Friday 14th February 2025, as well as being Valentine’s Day, it was also the last day before Half-term, so it was very nice to be hosting our first bake sale of the term then! It was fantastic to see all of our planning pay off, the sale was very successful!

Similar to previous bake sales, we collaborated with our school’s younger FTC teams for the baking effort so there was plenty of delicious Valentine’s themed cakes, cookies and more! Everything looked fabulous decorated with hearts, pink and red icing and sprinkles! Team Cipher’s very own Shaked (our Project Manager) brought homemade meringues – which are becoming a robotics bake sale staple – shaped like hearts, which were simply scrumptious!

We served at break and lunchtime, setting up with the help of staff and extra preparation time by leaving classes a couple minutes early. We had so much to put out that some items were almost sold out by the time we’d even finished setting up. By the end of break we’d sold over half of what we had, which was so amazing! Our earnings were kindly kept safe by staff in the in-between period so that when we came back at lunch we hadn’t accidentally lost anything. Over lunch we sold the rest of the baked goods, having only a handful of items left – all of which sold incredibly, just made in very large batches causing leftovers.

Seeing everyone work together to help raise money for our teams was massively inspiring. Overall the sale was a huge success – we had some insightful conversations with teachers about robotics, sold almost everything and made far more than we anticipated! This sale has meant we’re over 2/3 of the way to our fundraising goal for the whole Spring term, and pushed us over halfway to our £1000 goal for the entire season!

We had the incredible opportunity to cater at both showings of our school’s Christmas Pantomime and help raise money for our team. It was certainly memorable and went amazingly, thanks to the massive group effort and planning, but there were some mishaps along the way…

15/12/2024

Sunday 15th December 2024, it was opening night of Jack and the Beanstalk! As usual, we joined forces with our schools younger FTC team for the food making effort, we had a wide variety of options, from flapjacks to meringue trees to gingerbread cookies, we had it all! Alongside that we sold drinks: coffee, tea, hot chocolate and squash (in two flavours)!

We had all arrived with plenty of time to spare before doors opened so that we had enough time to prepare, on duty was Isaiah, Alessandro, Charles, Myself (Emma), and two girls from the younger group. People dropped off their goods at varying times, allowing us to work at a steady pace with placement and labelling allergens & prices. We were rushing around in search for gloves, our poster and all sorts, but everyone was in their places and prepared in time for doors opening.

We were serving before and after the show but mostly during intermission. Despite us being allowed to watch the performance while we weren’t working, we preferred not to, instead we chose to quietly chat as we prepared for the next bit. Unfortunately, coffee got spilt our poster as we worked but thankfully it wasn’t too damaged. However, this was greatly overshadowed by the incredible time we had serving, we got to chat with several parents and the time went by faster than we expected and soon enough we were all done and packing up.

17/12/2024

Tuesday 17th December 2024, the second performance and closing night of our school’s pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk. Similar to the opening night, we all arrived prior to doors opening to allow ourselves time to set up, this was slightly less communicated so some of us turned up later than expected but it didn’t make a great difference as we were all ready in time to sell.

We had plenty of leftovers from Sunday but we had fresh stuff to put out as well thanks to our lovely team chefs, and we had extra squash and hot chocolate thanks to some incredible staff who went out of there way to replace them since we’d ran out. Serving on Tuesday was Emmy, Myself (Emma), Evie, Shaked, Alessandro (who was technically there to watch the pantomime, not work, but helped out anyway) and the same two girls from the younger group. Charles was also meant to be there but couldn’t make it, but it didn’t matter too much as we had more than enough help!

We served at the same times as the prior performance, except this time we chose to watch the pantomime on our off time. It was an incredible show, massive well done to the cast and crew, it was incredibly entertaining and a great break from the tiring catering. A couple of students from our school’s younger FTC team were performing in the performance so it was wonderful to watch and support them. Me and Evie designed and helped paint some of the sets as well so it was very cool to see them in action.

Finally, it all came to a close, we raised so much money and we all had a fabulous time. We had barely any leftovers by the end of it, and anything extra we did have we shared between us (which caused some unsavoury jelly shenanigans).

Overall, it was an incredible experience and a very successful day. In addition to our earning from our bake sale in November, these two days meant we’d raised over £70 more than what we planned to in the Autumn Term, setting us way ahead in terms of our financing plans for this season.

Friday 8th November 2024, we hosted our very first bake sale of the season! With plenty of planning beforehand the whole process went smoothly and was very successful.

We collaborated with our school’s younger FTC team for the baking effort meaning we had plenty of cakes, cookies and all sorts of delicious baked goods. Seeing the spread was simply mouthwatering, there are some fantastic bakers in both teams, that’s for certain!

Setting up was made simple as we were very kindly helped by school staff to put out tables, napkins, gloves and, of course, the food. We served at break and lunchtime, with staff holding onto our earnings in the in-between period. Plenty of the goods had completely sold out after break which was very nice to see, but thanks to all the incredible bakers, we still had new, fresh stuff to put out at lunch.

It was fabulous to see everyone working together to help raise money for our teams. Despite the whole process being tiring, it was also massively rewarding. We’d had some really inspiring conversations with teachers and staff about robotics and what we do, made more money than we’d anticipated, AND had leftovers to treat ourselves for a job well done!

(Additionally, a massive thank you to our Finance sub-team for taking the time to count out and sort our earnings, we’re one step forward on our way to meeting our fundraising goal for this season!)