community involved that may not have pre-5 grade students.
Here is an informal survey about auction styles. We all apparently do some type of auction but HOW do we do it? Do we:
a. One night in the school gym
b. Over the course of a week with a listing in the front office
c. Through an internet clearinghouse
d. As a community event
