Start Here...
- Please read and understand your role early and often! The Chairperson/s are happy to answer any questions you have. We only ask that you read this page all the way through, and that you review this committee's report from last year, a PDF file at the bottom of this page, before proceeding.
- Your committee members will bring all sorts of creative ideas to your committee. So try to recruit volunteers before the end of the school year as it may be hard to wrangle volunteers once school begins. Stay in touch with your volunteers over the summer.
- We would like to store as many of the Spaghetti Supper documents on this website as possible, so please keep an accurate electronic record of your progress as you go.
- Once the Chairperson/s set the first Spaghetti Supper meeting in late August or September, schedule your own committee meeting in September.
- Please attend all Spaghetti Supper meetings, sending a representative only if you cannot attend. Your attendance helps you and the rest of the committees.
- If you make use of you committee binder, add a printed coy of you report and copies of any documents and be sure to return it to the Chairperson/s at the wrap-up meeting after the supper.
- Remember that this year's Spaghetti Supper will be followed by other Spaghetti Suppers. It is imperative that we protect the relationships with local companies, donors and supporters. Other school organizations like the CEF and CSA may also depend on the relationships with these companies. Be sure your representative is professional, prepared and follows though to show our gratitude for support in years past and to keep the relationship strong for future years.
- Send an electronic copy of your report and any support documents including photographs, PDFs of documents and/or templates for future chairs to use, to the Spaghetti Supper Chairperson and Class Treasurer.
- Have a great time!
Grazie!
Raffle Committee Responsiblilities
- Raffle Permit The raffle permit takes about one week to be processed so go to the town hall to do this the first week of school. The town clerk will help you fill out the Gaming Permit Application. You will then be required to get the signatures of three PTO members. These can be the parents on your committee. Raffle tickets can not be sold before a permit is acquired and the ticket will need to know once you have the permit in hand.
- Review the Massachusetts State FAQ's About Nonprofit Gaming Events here, http://www.mass.gov/ago/doing-business-in-massachusetts/public-charities-or-not-for-profits/soliciting-funds/raffles-and-other-gaming-activity/faqs-about-nonprofit-gaming-events.html#maincontent.
- Review the Massachusetts State Raffle Rules here, http://www.mass.gov/ago/docs/regulations/940-cmr-12-00.pdf.
- The Raffle Permit is obtained at Carlisle Town Hall.
Raffle Committee Timeline
Summary of Responsibilities:● Assemble committee Spring of 5th grade
● Apply for Raffle permit at town hall beginning of 6th grade
● Set up database to track prizes
● Collect 20 Golden Ticket Raffle Prizes
● Collect 60+ Regular Raffle Prizes
● Secure advertisements for menu
● Record all prizes, value and donor information on data base
● Coordinate and Communicate with ticket committee
● Set up raffle and oversee at the dinner
● Help to sell additional raffle tickets at the dinner
● Pull and announce raffle winners at the dinner
● Distribute items to winners at the dinner and Deliver or mail prizes to winners who are not present
● Give list of donors, addresses, thank you notes and postage to LA teacher for 6th graders to write thank you notes
Before the Raffle:
It is important to collaborate with the Ticket and Publicity committees early on to determine what deadlines they have and when the raffle database will be due.
Permitting Procedure:
Scope & Raffle Items:
At the Spaghetti Supper
Set up
We set up in three sections of the hallway. Please check with the decorations committee about your intentions first. You will request tables and tablecloths from them. We had our will call/ golden ticket collection table right Inside the door so that we could catch everyone coming in. On the other end of the hallway, just before the entrance to the cafeteria, we had two tables with all of the regular prizes and a big Spaghetti pot to hold the tickets. If you don’t have a really big lobster size pot, you may need two spaghetti pots.
Then in the middle of the hallway we displayed all of the Golden Ticket prizes. We used this space to showcase everything by wrapping things up individually, framing the description and donor information and providing a cup for the tickets. This gave ample space for each to be seen. You may need 3-4 tables if you choose to do it this way.
The publicity committee printed prize winner posters that we hung on the lobby window next to the cafeteria entrance. Please double check this against the prize table before calling out winners.
Post the raffle permit at one of the tables.
Volunteers
We had one person sit with the ticket committee, two at will call and one at each of the prize tables. You will need at least two more volunteers when you begin drawing names.
We stopped selling tickets at 7:30.
Drawing Names
We had several high school students help the whole evening and they called out 10-15 winners of the regular raffle prize every 15 minutes starting at 6:30. In between calling out winners, these names should be recorded next to the prizes on the posters as well as on a separate document. At 7:30 the golden ticket prizes were drawn. The middle school principal did this for us. The two most important things here are to record the winners as you go and send home as many prizes as you can. So, track people down before they leave if they don’t come to you first!!
After the Raffle
Divide up the uncollected prizes and distribute to the winners.
