bigbadwoof

On June 24th my Mom is involved in a "Relay for Life" cancer charity event, basically teams of people that get sponsered to walk for 12 hrs from 7pm till 7am, in Orillia. During the event they have side activites for the partipants as they are in teams and walk in shifts so they have an hour or so off at a time. Last year the group my mom was with ran a euchre tournament for all that wanted to play, this year someone suggested Texas Hold'em instead. Since my Mom knows I play regularly in small tournaments I've been recruited to help run this. This is where I need some advice.

Since the average break seems to be an hour or so i figured single table "sit and goes" 8 or 9 player. We will have access to rectangle banquet tables, not really poker tables but will do in a pinch and since the side activites are outside(under tents but still outside) not really sure if real poker tables would be a good idea anyway.
Play will be for fun, to kill time and strictly for bragging rights although we hope to have some token gifts to give to the winners of each table.
We aslo hope to have some bigger poker themed gifts to raffle off to raise more money. So legally i figure we are covered as its for fun and raffle tickets will be separate from the actual play. someone correct me if I'm wrong.

With those things covered the areas i'm not sure about are, how many chips, blind levels, etc should i have to make the game fun but short enough so that players can get a game in during their break? I've thought maybe of giving each player 20-30 chips with no denomination and go with a 1/2 chip blind once around the table then raise, once around then raise again etc. With each talbe its own game and possibly starting at different times a time raised blind might be difficult to direct if we get alot of tables going thats why i though about the once around deal way. Also I'm assuming most players will be beginners or novices, with a few regular players so should i be recruiting volunteer dealers instead of them dealing themselves?

I know I'm forgetting to ask some other things and will post when I remember but if you guys could throw in your 2 cents I'd appreciate it. Thanks.