Special Events

Fashion Show

This is a natural for spring and combines beautifully with a lunch or afternoon tea.
Decide on the place and date, then decide whether you want to go professional, amateur, or half and half.

• Professional
  
  • Contact a designer or clothing store to see if they will do it for you. They may charge, or they may consider it advertising for them.
    They provide their own models and script, which is easy for you.
    
    
• Half and Half
  • A shop may provide the clothes and script, but your members serve as models. This works well, because then the guests see the clothes as something they would wear.
    
    
• Totally amateur-This raised almost $1000 every year for our small Oxfam Committee in Barton-on-Humber, England.
  
  • Collect donations of high quality (important!) clothing from your members or other friendly, fashionable donors well in advance.
    
  • Ask some members or friends to serve as models.
    
  • Get together with the models and clothes to work out what would look the best on each person.
    
  • Select the venue and arrange for spot lighting if the event is at night.
    
  • Decide how much to charge for tickets, remembering that the most important thing is to get customers through the doors.
    
  • Increase interest in the event by having some additional entertainment such as a local dance or singing group.
    
  • Advertise, advertise, advertise in the media, posters, and flyers.
    
  • Ask your members to sell tickets.
    
  • Each model needs a personal dresser to help with changes.
    
  • Include a glass of wine and snack with the ticket price.
    
  • After the show, sell the clothes to the customers. This is where we made the most money, not from ticket sales.
    

House or Garden Tour

Do some of your members have lovely homes or gardens that everyone would pay to see?

• Arrange with them to have open houses or gardens on an afternoon or evening and sell maps as tickets. You should be very careful about who you sell your maps to. This should probably be a members only event.
  
• Arrange to serve some sort of refreshment (tea and scones at a garden tour or wine at an open house) included in the price of the event. Of course you can always increase profits with a timely tombola.

Bus trip

• Is there an "away" event that your members would like to attend?
  
• Timing is everything here.
  
• Arrange for a block of tickets, and be sure that you keep deadlines in mind. Know when the final payment must be in, and if you can turn in unsold tickets or if you are obligated to purchase them.
  
• Arrange for a coach and driver. They will know how long to estimate for the journey.
  
• You might want to include refreshments for the trip.
  
• Price the tickets taking in all your costs and adding in profit for your cause.
  
• Arrange the time and place to meet the bus, and tell everyone to be prompt because the bus can't wait for stragglers.
  
• Check everything 2 weeks ahead of time to be sure that you won't be faced with any nasty surprises on the day of the trip.

Dance

• Keep in mind that the more people that you have working on the dance, the more will attend, so try to get as many people involved in the planning as possible.
  
• Decide on a theme for your dance-square dance, Sock Hop, Mardi gras, Halloween, Snow Ball, and make sure that all of your advertising follows the theme.
  
• Find an appropriate venue.
  
• Find a band, caller, or disk jockey to do your music.
  
• Decide what refreshments you will offer-special dinner or punch and cookies.
  
• Work out the price being sure to include all of your expenses and being realistic about how many people you expect to come.
  
• Advertise, advertise, advertise and have your members sell tickets like crazy.
  
• Try to get sponsors for everything that you can-tables, flowers-and sell advertising in the program.
  
• Increase your profits on the night with raffles, auctions or tombolas. (Prizes donated, of course.)