our local fire hall does a pancake breakfast. perhaps you could use/rent their space? Local church? what about a sister school? we have a school up the street from ours within walking distance, maybe your could use their facilities?

what about your local high schools? we hold our Monster Mash at a nearby high school since they are so much bigger than elm schools.

I have heard companies doing a santa shop over the weekends. you can combine it with a "breakfast" to entice people to come and shop.

we did our holiday shop in the hallways last year and it worked out just fine.

could you do a different fundraiser like butter braids or cookie dough catalog to replace your santa shop?

Chuck E cheese does a school night....maybe your can get your principal or teacher to dress up as santa. charge a buck for a polaroid pic with santa.

many restaurants do school spirit night. you could have a school night and they can give you 20% of profits. have your principal dress as santa and teacher as elves.

most McDonalds do "McTeacher night"....same concept as above.

as for your end of year event.....see if you can hold your event with bouncers and inflatables at a local park? most of those bouncers can run off of generators and a park gives you more room. or again.... hold it at a local high school football field for a change?

as for the movie.... our school has a movie license so we can show any movie, any time.

you can have a movie in the cafeteria or gym and order pizza or hot dogs and charge a buck. maybe show a christmas movie like Tim Allen's Santa Clause or something...

good luck, i'm interested to see what you come up with.

I haven't been to Buffalo NY in about 30 years so I've forgotten what it looks like or where local schools are located.

d

I know the new principal will give us a room its just a matter of getting the construction done first which as we all know takes longer than the actually say. So for now all the classrooms are being used for teachers, every last one so thats out totally.

The tent for end of the year might be the way to go. We are looking into getting a theater for the winter though.

Does anyone know can you get your own movie or do you have to show one that is upcoming in the theaters at the time?

We ran out of room last year also for our Christmas Shop. We ended up using the library. The librarian took books around to class rooms and read and three days a week she used the music room down the hall since the music teacher is only at our school two days a week.

It worked out very well and she didn't mind, since she visits classrooms alot anyway.

Good luck!

Cindy,

Not going to post about an event idea yet, but with a new Principal coming in and not having an "office" within the school, maybe this is your chance. Sounds as though this new Principal may be "nice" enough to consider giving you the room that would help your group function properly. Is there a space within the school presently that might meet your needs? If so I recommend going for it.

We did this last year with our new Principal coming in and he gave us what used to be the AV room, moving that equipment to a different area. I was amazed to see just how much stuff our group truly had. Now that we have the space I can't see how we functioned without it. IMO PTOers shouldn't have to maintain PTO gear in their residence. At the same time they shouldn't have to work on things out in the school lobby. Our office is vital to our ability to do what we do. Things just seem so much more organized now that we have appropriate space.

Hope you can make this happen for your group. And possibly even more important your group will feel more appreciated when the Principal provides an actual office/space specifically for the PTO.

Good luck,
PresidentJim

The tents and outside location would be for your end of year event which I would assume would be in the warmer weather.
For winter locations, what about having a private "party" at a roller skating rink, bowling alley, play gym/arcade. Ask management if you can have the place for a time period during the day and you would have to have students reserve their slot. Depending on the venue, you may have to space out their arrival times, but you can certainly accomodate everyone.

Great Ideas ladies the movie thing would be great. I am going to check with the principal on the weekend thing for the Shoppe. But now I have a few alternatives. Although the outside tent won't probalby work for us. In Buffalo in December it can be very cold and ALOT of snow. So I wont even take my chances with that one.