The first step was to find a venue.
We finally found a church hall which was spacious, well priced and well equipped.
We researched dates for the fair to avoid conflict with similar events and made a provisional booking and paid a deposit.
We then opened a bank account and started to approach stall holders who would be interested in having a stand at our event.
We wanted a broad range of stalls so we were careful to select stalls in all categories.
The main categories were food, fashion, jewellery, books, beauty products, gifts and children's toys.
Each stall paid us a fee and agreed to give us a percentage of their takings.
It was essential we put together marketing material which we used to raise sponsorship from companies to pay for the costs of the fair.
Very quickly we found a major sponsor which really gave us the impetus to want to make the fair a huge success.
We sourced a caterer and a drinks supplier who were prepared to supply us with food and drink at cost price.
We had an invitation and flyer designed and two months before the event we sent out thousands of invitations by post and email asking people to buy tickets for the preview evening.
We distributed flyers all around the local area and had posters advertising the event in shop windows.
The day of the preview evening was spent decorating the hall and making sure that all the stalls were set up.
On the evening of the event we had hundreds of guests.
The number of attendees far exceeded our expectations.
It was very hard work but we raised thousands of pounds for the charity and we hope we gave a lot of people a fun and festive shopping experience!