Is it my imagination or are volunteers less forthcoming these days?

[Limesaregreen]

Have name changed. My youngest has left school now but I still get the odd call to 'help out'. Now when they were at school I was more than happy to help out, sat on the PTA at both primary and secondary, extra pair of hands on school trips, sports trips, school concerts, cycle proficiency etc. etc. as did loads of the other Mums and Dads whether they worked or not.
After my youngest left nursery, I heard that certain things that used to happen, no longer did in the same way (nursery eventually closed as no-one volunteered to be on the committee to run it). Cycling proficiency no longer happened after youngest left school as no-one wanted to get involved. Very few school trips seem to happen now and high school is struggling to get people to help for prom night and end of year show (hence the call).
I've said I'm not available. I've done my time and moved on and feel no guilt about that, it's for current parents to step up to the mark. But is this the new norm now??? What's it like for those still with kids at various ages in school??

I couldn’t be arsed with volunteering. Even if time wasn’t an issue, there’s no chance in hell I’d spend any of my free time with some demanding and rude parents, and other jobs-worth characters.

It literally isn’t worth the headspace, unfortunately. My own mum (a SAHP) never volunteered for anything in my primary school when I attended as the PTA board was full of the stereotypical lick arse, me-me-me my child is so fabulous types and she would have rather ate a bowl of nettles than sat and listened to them for any period of time.

@puffalo

I can relate to that and it put me off

Always has officious types of people

I used to help on a coffee rota and someone was trying to micro manage me - just leave me be

It's that inner "so do I" attitude that you just know people have when they ask you to volunteer and you explain your circumstances that makes you feel like a failure at life.
If you're so impatient with other people giving you the reasons they can't volunteer then maybe you're not as happy to give up your time as you seem to think you are.

I have volunteered for close to 30 years in the same role, I am more than happy to do it just fed up of how parents treat me.

As I said in my post just state its not for you - I really don't care about the reasons you don't want to. Just don't moan, send rude emails demanding I prioritise your children over others. I have had this lots in the past 12 months, ask for 1 evenings help a year and that is too much to even be asked to do.

I’m on the PTA at the moment but will be stopping at the end of this year for various reasons, which essentially boil down to it being a thankless task.

I volunteered through work at a couple of annual charity events, but will also stop that this year after no representatives from senior management have turned up at the last couple. I’ll contact the organisers direct and offer my time at other events they run, but I’m not having our business owners benefit from good PR when we get no thanks from them, no time back In lieu, and they can’t be arsed to help at the events themselves.

DS’s beaver group has just folded as the leaders have retired, which is very sad. I was happy volunteering every few weeks but didn’t want to step up and be a ‘leader’ in a setting that was (for me) about him gaining more independence. My friend is a cub leader and said that after the last camp, they got off the coach and not a single parent thanked them for taking the children away. They are all volunteers, she has her own young children and she’d given up time with them to go. I think she’s on the verge of quitting. My brother had no end of grief when he did sports coaching from parents criticising where he’d chosen to place children, etc. Not worth the sodding grief!

I also agree with a pp who said that covid/ the way schools are now has had an impact on volunteering. Our school go out of their way to keep parents at a literal distance now. I haven’t been into the school since the start of the pandemic- therefore I don’t have the same sense of connection or obligation.

Yes, this. In all the time my child has been at primary school (in Y5 now), I've never been inside any of her classrooms, she's always had to be dropped off and picked up outside the classroom, never been inside the school apart from the Christmas assembly and parents evening (but that's now over the phone) and never spoken to any of her teachers apart from 5 minutes a year at parents evening.

Schools do tend to try to keep us out as much as possible. I can understand why, there are some absolute nightmare parents who are a pain in the arse. But the impact of that is parents don't feel like part of the school community so are less likely to give up what little free time they have to volunteer.

Funnily enough, after this thread, it made me realise that even though the thanklessness of it and the entitled twats who take advantage are an issue, I did enjoy volunteering so I've agreed to take on a voluntary role from September, with some training and prep work over the summer!

Am a bit nervous for all the reasons but feeling good about it overall!

I agree with pp about wanting to feel part of a community and valued. PTAs, local groups, and Guides etc are not the only ways to volunteer, valuable though they are. Many large organisations use volunteers in a range of roles - as I said below I volunteer for a national museum, am managed by dedicated staff, work with staff and other volunteers, get proper training, support, expenses, a structured but flexible shift system, and all our hours including training and research are logged and valued. It is very disheartening for your efforts not be appreciated so I would really recommend trying a large organisation like that to those who have felt frustrated/ignored/exploited/undervalued. Different things suit different people and the advantage of volunteering is there is such variety so it is a shame to be put off by one bad experience.

I've volunteered at loads of things- scouts, school, community centre stuff. In the end it's too few people, too much expected of the ones who do volunteer and the sneering by a certain section of people who won't help.
Of course not everyone has the time or inclination to volunteer but being a dick about the people who do is properly rubbish. I found the lack of even the simplest help and the expectations of what I was to do for their kids just didn't balance out. Then it just becomes too much. I've given it all up expect one project. Volunteers aren't valued properly.

I can believe that's true.

My own anecdote: our school have been pretty good about getting parents back in and so I still feel a sense of connection. It's quite a tight knit community too. So I have volunteered on a couple of school trips this year. Of course that required the privilege of having the time, but given that I did, it felt like a natural thing to do in a way that it probably wouldn't if they were trying to keep parents as far away as possible.