Sooooooooo..today at work it was pretty civilised so we started on the cleaning list early as its usually done overnight. Part of it is once a week we clean the toys in the toy area so we got them all in and got the chlorine bleach out and gave em a scrub. Tbh they are quite pathetic really. The walls were done a few years ago with wall mounted mazes and spinning blocks etc but needs refurbing and toys consist of a play arch with peeling stickers and some tatty blocks.

I spoke to my boss and asked how we go about making a charitable funds bid to get new toys and she said to email the matron and oh by the way good idea and i was in charge of it.......

Soooooooooo.................ive emailed our matron to find out where the paperwork is and the gist of it is im gonna try and raise some money through hossie charitable funds and our own fundraising efforts to get the wall mounted toys refurbished and buy some new toys for the main area.

From you guys i was hoping for some input.
-what kinda things would you wanna see in a play area at a hossie and if you have any website links (not ebay) all the better. Has to be easy to decontaminate so no soft toys etc
-also any fund raising ideas?

So far ive considered seeing if any local businesses would sponsor some toys we could get marked with 'donated by' on a plaque or something. and considering one of those bolt down tables with a bead maze on and a decent box of blocks as a starting point.

Thankyou in advance for any input

What I have so far

http://www.amazon.co.uk/legler-Large-Bead-Frame-Table/dp/B000LRZZ7K/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1325373921&sr=8-11

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Motor-Skill-Magic-Activity-Frame-Table/dp/B00466FTRI/ref=sr_1_23?ie=UTF8&qid=1325373949&sr=8-23

Quote :

Sooooooooo..today was pretty civilised so we started on the cleaning
list early as its usually done overnight. Part of it is once a week we
clean the toys in the toy area so we got them all in and got the
chlorine bleach out and gave em a scrub. Tbh they are quite pathetic
really. The walls were done a few years ago with wall mounted mazes and
spinning blocks etc but needs refurbing and toys consist of a play arch
with peeling stickers and some tatty blocks.

i genuinely thought you were talking about your house up til this point...i was thinking 'christ, am i meant to be doing that??!!!', gladly im not.

i would talk to your local tesco as they do like to sponsor local stuff, them and m+s let people stand at the end of tils collecting money or in the doorways and i bet you would get a fair bit with just that - even better if they will do you a deal on toys - don't ask you don't get, but its worth trying a blag

LOL I thought she was talking about her house too and thought wow I haven't even hoovered yet.

Have you got a local toyshop? Would they donate some?

Also, do they have to be new toys. Could, for example, people here donate toys when their los grow out of them

I'd imagine they got to be new because of health and safety, I know we have that issue.

I'd email elc too

ceiling mobiles or picture display, bubble machines too ones with plastic fish in would occupy a lo for a bit.

But if you can a games console that fits in a box so can't be stolen, I know new cross hosp children dept have one in Wolverhampton the older ones get bored easy too

Morrisons usually allow you to do bag packs, I know some supermarkets don't allow it, if you man all the checkouts you can expect to make about £1,500 in a day.

Also, you could set up a tri-cast, predicting footy scores. We run one for our footy club and it's great fun and a good earner.

Also social events such as race nights are great to raise some cash.

Whats that then Pen? The tri-cast I mean? Only Im a crowd nurse for my local football team so do have some links to the town team. Actually another avenue I could pursue for sponsorshop possibly.

The bag packs a thought and am gonna look at some local businesses-ive got a friend who runs a company nearby and speak to Neil (when hes not mid quitting smoking) about speaking to his boss.

The offer of toys is one thought I had ive actually got stuff in conservatory myself but infection control is an issue hence the lack of soft toys and i wouldnt mind actually kitting the play area out with some nice new stuff like the table I linked to and make it a really nice place for kids to come as its a scary place as is. Does that make sense? Dont wanna sound ungrateful in the slightest

Makes perfect sense. Will have a think about toys and fundraising ideas. The girls at school always make quite a bit so have you thought about trying to get some of your local schools involved, particularly secondary schools because they're the ones likely to make the most money. Most like to support some things locally

Tri-cast - we started ours in august, the start of the season but you could start anytime. We studied the premier league fixtures and chose 3 games for every week, usually Saturday/ Sunday matches. So each week the people pay £1 and predict what the scores are going to be. If anyone predicts all 3 scores they get to keep almost half of the pot. If no one guesses the prize rolls over to the week. We do it for our footy club and we keep almost half of the money. We keep a small percentage back which slowly mounts up in a separate pot which we use to start a new prize pot if the main prize is won. So far we've only had two winners, the first got £470 and then last week it was won again and the bloke got £260. It's a bit complicated to start but I'd be happy to let you use our paperwork. We have a speadsheet were we put how much we've collected each week in and it works put the prize, the clubs fund, and the spare pot. Have a look at our website all the info is on there. www.pexhilljfc.co.uk

My oh emails the fixtures out each week and I use twitter to push it too

When Aimee went to her eye test recently the department in the hospital had a toy kitchen and she spent ages playing with it. She has one at home too, but had a great time 'cooking' and playing. x

I was going to suggest a kitchen too. Caitlin was at A&E before xmas with tonsils/ears and the kitchen with pots/pans was the one thing she crawled off my knee to play with.