Fun Free Tombola

I attended a meeting last week where a member organised a Fun Free Tombola. Laid out on a table were all of the prizes, nicely wrapped, with a ticket number taped on top. There were enough prizes for every member, plus five extras.

Then as each member (and visitor) signed in, they drew a ticket from a hat, and claimed their prize. Now, as I say it was a fun tombola, so half the prizes were a Mars Bar, while the other half were more valuable. There were things like: high-lighter pens, Thank You cards, CDs, books, a dinner for two and vouchers for the member’s services.

It really was good fun and as usual got me thinking.

How about this for an idea?

A Free Tombola for (eligible) visitor bringing. You could run the tombola in exactly the same way, and depending on your chapter’s funds, you could run it for just a month, or two months, or even three months.

Let’s assume your chapter has the funds to run the tombola for a month. From your Palms Report find out what your average monthly visitors are. Then add, say, 20% to the number and that’s how many prizes you will need. Now you need to buy the prizes and/or get them donated. Remember half will be just Mars Bars (or similar) and you need a few really good prizes.

Wrap and number them all and put the counterpart number into a hat. Now you are ready to play!

Each week anyone who brings a visitor picks a tombola ticket and collects their prizes from the prize table. And of course they get a ticket for each visitor they bring.

Of course the better your ‘Star’ prize is the more incentive there will be for members to bring visitors. An iPad maybe? With this in mind a shorter time with better prizes may work best.

I think this could be great fun (who doesn’t like a draw?) and help grow your chapter.

If you do try this please let me know how you get on.

NOTE: If you do run a tombola please email me first for one last piece of advice.