To bill Guides Leader for cost of DD's jeans, rather than agree to pay hers.....

[margaretrose]

Slight trivia and long post warningAm not often cross, but bit wound up, will try to be calm and articulate: DD 11 has been a guide for 18 months. Has not been a great experience, older lady running group clearly doesn't like the girls or running guides, said to another mum that she was only doing it because no-one else would. Group is not well organised, not imaginative activities and older girls not encouraged to mix with/help younger ones. The one thing that has been great has been opportunity for DD to go into a nursing home to help/chat with residents every week, for Community badge. Last week, when dropped DD off at the NH, leader asked if she had her old T-shirt for the guide meeting after NH, as on the programme it had asked for this and said they wd be painting by foot and mouth, no other info. I said of course she had, a long purple T-shirt to cover her up as I expected it wd be messy. Leader glared and said " It must be white, we are Painting ON the shirt" and, rolling eyes, said that as was only 1.5 hrs before the meeting, we could buy one from her stock. Fine. Apparently, what happened at meeting was this: leader got out paints in big box, put out on tables and told girls to paint their T-shirts on bits of newspaper on floor via brush in foot or mouth. AND THEN SAID " oh some of that paint is gloss, don't use it". Some of smallest girls didn't get this and painted the soles of their feet with the gloss to make footprints on their shirts. Obviously, some went on floor..... and their clothes.... and could not be cleaned off at end of session. We r all now to be billed for special cleaning of hall!!! My questions: GLOSS PAINT?! Why no aprons provided? Why such poor supervision? Why paint by foot or mouth on T-shirt, will obviously look pants, And AIBU to refuseto pay for T-shirt, or cleaning Bill ( DD did not cause damage to floor), and to ask leader to pay for DD's jeans, which are ruined??!!! DD was SPECIFICALLY asked to arrive in guide top and jeans, not old clothes. Bloody woman. Would take it over myself but already run two other childrens groups!!!

[NotSuchASmugMarriedNow]

YANBU to not pay for the damages because either the guides will have insurance to cover that sort of thing or the hall owners will have insurance to cover that sort of thing. Not the parents responsibility at all and a bit silly to use gloss paint, I agree.

Just out of curiosity, what 2 childrens groups do you run?

[GypsyMoth]

Guides? Scouts might be better?

[NotSuchASmugMarriedNow]

Forgot to add, would expect an 11 year old to be able to accurately convey a message from the guide leader to her parent. IE, if the guide leader asked for a white t shirt, then unless your dd has special needs that is what she should have repeated back to you.

[RedBlanket]

Gloss paint, wtf? I don't trust me with gloss paint!

I wouldn't Pay to clean up, whoever decided to let children loose with gloss paint should pay.

[proudfoot]

I think YANBU to refuse the cost of cleaning the hall as that is the responsibility of the organisers, but YABU to bill the leader for your DD's jeans as even though it sounds a silly activity it was up to your DD to keep her own jeans clean.

[suzikettles]

Well, I'd normally pile in to support a brownie/guide leader because these organisations wouldn't exist without them and they put in a lot of unpaid time and effort, but...

She put out gloss paint on the floor and then realised she'd made a mistake but she didn't put it away/get the girls to dispose of it? Is she completely mad?

Were you there though - because these stories often get very twisted up...That's about as far as I can go in mitigation tbh.

[Thumbwitch]

YANBU and she is mad as a box of frogs to even have brought the gloss paint along! I doubt you'll get the money for the jeans, sadly, although as NotSuchA says, they should be insured (if she's running to properly) so if you get no joy from her you migiht have to contact the Guides Association (or whatever it's called).

[KatieMiddleton]

YANBU.

[switchtvoffdosomelessboring]

The women running the group is a volunteer. Maybe she has been doing it that long she'd rather stop, but as there is noone else offering to run the group it would mean the end of it. Which is rubbish for the girls.


Gloss paint comes of with turps, perhaps you could buy a bottle of that to take in and the girls could clean up the mess themselves?

[Icelollycraving]

I would pay for the t shirt but refuse to contribute towards hall cleaning. Explain that you are not happy with the level of supervision on activities,how did the girls get gloss paint off themselves? Mention their jeans but I think you are unlikely to get any money for them.
Could you volunteer?

[switchtvoffdosomelessboring]

It was a bit barmy to use gloss paint in the first place however!

