LivingtheDreamMoms Question 1/7/10 – “What is a Tricky Tray?”

Thanks to all who emailed us great answers to the Question of the Week on Toginet Radio.  There were two rules that were attached to this question:  1.  You can’t be from New Jersey to answer this question and 2.  You couldn’t cheat and google it.  

The answer is:  A little history of the tricky tray. For starters, they weren’t always called tricky trays. Back in the good old days, they were called Chinese auctions, but in an effort to be politically correct, the term Chinese auction was done away with, at least in most parts of our civilized society. The term tricky tray has been used ever since.
A tricky tray is really nothing more than a massive raffle. Instead of raffling off just one item or even a couple of items, what you’re basically raffling off is a room full of items. Depending on how much stuff you can get your hands you may actually end up with several rooms full. The items auctioned off in a tricky tray are basically donated, either from the people running the tricky tray itself or from store owners in their various neighborhoods.
A person will buy a card, which might contain about 20 tickets and will then break up the tickets into individuals and throw the individuals into tin cans placed next to each item. After all the tickets have been placed, the drawings begin. One ticket is chosen from each tin can. If you’ve got 300 items to raffle off, this could take quite a few hours. This is why these fund raisers usually include the selling of food during the event.
Tricky trays are great fund raising activities. Even though most of the items aren’t really worth much, people love winning things. It’s the thrill of the chase that makes a tricky tray fund raising gala something to look forward to.Here are some of the answers that folks emailed us from all over the country on what they thought a Tricky Tray was:

1.  A tray that doesn’t stand up.
2.  A card game
3.  A bed pan
4.  A DJ name
5.  A tray that is unbalanced.
5.  My daughter’s high chair has one of  those!
6.  Thought about going – does it burn calories?
7.  Lunch trays used at schools!
8.  A tray with a false bottom.
9.  What you say at Halloween.
10.A new dish used for Chinese cooking.
11.A lazy susan

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