Calling All Parents..

[Pete Brindle]

At the moment, I am in the process of trying to organise a "tour" for the group of musicians that we teach. We will probably go somewhere simple, perhaps somewhere in England, and then play a few concerts and stay overnight in a hotel or youth hostel for a couple of days. We can also plan some fun social things which will help the kids to gel together and thrive as musicians.

My question to you would be: if your children came home and said that they had been asked to be involved in this type of trip, how much money would you be willing to pay to send them? I haven't really done costing yet, but even the coach is going to cost around £400 on its own, and that's with a discount from a local company as well, so that will have to be split between the children. We can sell tickets to the concerts and have donation buckets which should help, but we're almost certainly going to have to ask the parents for some money.

 

[Mike Turner]

It will depend on how much money the family in question have at the time, and what the child is going to get out of the trip. I think you should make the effort to fundraise to try and get some of the cash because that would help, and it would make them look forward to it more as well. I would probably be willing to put forward maybe up to £100 but a lot of people wouldn't be able to do that.

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

I used to be in a brass band when I was younger, and we went on tour all over the world, it was fantastic. I wouldn't worry too much about cost, because we did a tour to New York that cost around £800, but we did a lot of fundraising beforehand which seriously helped to make the money that we needed. Maybe ask the kids where they'd like to go, and get a list of venues in your head. I would advise that you go with a tour company to plan everything for you, or you just run the risk of getting something wrong, or missing something out that you should have thought about.

 

[Mike Turner]

I used to be in a brass band when I was younger, and we went on tour all over the world, it was fantastic. I wouldn't worry too much about cost, because we did a tour to New York that cost around £800, but we did a lot of fundraising beforehand which seriously helped to make the money that we needed. Maybe ask the kids where they'd like to go, and get a list of venues in your head. I would advise that you go with a tour company to plan everything for you, or you just run the risk of getting something wrong, or missing something out that you should have thought about.

How much would you say you could make from fundraising, and what types of things did you do to get the money? I help out with a football club and we're looking to do something similar to this so it would be great to hear of some kinds of ideas for what we could do to get our hands on some of the much needed cash!

 

[Gemma Rowlands]

How much would you say you could make from fundraising, and what types of things did you do to get the money? I help out with a football club and we're looking to do something similar to this so it would be great to hear of some kinds of ideas for what we could do to get our hands on some of the much needed cash!

We did things like playing carols in shopping centres and packing people's bags at the checkouts in supermarkets. Once we played carols in an airport, which was quite good. Overall, the year we did the NYC trip, we made an average of £8 per hour for each of the kids who played/packed bags, so it's a better wage than a lot of people work for! 100 hours over the course of the year and they could pretty much have paid for the whole of the trip without even having to think about using any of their own money for it.

 

[Pete Brindle]

We did things like playing carols in shopping centres and packing people's bags at the checkouts in supermarkets. Once we played carols in an airport, which was quite good. Overall, the year we did the NYC trip, we made an average of £8 per hour for each of the kids who played/packed bags, so it's a better wage than a lot of people work for! 100 hours over the course of the year and they could pretty much have paid for the whole of the trip without even having to think about using any of their own money for it.

Thanks for this information, we could certainly do a lot of busking in the local area over the Christmas period, in fact we have booked one or two things in. I wonder whether it's too late to think about it this year now? Or whether we could still put some plans in place? I will try anyway, this has filled me with a little bit of confidence that what I'm trying to do isn't just completely crazy at least!

 

[Mike Turner]

Thanks for this information, we could certainly do a lot of busking in the local area over the Christmas period, in fact we have booked one or two things in. I wonder whether it's too late to think about it this year now? Or whether we could still put some plans in place? I will try anyway, this has filled me with a little bit of confidence that what I'm trying to do isn't just completely crazy at least!

I wouldn't say it was too late. Find out where you can busk without getting permission (if anywhere) or just get in touch with local supermarkets. Posting this because I saw a choir in a supermarket yesterday, and it really added to the feel of the day, it was brilliant. And all of the children seemed to be enjoying themselves a lot.

 

[Allegrif]

I think £100 is a psychologically significant milestone when it comes to kids' trips. It's a lot of money, and probably the upper limit of what I'd consider to send my young son on a trip.

 

[LucidCaledonia]

I'd agree with £100, but that would even then only be for a yearly trip. I went on one costing £220 when i was younger but that was a once in a lifetime (school wise) trip.