call sth off, show your hand, scrape sth/sb together/up

John McCain canceled the first day of his Republican National Convention, and his campaign made plans to turn the gathering into a giant fundraiser as they braced for the fallout from Hurricane Gustav. Bush and Cheney both had earlier called off appearances.

When my brother was born, in mid-February 1937 - in the depths of the Great Depression - there was a special Valentine's Day excursion price on the train from Nova Scotia to Montreal. It cost ten dollars. My aunt and a girlfriend scraped together the ten dollars each and went to Montreal to help out my mother with her newborn baby.
Exclusive extract from Payback by Margaret Atwood

show your hand
to permit people to know about intentions that you had previously kept secret:
Keep the names of the team secret - don't show your hand until the day of the match.

scrape sth/sb together/up phrasal verb [M] INFORMAL
to manage with great difficulty to collect enough of something, especially money, or to find the things or people that you need:
I finally scraped together enough money for a flight home.
Do you think we can scrape up a team for the match on Saturday?

call sth off (ACTIVITY) phrasal verb [M]
to decide that a planned event, especially a sports event, will not happen, or to end an activity because it is no longer useful or possible:
Tomorrow's match has been called off because of the icy weather.
The police have called off the search for the missing child until dawn tomorrow.