Don't Flip Out - 5 Tips For Marketing Your Sunday Pancake Breakfast

The Sunday pancake breakfast is something of a tradition in many towns and cities across America. Churches, nonprofits, Boy Scouts, soccer leagues and a variety of other organizations look to this cooking event as a source of fund raising.

The marketing of a successful pancake breakfast requires some practical wisdom on how to make sure that you have properly prepared yourself for how things will unfold.

Your pancake breakfast will go off successfully. Five tips are provided.

Tip 1. Set The Guest List Well in Advance

The larger the size of your pancake breakfast event, the more crucial it will be to set the guest list well in advance. Most events have an attrition rate of somewhere between 10 and 30%. That means if you have 20 confirmed guests, expect that somewhere between 14 to 18 will actually show up.

Thus if you want 20 to show up, you'll probably need to have about 25 confirmed guests. Reaching your target on the number of confirmed guests means you'll need to invite more than that number. In many cases it will require far more than that number. 50% is a good approximate rule of thumb: so to get 25 to confirm will probably require inviting 50.

Tip 2: Delegate some of the Planning Responsibilities

Even if you could do it all yourself, you really don't want to! Most pancake breakfast events cater to medium to larger sized groups. Anything from ten to one hundred would be typical. This means that you will definitely need help in marketing the event and and the preparation for it.

Getting the right help from the right people means learning how to delegate. You want someone to handle the invitations, someone to book the venue (or at least be willing to host if it will be at someone's house), and several people to take responsibility for following up with guests to see if they really are going to show up.

Tip 3: Carefully Prepare the Agenda for What Happens after the Event

Most organizers who organize a pancake breakfast are not doing it for their love of pancakes. Most attendees who come to this sort of event are not doing it because of their love of pancakes either! The time-honored tradition is that this event serves some larger purpose.

In some cases it may be fund raising, in other cases volunteer generation or team building. Whatever the purpose, make sure that you carefully plan the block of time that will naturally arise as people wind down having their breakfast. Figure on a 10-30 minute window of time where you will have everyone's attention before folks start to trickle out.

If you have a fundraising pitch, you want it to be tightly focused and concise. If you are trying to recruit volunteers, have informational literature ready to distribute. Use that brief window of time for maximum advantage.

Tip 4: Secure the Ingredients the Night Before

In the area of event planning, it is good to remember that what can go wrong will in fact probably go wrong. Trying to buy the ingredients for morning before the breakfast is almost certainly a recipe for disaster! If you have successfully delegated (Tip 1), you'll have someone on hand to buy the ingredients the night before and to deliver those ingredients to the venue.

That way the morning of the event, the stress factor can drop appreciably. You should still plan on getting to that venue well in advance of when the guests are starting to arrive. There will always be at least one guest who will show up considerably early and so you would be well advised to be prepared.

Tip 5: Arrange a Conference Call with Your Team Members

A successful pancake breakfast operation requires teamwork. Particularly in the case of the larger event, you will almost definitely have a handful of people helping you pull everything together. It may be difficult to get everyone to meet in person and that is where teleconferencing comes in.

Holding a conference call with your pancake breakfast planning members is a great solution. These days there are a number of services that offer free conference calling and that means you can hold the phone conference for negligible expense.

When everyone calls in to the conference, use that opportunity to reiterate the roles and responsibilities that you have already delegated and to confirm the plan for the night before and morning of the event.

A well-planned pancake breakfast requires a lot of work. The suggestions outlined above in terms of delegation, advance planning and making intelligent use of collaboration tools like free conferencing can go a long way to ensuring a successful event.

Have A Pancake Party!

Are your kids tired of clowns, piñatas, and pin the tail on the donkey? If you are fresh out of party ideas, don't worry, there is always breakfast. Huh? Yes, breakfast. You can have a pancake party! Throwing a pancake party is something different that your child's friends probably haven't had. It is fun and unique and very simple! Keep reading to find out how easy it is to throw a pancake bash.

You can begin by choosing your pancake theme Of course it will be pancakes, but are you going to make pancake shapes, colored pancakes, pancake people, etc.? You can be as creative as you would like. It could be a chocolate pancake party and you can have the kids make chocolate pancakes and use chocolate chips and other chocolate treats to decorate the pancakes. You might decide to make huge pancakes in a cake pan and have them use cookie cutters to cut out shapes. Or you can be simple and make regular pancakes but have lots of different toppings for them such as fruit, candy, whipped cream, or ice cream.