[NotSuchASmugMarriedNow]

wouldn't turps also strip the varnish off the floor though

[mycatoscar]

It is possible to get gloss out of clothes. My dd lent on a newly painted door frame in her school uniform and I scrubbed it White spirit then ran it through the washing machine a couple of times to get rid of the smell, uniform came out perfect.

Yanbu to refuse the pay the hall cleaning bill but you would be u to bill the guide leader for the jeans.

I wouldn't keep my dd at a group which wad run by this lady if I was you, isn't there another unit in the area?

[ENormaSnob]

No I wouldn't pay.

[diddl]

Why were they painting their feet?

Odd that nothing was put down on floor in case of spillages.

Sounds as if the poor woman doesn´t really want to do this though & thought that she was doing everyone a favour?

Has she checked re insurance & there isn´t any & that´s why she´s asking for money?

[diddl]

I wouldn´t pay though but wouldn´t ask for money re jeans.

Just because the t shirt was needed to paint on, didn´t mean that you couldn´t also give a tshirt as protection-or did you do that also?

[Thumbwitch]

Nothing gets dried gloss paint off clothes - it has to be done before it dries

[Deliaskis]

YANBU to not pay the cost of the floor clean, the floor should have been covered for a messy activity, but YABU to expect the unit to pay for jeans. Your DD is 11 which should be old enough to make an effort to keep her jeans clean, as well as convey a message about the T-shirt and listen to the instruction re not using the gloss paint (altho agree that this shouldn't have been put out at all, and if it was, and mistake realised, should have been removed immediately).

Have to say that when I was a Guide, if I had trashed my jeans in this kind of activity, it would have been me getting the telling off, not the leader.

Also without context, you can't really say if the activity was worthwhile in its own right or not. It could have been a way of encouraging the girls to think about different ways of doing things, in the context of e.g. thinking about people who don't have use of their arms etc. That being said, it sounds like you're concerned more generally about this leader, so maybe it's not the best unit to send DD to?

D

[startail]

I used to be a Brown owl, you don't let Brownies loose with gloss paint and you certainly don't let Guides anywhere near it either. In my experience Guides are actually worse than Brownies. Brownies at least listen and try to be careful.

[Deliaskis]

Maryz agree with your last para re the other side of the story and there being a lot more to this. I remember being a Guide and being a Guide leader, and remember there being a lot of herd mentality/high jinx going on with each person trying something a bit sillier than the last until it has got a bit out of hand. As a Brownie leader, you would have to pay me about a million pounds to run a Guide group.

D

[wonkylegs]

To be a complete killjoy here.... Children shouldn't be using gloss paints for real health and safety reasons. I work in construction and we would have to highlight the use of gloss paints as a risk. Dangerous fumes, high skin irritant value and high flammability means that they are highly dangerous and should not be used around children or animals and users should wear appropriate personal protection equipment..... What the hell she was thinking to give them to kids to play with!!!! As a group leader she should have some idea of assessing potential risks and this is a huge one ( which would have been spelt out on the cans!)
I would be livid if this was my kid, and there would be no chance of me paying for damage she would be lucky if I didn't get my friendly local hse officer round for a word (he can be scary)
Btw I am not a big killjoy and I'm relaxed about all but proper dangers which I am very aware of as construction can be v. Dangerous

[margaretrose]

Thankyou all for your common sense! Am now bit calmer/ more reasonable. Am not so naive as to think all the girls behaved well, but in fact had the exact story in all details from no less than 6 of the girls, plus several parents - she pulled all parents who were there at the end in to survey the "damage". My daughter was off sick the previous week when they were told white T-shirts needed, unfortunately. DD's jeans had only v slight splots of "ordinary" paint on them from the painting, which have washed off. She wore her long, purple T-shirt, which protected her top. The gloss paint on her knees of jeans is ?poss mainly from when she was kneeling and scrubbing gloss paint off floor once leader had discovered this and was shouting at them to clean it?. This was witnessed by some of the parents who were there by then. It would have been easy to see which girls had walked paint all over hall by looking at their feet, and "speaking" just to them, perhaps? Am sorry for her, would love to help more but this is impossible, am already over-committed, is always same small group of people who do lots. Am maybe a mug. Will put DD in other guides or scouts. Just don't want to fall out with leader lady, but not happy to pay! Will chill about jeans tho.

[SnapesMistress]

YANBU, don't pay and move your daughter.

[ChaoticAngelofSamhain]

YANBU