Bit of a rant really. My children have come home from school with sponsorship forms for something called Sportsmark (or similar name). And I am a bit miffed for several reasons:
The major reason is that the children get "gifts" for how much money they get on sponsorship - I feel that this firstly puts a HUGE pressure on parents to put their hands in their pockets and secondly charity is about giving, not about "what you get if you do x".
It also doesn't really seem to be a "proper" charity - do they really expect me to go around all my acquaintances and ask them to contribute? Do other people do this? I guess I wouldn't mind if I felt it was a really good cause, but you know - it is sports equipment...
Also - they are constantly bringing home things for collecting money for this and that. Am I supposed to give to all of them?
I am sending them in school tomorrow with £2 each on their forms - just to show willing, but have disgruntled children who wanted me to find "at least £20 EACH" so they could have some of the goodies.
Just a bit peeved by it all really. It doesn't help that we don't really have any friends to ask to sponsor the children, and family all live a long way away. I have occasionally just put people's names on sponsorship forms and given the money myself, just so my children don't look like we don't care, but frankly it seems to be a constant demand for money for this and that.