Just the ticket – why I love raffles!
In 2007 my friends and I promoted a ‘Comping’ Day at Pride Park (cleverly called ‘Comp Pride’) and we wanted to run the raffle to end all raffles. Letters were written, phone calls were made, more letters were written and we begged and begged for prizes (I say ‘we’, but essentially my friends did most of the work whilst I designed the website and programme!). When the big day arrived we had at least 400 prizes, they covered the tables, the floor, the walls – it was chaos. We sold tickets in aid of Rainbow’s Children’s Hospice and raised over £2000 (at last year’s event it was £3560!). I realised that the trick to winning in a raffle is simple – you need to buy lots of tickets! And NEVER feel guilty about buying lots of tickets, because EVERY PENNY of your cash is going to charity! Some of our guests spent £30 or £40 on raffle tickets, and they went home with prizes worth much, much more than that. You would be amazed at what companies are prepared to donate – gorgeous expensive toiletries, jewellery, handbags, make-up, luxury food hampers – even if it’s not your thing, prizes like this will make fabulous Christmas gifts.
I went along to an NCT event on Friday afternoon – I had meant to get there early on but been sidetracked by a pub lunch, so I arrived 20 minutes before the end. I bought 10 raffle tickets for £4, then moved on to the remarkably full tombola stall. Now, I used to hate tombolas even more than raffles simply because they always look so damned shabby, but here many of the prizes had been donated by Boots so I knew it was worth spending some cash. The organisers certanly didn’t want to take all the prizes home, so they’d halved the ticket price – after much rummaging by baby boy in the ticket box, he pulled out 27 losing tickets and 9 winning ones – not a bad haul for £6! By the time we’d finished here, the raffle was being drawn – there were only a few stragglers left, so anyone who wasn’t there was assigned a random prize. Three of my numbers came up, and as I was there I could choose my prizes; a couple of smart toys and some cute tomato shoes for the little fella. The top prizes were spa days, and as there were only 115 tickets sold there were pretty good odds of winning!
