EF Tours Questions
 

I'm a 16 year old high schooler and I am working with my French teacher to get a trip going to "Rome and Paris" with EF Tours. I am having a hard time trying to get students to want to pay the cost of the trip. What do you suggest I do in order to make the cost a little easier to handle? There is only so far car washes will take you.

What are EF Tours? Are you looking for ways to make the costs cheaper...or ways to raise money so that the cost to the students is cheaper?

I'm looking for ways for students to be able to pay for the trip. The cost is going to be about $1545. EF Tours is a tour group. From what I've heard, they are very good.

I have never done this before. I dont know what to expect or how to even get this tour organized with the school.

Start with a letter which your schoolmates can show to their parents providing details about the advantages of travelling to Europe, specifically the learnings one can take away from the trip. Provide details about the trip (where will you go, how will you go, where will you stay, meals), the dates, the costs, EF Tours (add a brochure about EF Tours) and who will supervise or chaperone.

You should get some advice from your French teacher about the letter.

It may be difficult to raise the money needed for the trip without the help of your and schoolmates' parents.

Good luck.

It's always good to include things the students will learn about so it seems more like an educational trip then a free for all around Europe. I know I'd rather hear from my daughter that she was going on an educational trip to France and Italy rather than a siteseeing tour.

Good Luck and have fun baking cookies for all the bake sales and washing cars you'll be doing!
~A

Sounds like a grea idea. Here are some fundraising suggstions:

bake sales
car washes
bottle drives (after Easter would be a great time)
apple pie sales
pizza slice sales at school
get sponsors from businesses in your community

Just some ideas, I'm sure others will have more

jamikins-
"bottle drives (after Easter would be a great time)"
Why after Easter??

We always booked our school bottle drives after long weekends. People drink alot of pop and beer on long weekends and they havent had time to return the bottles yet :)

You might want to contact the company. Surely they must have other people who have had to fundraise and may have some ideas to share.

Before you contract with EF Tours, please visit teachers.net and read about trips teachers and students have taken. You can always contact fundraising companies and sell things like cookie dough (sells great before the holidays). Your other options is to ask the tour company to combine your group with another student group who's taking the same escourted tour.

I forgot to put the actual url in my post.
http://teachers.net/mentors/fieldtrip/index2.html

Though EF is a great organization and I think that their tours are great, they certianly are expensive.

High school fundraisers are generally unhelpful unless you have the group together and they are willing to work hard. I was on the swim team in high school and we had a few really successful carwashes that raised around $3,000 over one year. That will pay for almost 2 people's trip, and let me tell you, the juice is not worth the squeeze.

You get 1 free chaperone for every 6 students, so you and your teacher are looking at a min of 6 students, and I think that the more you have the better off the prices are.

So. . . determine how many people you want to go and go ahead and set the price and requirements. Then, once you have the students who are in, work together to raise the money.

Bake sales and car washes can be pretty futile, as you are looking at more than $15,000 for a group of 10. Find out how much each student is willing/able to pay and then take the balance and you have a few options:

Throw an awesome party! If you plan it right and get enough people you can haul in quite a bit. Someone's parent must be an event planner out there.

Corporate sponsorship can be really helpful, so ask around and see if you can do a night out at a local restaurant. You can earn a lot at BK or Chili's.

This is a good idea and I hope you get it off the ground!

My daughter and I traveled with EF in 2004 and are scheduled to go again this summer. We had the time of our lives last time. She was the main push behind enrollment and motivated several people to get involved. We tried coke wagons and car washes but our best fund raiser was a concession stand at a local ball field where we were able to take over for one Spring/Summer. Definitely talk to EF about fund raising ideas. Have a party and talk up the trip and its educational benefits. Some of the other people we were combined with used it as a teaching tool and actually had assignments to complete. How far you take that is up to you and your French teacher. It can be the experience of a lifetime if it all works out. I will be glad to help in any way that I can if you have any more questions. I feel very good about my experiences with EF so far.

John

EF Tours is actually at the inexpensive end of the spectrum, from what I understand.

And sightseeing generally <i>is</i> educational, even if it doesn't seem that way. Indeed, all travel can provide quite an education, although it helps if the travellers don't spend their time looking for opportunities to get drunk or make out.

Just a word of warning - be very clear that you expect ALL participants and parents to lend their support. It becomes very unfair if a body of people do all the work and some people don't but still expect their &quot;share&quot; of any money you make.
Try and arrange rosters of people to help so it is not the same old ones all the time. But, that said, someone will (you?) will have to have ultimate control.
Best wishes, hope it all works out for you.

Be careful what you read on Teachers.net. It is obvious that tour competitors go on their and post false and misleading information about each other from time to time. They also post the same message under fake names. So, take everything you read on there with a grain of salt.

I always take everything written on ANY board with a grain of salt. I base my opinions on research, conversation with teachers who've used various tour companies, and the Better Business Bureau. It's quite easy to check any business there.

There is a lengthy thread here:
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34495633

I've taken many tours and feel that carwashes and bake sales are good for moral, but kids can raise more money by getting a regular job. Given enough time in advance they can also ask grandmas and other relatives for help as Christmas or Birthday presents. Usually, about 80% of the kids have parents pay their way.