Stumps Spirit Ideas

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Booster Fundraiser Gifts and Spirit Ideas

Posted by Stumps Spirit on July 30, 2013

The school year is fast approaching!  It is time to think about school activities and booster clubs again.  Repeating the same fundraiser year after year can become boring, so here are a few ideas to spice them up.  Spirit items make great rewards for students who participated in a fundraiser, or as rewards for donating.

Booster Fundraising Ideas

Take advantage of the last of the warm weather by holding a car wash.  While this is a common idea you can make it unique by encouraging your supporters to donate more by offering key tag or lanyard as incentives.

Take a page of out PBS’ book and hold a pledge drive.  Offer fan gear as an incentive.  The more a person pledges the better the reward will be.  For small pledges the reward could be a flag to wave at the next game.  For greater contributions offer seat cushions to make sitting on the hard bleachers a bit easier.

Put a new twist on back to school shopping.  Have students collect gently used items from community members to sell at a school wide garage sale.  Add in some fun competition by having the different classes keep track of how much money they earned.  Whichever class earned the most at the end of the sale will then be rewarded with prizes.  Set up a bake sale and concessions table as well for those shoppers who might get a bit hungry while they are there.

If you live in a state the offers a cash reward on recyclable products then you can hold an environmentally minded fundraiser.  Collect recyclable containers like glass or plastic bottles and aluminum cans.  Students can bring these items into school, collect them door-to-door, or have a container for collecting them at the next sporting event.  Once the collection is over simply take all the items to the local recycling facility and see how much you’ve earned.  If you made this drive a competition it would only make sense to reward the winners with a reusable water bottle.

Bingo is fun for all ages and makes for a truly fun fundraiser.  Charge a small amount for each bingo card and offer some fun prizes to the winners, and you will have fun for a good cause.  Also offer raffle tickets so that your supporters can win a great prize if their names are called.

Spirit Ideas for Booster Fundraiser Gifts

If you are promoting your team by selling spirit gear at sports events you can find anything you need in your team’s colors.  Noisemakers are a must have!  From megaphones to inflatable bam bams you can be sure that your team will be able to hear all their fans. When noise isn’t enough make sure to have movement in the stands as well.  No matter the sport, pom poms are always good to wave and support your team.  What would a game be without the classic “We’re number 1” foam spirit mitt?  You can even have students selling these in the stands so that no one has to go without spirit gear.

With these ideas and products there is no need to fear the upcoming school year.  You can make it the most spirited year yet!

Posted in Fundraising, School Spirit Items, Stumps Spirit | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Fire Up Tryouts with These Spirit Boosting Ideas

Posted by Stumps Spirit on July 5, 2013

You build the best teams with the best performers, and the best tryout performances come from the kids having fun and playing hard without self-consciousness. Help the process along by encouraging team spirit and minimizing jitters from Day One of tryout practice. Here are three ways to do it.

1. Warm welcome. A distinctive sports welcome banner or sign should catch participants’ eyes upon arrival and is especially appreciated if the sport or activity is one that does not normally capture a lot of popular attention. Increase the “mileage” with personal greetings as players arrive if at all possible.

For a large school or group where many of those trying out don’t yet know each other, you might consider providing adhesive name tags the first day.

Start right away to notice and verbally reinforce the best demonstrations of positive attitude, hustle, support for others, and the sense of humor that uplifts and never denigrates. You can also chat about behaviors outside of practice, particularly nutrition, sleep and others concerned with players taking care of themselves.

2. Ice breakers. Often, tryout participants arrive with their own teams. There’s nothing wrong about coming in with friends, but if you let them, they’ll tend to stay in their personal comfort zones even though it’s important for everybody to feel comfortable with everybody.

Break up cliques systematically by never allowing participants to form their own groups for warm-ups and other small group activities. Instead, have them count off and keep mixing up the groups frequently.

Counting off is also handy for corporate-style team-building exercises, which we recommend for large and/or disparate tryout groups. These activities are usually a little silly on purpose, because nothing is as cohesive as shared laughter. Consider these team-builders to open a practice, or lengthen break times a little to include them. We particularly like the subgroups to do list-making such as “Five Things We Have in Common” (no body parts or clothing!) or “Five Shared Favorite Things” and then present their lists to the rest.

