This will actually be our 3rd annual Family Fun and Games Night. We use the kit you get from PTOtoday. It has all the planning done for you. There are really fun games to play in the gym to get people active. The first year we just did those games and had snacks. Last year we added bingo and board games and served dinner(we did a survey after the first one and there was an overwhelming request for dinner). We just did pop and pizza slices and sold them at cost rounded up to the next even dollar amount. We ended up making $26, so it was pretty much a break even deal. We also gave away popcorn and cocoa. We tied in our reading program and did a book exchange too. This year we're planning all those things plus we are going to do the Deal or No Deal game someone posted on here. Dinner is changing to hotdogs, chips and pop because last year we had bad weather on our first planned night and had to reschedule the pizza. This way if we get bad weather we can just stick the stuff in the fridge and reschedule.
We used middle school/high school volunteers and several teachers volunteered to serve the food, so very little parental help was needed. The first year we had a little over 150 people and last year we had 230+!!
Can you tell me about your family fun and games night? What all do yall do? do you offer snacks or food? Do you charge admission or anything?
Overkill is exactly what I am worried about. I want to do something fun for the kids, but don't want to take advantage of the volunteers either. we did a Luau at the begining of the year that was a huge hit and only needed a handful of volunteers so i had even considered something like that again. I like your family night idea!
We do our carnival in March. That seems to be the best time for us: baseball season hasn't yet begun and people are ready to get out for some fun.
From the list of activities you put down, I would think that adding a spring carnival might be overkill unless you move it to earlier in the year. We're doing a Family Fun and Games Night near the end of this month, maybe you should think about going with something like that-much simpler.
My group is considering a Spring Fling Carnival for the first time. I am not really sure how this will go over though. Our school does an Arts Alive thing in April during the school day that needs volunteers and of course CRCT is going on that month also, plus with teacher appreciation in May and end of the year parties, I don't want our volunteers to get stretched too thin.
