balloon race

OK - I'm coming back down to the land of the living - back to 3 days a week and 2 hours per day.....

Here's a few answers I've just done for the balloon race - to show I am doing some work, honest:

Thanks that's great. So just to clarify, the balloons only go through sites vetted by yourself. - YES

Also, the everyday quizzes and games, do the competitors have to pay to take part in these and 'boost' their balloons?

All the games are free - but you can only play one game per day, here's the games - http://www.balloonrace.com/games/

And the donations - do they feed directly back to the school or via you, and does all the money go to our school or not?

All donations and balloon purchases go direct to the School (you'll need a Paypal account). Paypal will take about 25p for every transaction - but it's secure and you can recieve funds from anywhere in the world.
You can also accept cash as you have full control over all the balloons and boosts (you could also add boost if a pupil does well in lessons).

Does a bigger donation push a balloon further? YES

Also, if a balloon joins the race say a week later than other competitors, could they realistically win it? Or should we really get everyone buying their balloons before a start date to make it fair?

They could win but they missed out on the daily games for the days they've missed. Once you buy a race and set the start date, the race counts down to your start date and you can still sell balloons.

Thanks, sorry for all these questions, I just want to have all the information to hand when tell everyone at the next meeting.