Using tokens at your PTA Fairs
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Tokens at a cashless PTA Fair
Going cashless for your PTA events is easier than you think.
Has your PTA treasurer ever threatened to run away Thelma and Louise style, before your PTA fair has even started?
The inconceivable amount of work in preparing dozens of floats, running about with change, never having enough change, counting mountains of cash, chasing missing floats, losing revenue from external traders, and missed donation opportunities would make anyone head for the hills.
Cash only fairs take vital PTA volunteer manpower away from the fair, tying them up with chasing, collecting and counting cash all day. Perhaps it’s time to make a change and go cashless using tokens at your PTA fair instead? 🙋
Let’s take a look at this in more detail.
What should you use as PTA tokens?
Invest in, or make your own tokens. Amazon and Ebay are good places to look for rolls of paper tokens or poker type chips. 📀📀📀
Have the tokens all one value e.g: 50p each, OR buy different coloured chips/tokens, then Green=50p, White=£1, Black=£2 for example.
If using poker type chips as tokens, make sure the colours you buy are easily distinguishable and are at least 2.9cm wide. If making your own out of cardboard, it might be an idea to laminate them for reuse at your other PTA events.
How does it work?
Have pre-bundled tokens available to buy on the day and in advance online using Ticket Tailor.
Token bundles worth £5, £10 and £20 work well but will depend on the school.
Have a token booth ( or two ) at the fair where people can collect advanced sale token bundles or exchange cash for tokens on the day 🙋💷. Visitors then spend their tokens at each stall instead of using cash.
Have a ‘sweeper’ collect used tokens from the stalls, returning them to the token booth(s). Keep a count of how many you take away from each stall so you can tally accurately at the end, calculating how well each stall did. Each stall should have Sharpie labelled Ziplock bags for the ‘sweeper’ to collect and count 🔢. This helps in identifying which bag came from which stall.
Considerations:
The mix of cash and tokens can cause confusion. Set a clear token only selling strategy and stick to it.
Sell 'bundles' of tokens in advance online using Ticket Tailor. These can be at a slight discount to encourage sales. The bundles can be collected from the token booth on the day on presentation of their online order confirmation.
Walk the admission queue on the day to sell PTA tokens to ease congestion at the token booths.
You could use tokens as prizes on stall games enabling children to purchase their own prize from the prize table. The prizes will vary e.g: 1 token = small prize, 2 tokens = medium prize etc…
At the end of the day, swap any left over tokens back to cash, or better yet, have a donation bucket on the way out for either cash or leftover tokens. 💰📀
A note on external suppliers:
Agree upfront with the service provider that they accept the PTA token payment system at the PTA fair. It’s best not to ‘sweep’ from external suppliers, simply exchange their tokens for cash at the end of the fair. The benefit of tokens here is that the PTA have clear visibility of what the supplier made on the day and can calculate their cut accordingly.
So, that’s it. We hope you got some insight into the way a cashless fair could work. Ticket Tailor provide low cost ticketing to enable such events as cashless fairs to sell merchandise, tickets, even bundles of tokens in advance.
Sign up and see how easy it is for your PTA to go online, work less and fundraise more.