Next, you will need to purchase your ingredients and supplies. Wait until you know how many kids will be coming before you do this so that you have enough but not too much. Make a list and use a recipe to make sure you don't forget anything. You will need basic ingredients such as flour, eggs, and milk, but also make sure you have enough supplies for the kids to use such as spatulas, spoons, bowls, and pans. Of course, you will also need serving supplies such as utensils, plates, napkins, and cups. Use fun colorful tablecloth designs or colors that will match what you are doing. For example, you can do a tropical theme with colorful fruit and tropical decorations and use a lot of fruit with the pancakes. If you are coloring the pancakes, use bright colored tablecloths, cups, plates, and napkins.

Have a plan before the party. If the kids know you don't know what you're doing, they might go crazy and take advantage of the situation by making a mess. Set up individual stations for each task. Have one group measure the ingredients, another mix, and another pour on the pan. Make sure the kids aren't too young that they can burn themselves on the pan. You might want to do this part yourself or have plenty of supervision around. Have each of the kids dress up their own pancakes.

This is a perfect idea that you can personalize. Have the kids draw their names in batter or in icing on the pancakes. Let them each use different colors. Have available many different toppings and let them do whatever they want. Make sure to warn them when you think some foods won't go well together so that they don't waste food because it tastes bad. You can even have party favors such as baking utensils or cookies.

Have fun with this party idea. You might even want to switch from pancakes to French toast or waffles, or include them all! The point is to get them involved. They will have lots of fun and maybe even learn a little about baking.

Pancake Day

Don't you just love Pancakes? I certainly do! all of my life I have never missed tosssing pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, I never made pancakes today as my daughter wanted to make them. Anyway here I have included some customs for Shrove Tuesday.

Enjoy!

A famous pancake race at Olney in Buckinghamshire has been held since 1445.

Many towns throughout England held traditional Shrove Tuesday football ('Mob Football') games dating as far back as the 12th century. The practice mostly died out with the passing of the 1835 Highways Act, which banned the playing of football on public highways, but a number of towns have managed to maintain the tradition to the present day including Alnwick in Northumberland, Ashbourne in Derbyshire (called the Royal Shrovetide Football Match), Atherstone in Warwickshire,Sedgefield (called the Ball Game) in County Durham, and St Columb Major (called Hurling the Silver Ball) in Cornwall

In Ireland, Australia, and Canada, Shrove Tuesday is known as "Pancake Tuesday", while in Britain it is popularly known as "Pancake Day". In both regions the traditional pancake is a very thin one which is served immediately sprinkled with caster sugar and a dash of fresh lemon juice or alternatively drizzled with Golden syrup.

In the Canadian province of Newfoundland, household objects are baked into the pancakes and served to family members. Rings, thimbles, thread, coins, and other objects all have meanings associated with them. The lucky one to find coins in their pancake will be rich, the finder of the ring will be the first married, and the finder of the thimble will be a seamstress or tailor. Children have great fun with the tradition, and often eat more than their fill of pancakes in search of a desired object.

Pancakes are eaten to use up milk and eggs, which are not eaten during Lent, and would otherwise spoil during this period.

Make Your Own Pancake Mix

Pancakes are a favorite with children and adults of all ages. I hope you find the following recipe useful.

Basic Pancake Mix (Makes about 13 cups of dry mix)

10 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/2 cups nonfat dry milk

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup baking powder

2 tablespoons salt

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl. Stir together to blend well. Place in a large container until ready to use or place in individual storage bags (2 cups in each bag). Store in cool, dry place for up to 8 months. Makes 13 cups of dry mix.

To Make The Pancakes

2 cups of Basic Pancake Mix

1 egg, beaten

1 1/4 cups water or milk

Combine all ingredients; stirring just enough to moisten dry ingredients. Drop by spoonfuls onto a hot non-stick or greased griddle or fry pan. Turn when bubbles appear on the surface of the cakes. Cook until well browned. Makes about 12 to 16 pancakes depending on how small or large you want them.

To serve you can cut them with cookie cutters in shapes of the current season or holiday. To use the scraps that are left when you cut the shape out simply cut these in smaller pieces and arrange around the cutouts that way they get eaten and not wasted.

Try adding blueberries, strawberries, bananas, syrups and fruit juices to the batter for a little variety. When serving you can serve with a dollop pf whipped cream on top along with lots of butter and syrup.

Making your own pancakes is a real money saver and a great treat for your family.