3. Something unexpected. Pull out a surprise every once in a while for a shared pleasurable experience. These can be things or activities.

When it comes to the first category, rest assured that many ideas – even for personalized spirit products — are quite easy on the budget. For example, you could replace the labels on a case of 20-ounce bottles of water with customized labels for less than $12, personalize static (“window cling”) car decals for as little as 25 cents, or outfit all but the largest tryout groups in temporary spirit tattoos for well under $10.

Another way to go is to have activities in your repertoire that you can pull out during “time for something completely different” moments or reserve for the ends of practices. We particularly like stress-lowering exercises such as deep muscle relaxation, yoga relaxation poses and breathing exercises — all skills that are helpful to spirit and state of mind, with the bonus of being completely portable.

Have a tryout spirit boost you don’t see here? Please share in comments!

Posted in Cheerleading, Football Spirit, School Spirit Items, Team Supplies, Team Unity, Volleyball | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Spring Track Team Spirit Ideas

Posted by Stumps Spirit on April 11, 2013

Even before the weather starts to truly warm up in the springtime, you’ll often see scores of adolescent runners out, jogging through neighborhoods and byways in spandex, track jackets, and certainly not warm enough headbands. If you are the parent, relative, or coach of one of these doggedly determined individuals, you already know that you are witnessing the birthing pains of the springtime track and field team.

Countless young men and women across the country are working and training hard — really hard, incredibly hard — while continuing to study and work their way through high school, and sometimes even holding down jobs part time in the workplace, as well. Too often it is too difficult to get them the recognition that you know they deserve. Here are a few things you can do to celebrate your spring track team.

Raise awareness throughout the community with yard signs.

Yard signs are fairly commonplace, but they are often for (aside from the political) biggies like football, basketball, baseball, and sometimes soccer. On the whole, you see them for what are typically thought of as “team” sports, while people who aren’t in the know tend to view track and field as a sport composed of individual events. Yard signs can be personalized with individual player names as well as to announce weekly events. Use both at school and throughout the neighborhood. This way, the community at-large can see that track players live and work among them, and perhaps be encouraged to go support their local high school or neighbor at an event. Yard signs with players names can also be used to line a pathway or the school quad for a track and field spirit week to celebrate the individual team members at school.

Have a spirit week at school… just for track and field!

Yes, baseball and softball are coming, and soccer is looming on the horizon as well. However, spirit weeks don’t have to be massively costly to be successful at their original purpose: giving credit where credit is due and raising enthusiasm and pride across the campus. Banners promoting the track and field team can be draped across the entrance (or exits!) of the school, where everyone can be sure to take note.  As a track and field promotion during spirit week, if you are selling school or athletic-related apparel like hoodies and t-shirts, let everyone know that if they purchase anything during that week, they will get a track and field personalized drawstring bag, as well!

Make sure everyone at school knows who the motivated athletes on the track team are!

  • Pick a certain day of the week for the track team to wear their team jackets to school, and have everyone do it. Fellow students may be surprised who is in their class on the team!
  • Following a meet, announce the team members who placed first in any given even that next Monday in homeroom or over the intercom.
  • Long-haired track athletes can get fun and funky with Bling Strings in their hair. Check regulations, but these can be tied up in ponytails or buns tightly and will also help your school stand out at meets!
  • Make notebooks available for all the track athletes to use, and offer personalized track spirit notebooks for sale as part of your track and field fundraising. The more visibility, the more awareness, and the more excitement!

Give those motivated fans something to cheer with!

While noisemakers can be a touch inappropriate for track and field events that require concentration, unless there are regulations prohibiting their use, sprinters could use all the encouragement! For other events, such as shot put, long jump, or discus, create special signs with prominent, easy to read lettering. Right before the athlete makes their winning put, hurl, or jump, they can look up into the crowd and gather extra momentum from all the support they see in the stands.

Finally, don’t forget to bring along some extra megaphones so that your encouraging cheers don’t get swept away in the wind.

Posted in Stumps Spirit | Leave a Comment »

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