Early Bird Drawing and Car Pool Prizes

I'll tell you I was very surprised at how much I think it helped getting people there on time and having people bring people.
When I made flyers and posters I made sure I told the sisters that there would be a Early Bird Prize and A Car Pool prize, now mind you we have a more affluent ward, so our funds are larger then some wards, so you depending on your ward you can scale it to your ward.
We decided to make the first few months "BIGGER" then scale it down, just to get everyone excited.For the Early Bird Prize, when any sisters get there before the clock says 7:01pm, they write their name on a paper for the drawing, then later we did the drawings, that was to make sure no one left, You can make the prizes as bug as you want, we have a lady who sells candles on our committee and she went to the owners, they are also members, and ask if they would donate any candles, which they did which is like $12.00 value, we are very lucky about that, so I think that will be the main prize, but what we asked the sisters on the committee to do to make it bigger and better, at least for the first few months, is to add something two it, like one sister, made rice crispy treats, I added a bag of potpourri, some one add a couple of candy bars etc, we said you could add a Gift Certificate for making dessert for them, or anything, so we left it open, so the sisters do not have to donate something expensive or some did not donate at all. We placed all the stuff in a basket, well this month is was a wooden box that our HFPE Leader painted up, which she said she only paid a few dollars for it some where.
For the car pool prize last month, (the only month we have done it so far) we had the sisters who car pool raise there hand, and the group that had the most in a car pool each got a gift, which were heart candy dishes that I had got a Wal-mart for .97 cents each, we had them sitting out on the table with candy in them for the even, I had bought 10, but the most in a car pool was three. So we can use those again.
Or look around for more stuff like that. I also think I will put together a basket full of full size candy bars for them to pick out of.
I say check the dollar store for seasonal stuff, it is amazing what you can get there.
Let me know if you have any other questions!