Complete the tax return forms with the class treasurer. You must do this within 10 Days! A copy and check must also be given to the town clerk. If you have any questions, they will help you. Provide raffle donor information to Supper chairs and LA teacher for thank you notes. They will be written in class.
Follow Up
● Apply for Raffle permit at town hall beginning of 6th grade
● Set up database to track prizes
● Collect 20 Golden Ticket Raffle Prizes
● Collect 60+ Regular Raffle Prizes
● Secure advertisements for menu
● Record all prizes, value and donor information on data base
● Coordinate and Communicate with ticket committee
● Set up raffle and oversee at the dinner
● Help to sell additional raffle tickets at the dinner
● Pull and announce raffle winners at the dinner
● Distribute items to winners at the dinner and Deliver or mail prizes to winners who are not present
● Give list of donors, addresses, thank you notes and postage to LA teacher for 6th graders to write thank you notes
Before the Raffle:
It is important to collaborate with the Ticket and Publicity committees early on to determine what deadlines they have and when the raffle database will be due.
- Meet with Tickets and Publicity. The 3 committees should work together to determine the following:
-The deadline for ticket and menu printing.
-Who will sell the ads and how much will you charge? Our committee handled this. We sold 1 ad for $1000 to the Laura B team. - -Will some or all of the prizes be printed on the ticket? We decided not to do this but in previous years, a few big prizes were listed.
-Will the raffle winners be able to choose their own prize? This year we let the golden ticket winners choose their prize but the regular prizes were given randomly. More on this later (see golden ticket change) but this needs to be decided because the kids will need information in order to sell tickets.
-Help to write a sales script for the 6th graders and send a raffle committee member to the training. - Ticket Committee needs to know Golden Raffle items early so they can be printed on the tickets. A discussion should be held to determine who sells raffle tickets the night of the supper.
- Publicity Committee needs full list of all regular and golden raffle items for the Spaghetti Supper Program. This information should be available by the first week of October. It is important to ask what format the Publicity would like the information in to avoid cutting and pasting to rearrange which can lead to many revisions of the program.
- It is also important to have time to review the program before it goes to print as you are providing half of the information.
Permitting Procedure:
- It is also important to get the raffle permit ($20.00 fee) from Town Hall. The permit needs to be ready before tickets go on sale and must be hung at the event.
- At this time information is sent to the State Gaming Division by Town Hall and you should receive tax forms to fill out within 10 days of the event. Recipient names and addresses of prizes valued over $25.00 must be reported to Town Hall and we pay taxes to the State Gaming Commission on all proceeds from the raffle. (Charlene Hinton, the Clerk at Town Hall is your new best friend and will help you through this process.) Just remember you have 10 days after the event to turn everything in. If you are late, fines start being added to the process.
Scope & Raffle Items:
- We decided to collect between 50-60 regular raffle items and 10-15 golden raffle items. We raised the amount of the value of the golden raffle items from $100 to $150. We approached Carlisle parents and locally owned businesses in surrounding towns (Chelmsford, Acton, and primarily Concord).
- The first week of school we sent out a letter to the entire 6th grade. The letter detailed what the Spaghetti Supper raises money for and how families could help by giving them ideas for group gifts, asking them to explore their contacts, and whether they personally had items to donate, ie. vacation home, sports tickets, or a service (like a massage).
- We printed a “declaration” letter which detailed for businesses the scope of the fundraiser, provided a tax exempt number, and raffle committee contact information. We then started with last years raffle database that listed donors and the item they donated. We separated the list by town and then spent several days personally visiting each donor, reminding them of previous donations, providing them with the declaration letter, and asking them for a donation. Before leaving, we collected a business card and contact name from every business and filled out the Raffle Acquisition Intake Form and attached the business card to the form. The same day the contact information was entered into the database. If the contact made a donation then arrangements were made to collect the item (try to get it when you are there) some businesses needed time to put together raffle items. Follow up was important.
- We worked on getting the Golden Raffle items first because that information needed to be printed on the raffle tickets. Several of the Golden Raffle items were group bought by 6th grade parents or were donated by families in the community. We were able to get all Golden raffle items donated and didn’t have to spend any money on raffle items.
- We had one person be responsible for the database and all entries and tracking of items. This person also organized the items alphabetically by donor and when all of the items were collected assigned a number to each item. Many items were gift certificates and as they came in they were filed in an accordion filing system by donor. If the item was an actual gift as opposed to a gift certificate an envelope was still put in the file with the information on it and the number of the item and the gift was also labeled with the same information. A * was used to designate larger items on the filed envelop so you knew that it was in the box of stuff. Sounds confusing but it worked and worth the organization because we knew how to find everything.
- Check in with the Ticket Committee to find out when the tickets are going home with the kids. We inserted a small flyer in this package reminding families about the raffle and the need for help.
