Sold Out in 5 Days: How a Team Manager Banked $3,000 for Her Boys' Cultural Weekend

Zara Houlker didn't have time to run a raffle by hand. As team manager for a NSW Māori Rugby League U12s squad, mother of five, and one of the busiest parents on the sideline, the last thing she needed was a shoebox of ticket stubs and a spreadsheet to track who still owed her twenty dollars. Instead, the team's 100 Club easily sold out in five days and banked $3,000 toward the team's cultural weekend away.

That result mattered, because Zara knew exactly who would end up chasing down every unpaid ticket if they didn't find an easier way to raise it.

A first for the whole family

At the end of September, the U12s Tamariki (children) head to Aotearoa New Zealand for their annual tournament. Zara's middle child Paddy was selected for the team and it is the first time that any of her children have had the chance to play representative Māori Rugby League.

Zara was born in New Zealand. Her husband Brian is Māori. Their children have grown up in Australia and playing Māori Rugby League has given them something the family treasures, a real, living connection to their Māori cultural identity, not just through the game, but through everything around it.

That's exactly what coach Kenneth Holmes and his wife Tania, the team's cultural adviser, set out to build on before the boys ever got on a plane. Together they have organised a cultural weekend away, a noho, giving the team a chance to bond and learn together ahead of the tournament. Generous sponsors had already covered flights and accommodation for the New Zealand trip itself. What the leadership group still needed was a way to cover food and accommodation for the noho, so the cost didn't fall on individual families ensuring every tama (boy) could take part.

That's where the $5,000 fundraising target came from, and where Zara stepped up.

Finding an easier way to run it

A 100 Club was suggested as the obvious fundraiser. Zara had run into that idea before, and she knew exactly what it meant for her.

"I'll be the one who will end up having to coordinate it all," she said.

With her own family spread thin and squad families spread right across NSW, a paper-based raffle wasn't going to work. Zara turned to Google to find a platform that could carry the admin load for her. Lucky Squares Australia was the first result that came up.

"I saw how well put together it was so decided to give it a go," she said. "It was very easy to set up, just follow the process which is all laid out for you."

She set up a 100-square grid at $50 a square, with cash prizes for the winners, and got ready to share it with her community.

Sold out by Sunday morning

Zara launched the campaign on a Tuesday night. By Sunday morning, all 100 squares were gone.

She kept the promotion simple and let the team's own network do the heavy lifting. She asked Māori Rugby League NSW to share the fundraiser link, dropped a note into the Touring Team WhatsApp chat, and asked parents to share that same Facebook post on their own pages.

On payment, Zara chose the credit card payment option over bank transfers without a second thought. "I understood that people would be okay paying a small transaction fee for the convenience," she said. Bank transfers meant chasing people up and manually marking off who'd paid, which work well for some communities but wasn’t the best option for Zara. Card payments meant people bought a square there and then, instead of "when they get around to it."

Ready to raise money for your club or representative team? Start your Lucky Squares campaign here.

The result

$5,000 raised. $2,000 prize pool paid out to three lucky winners. $3,000 banked toward the noho, helping covering food and accommodation and reducing overall costs for individual families.

"Lucky Squares was easy, hassle free, and the community got behind it because it was for a good cause," Zara said.

The part she didn't expect

Ask Zara what stood out most, and it's not the fundraising total or how fast the grid filled. It's a phone call.

After Zara lodged a support ticket with a question, Lucky Squares founder Jamie Stott called her directly to help out, and to check everything was going okay.

"I loved the personal touch," Zara said.

"Zara has a busy family life with five kids, is the team manager, and volunteers in other roles too. She had a genuine concern that the administrative load of running a paper based 100 Club would land squarely back in her lap," said Jamie. "That's the exact problem Lucky Squares exists to solve. When she reached out with a question, it mattered to me that she heard from a real person, and wasn't just a support ticket number."

Already planning the next one

Zara's account is already set up, and with the boys' departure getting closer, she's not starting from scratch for whatever comes next.

"Now I have an account set up I can just duplicate the campaign we have just drawn, making it easy to run another one again before the boys head away," she said.

Her advice to any other club, school or community group weighing up whether to give it a go is straightforward.

"100% go for it. It ticks all the boxes. Just do it."