- We provided a complete list of donations and donors to the Publicity Committee a week prior to the event. This left time to review the program before it was printed.
- Prize Collection and Documentation
We recommend that you work on securing the Golden ticket items first. In our case, this was the prizes valued at over $200.
Start by sending an email to the 6th grade parents at the beginning of the school year. We also posted on social media and received several prizes this way.
If you have the recommended 6 members on your committee, the best way to get prizes is to ask each member to secure 10-15 prizes and assign everyone an area. As an example: Westford, Acton, Concord/Carlisle, West Concord, Littleton, Chelmsford.
Be sure to have your request in writing with the Spaghetti Supper or school logo and tax id number available to be handed to or emailed to the owner.
A document should be create to keep track of all donations ask for and received. We used google docs and included a column for notes so that we could see what others were doing at a glance. That way we could follow up on each other’s requests as necessary.
Once all of the prizes have been collected the committee members should meet to organize everything and prepare for the display. We numbered all of our prizes and prepared a list for easy tracking. We bagged and put red gingham ribbon on all of the golden prizes. We also put a description and donation information in plastic frames for these prizes. If you would like to use these frames, email [email protected].
Golden Ticket Change
This year we decided to try something new. We let people put their golden tickets in a container next to the prize they hoped to win. In the past, all of the golden tickets have been mixed together. The reason we decided to do this was twofold. The first is obvious. Many of these big, wonderful prizes are very specific (American girl doll, child’s bike, Clark Farm share, game tickets) and we wanted the winners to be thrilled to win something they really wanted. In years past, we have heard of these prizes never being used and so we thought it would be fun to keep that from happening again. The second reason for the change was out of courtesy to the donor. We felt it was much better advertising for a business if we created a kind of buzz around what they so generously contributed.
Unfortunately, the ticket committee was not onboard with this idea so our new plan was not explained to the 6th graders. It would have been better for them to have known so that they could include this in their sales pitch. The kids turned in all of the tickets sold. We had a “will call” table at the Supper for people to retrieve their golden tickets. This way they could put them
in front of the prizes they hoped to win. If you choose to this again this year, we strongly encourage you to have a script for the 6th grader to use explaining this to them.
For those tickets that were not claimed, we divided them evenly and put them in prize cups ourselves.
In the end, we were very pleased with the change and received lots of positive feedback from Supper goers. The will call table was not nearly as challenging as we expected it might be. It was also exciting to see people leaving with prizes that they were thrilled about winning.
At the Spaghetti Supper
Set up
We set up in three sections of the hallway. Please check with the decorations committee about your intentions first. You will request tables and tablecloths from them. We had our will call/ golden ticket collection table right Inside the door so that we could catch everyone coming in. On the other end of the hallway, just before the entrance to the cafeteria, we had two tables with all of the regular prizes and a big Spaghetti pot to hold the tickets. If you don’t have a really big lobster size pot, you may need two spaghetti pots.
Then in the middle of the hallway we displayed all of the Golden Ticket prizes. We used this space to showcase everything by wrapping things up individually, framing the description and donor information and providing a cup for the tickets. This gave ample space for each to be seen. You may need 3-4 tables if you choose to do it this way.
The publicity committee printed prize winner posters that we hung on the lobby window next to the cafeteria entrance. Please double check this against the prize table before calling out winners.
Post the raffle permit at one of the tables.
Volunteers
We had one person sit with the ticket committee, two at will call and one at each of the prize tables. You will need at least two more volunteers when you begin drawing names.
We stopped selling tickets at 7:30.
Drawing Names
We had several high school students help the whole evening and they called out 10-15 winners of the regular raffle prize every 15 minutes starting at 6:30. In between calling out winners, these names should be recorded next to the prizes on the posters as well as on a separate document. At 7:30 the golden ticket prizes were drawn. The middle school principal did this for us. The two most important things here are to record the winners as you go and send home as many prizes as you can. So, track people down before they leave if they don’t come to you first!!
After the Raffle
Divide up the uncollected prizes and distribute to the winners.
Complete the tax return forms with the class treasurer. You must do this within 10 Days! A copy and check must also be given to the town clerk. If you have any questions, they will help you. Provide raffle donor information to Supper chairs and LA teacher for thank you notes. They will be written in class.
Follow Up
- Inventory remaining supplies and update list for chairpersons
- Transfer remaining (nonperishable) supplies back to storage shed
- Complete and submit final committee report to chairpersons
PDF's of Past Raffle Committee Reports
2017_spaghetti_supper_raffle_report.pdf |
raffle_committee_report_class_2015_copy.pages |
2015_golden_raffle_prize_listings.docx |
2015_ss_family_sponsors.docx |
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raffle_committee_report_class_2018.pages |
determination_raffle_letter_class_2018.pages |
2012_raffle_report.pdf |
2010_raffle_report.pdf |
2009_raffle_report.pdf |