charging for school disco's, wwyd?

[charity2]

Tickets for the primary school disco are charged at £3 each. Approx £2.00 of that covers the drink, snack and dj costs for each child and the other £1 is profit for the school.

I am thinking that bearing in mind that £1 from each ticket is profit towards the school then the charge for tickets should be £3 for your 1st child and £2 for each additional child. I know it seems petty but there are many parents with more than 1 child and I think its a bit unfair to profit more than once from the same parents.

I am helping to organise this and want to suggest it but not sure how everyone will feel. I know that many people are struggling at the moment and to save £1 might not seem like much but for those with 3-4 children it all adds up.

op but you are suggesting that things should be free. You want some of your dc to have free use of whatever the pta spends its funds on. How can that be fair. I don't think you are listening to any of the points that have been raised.

Its £5 for our school disco and I don't remember anyone moaning about it being expensive.

The 'profit' will presumably be fundraising for the PTA? Which distributes it's funds for the benefits of each individual child?

I know the expense for 3 kids must mount up horribly - maybe suggest your idea, but then make sure you contribute to the school funds in other ways? Be the person who calls all the local shops to see if anyone would donate the hot dog rolls or the hot dogs or squash?

My DS1s primary school charge £2 for Reception children and £3 for the rest of the school years, BUT Reception disco is 1 hour long and rest of school is 1.5hrs long! Doesnt bother me, i used to always have to pay for my school discos around the same price.

Choochoo, no, I'm not suggesting anything is free. What about the children that dont buy a ticket for the disco because they dont want to go (which is about 50% of the school). Should they be excluded from using anything that the pta pays for?

This question has been asked about 4 times now on here, and as yet, no one seems to be able to answer it.

I don't believe my comments are ignorant at all. Perhaps yours are, because you don't seem to see it from the point of view from the families who contribute more than their fair share. That's the side that's important to me.

Erm, if you choose to have 2,3,4, or 5 children, shouldn't you expect to have to pay for stuff for them accordingly? Having kids costs money, the more you have, the more money they cost.

Runs and hides.

Maybe the child benefit money should go into a school disco fund. Every child can then proudly pay for themselves and not have a free ride.

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Sorry to make this stand out, but I really would like someone to answer this question please. If we charge £3 a ticket (of which £1 is clear profit for the pta) then a parent buying 3or 4 tickets is donating £3 or £4 profit to pta. The general consensus seems to be that it is fair because each child benefits from the money raised. So, if thats the case, can you please tell me what we should do about the ones that dont buy a ticket, should they be billed for £1 per child so that they contribute the same as the other parents or, should their children be excluded from benefiting from money raised by the pta at the disco.

So, does the same apply to school shoes then. Clarks, for example, should get the full price for child one but for child two they should only charge the basic unit cost

In my school they sell family tickets, not individual ones.

That's a stupid suggestion, OP.

The answer to it is for the PTA to have a diversity of events so that most children/families want to participate. And to have appropriate events.

If you are getting a low uptake on your events, you need to reevaluate how you are doing them.

There are plenty of PTAs that get almost 100% uptake over the course of a school year and over 70% uptake to individual events. That would be my DD's school.

Lockets - are we talking in secret code to each other that only we can understand. We have both asked the same question about 4 times, yet no one can answer it.

Married - stupid comparison

Clarks offer a discount for parents of twins/triplets.

Of course not, but perhaps their children are attending other things which yours aren't.

Perhaps the parents are also benefitting if they have two or three children at the school - ie, a couple of hours of child free time and no need to pay a babysitter.

It all sounds perfectly reasonable OP. If you resent donating the £1 then perhaps you should say that you are only prepared to pay the basic cost of the event and to make a £1 donation on behalf of your children.

yabu - it's £1 and you don;t have to go

charity their children should be excluded from benefitting from the disco.

If you're concerned that parents shouldn't be subsidizing others who aren't paying as much, or that families can't afford to be involved I think the per-children v. per-family contribution is irrelevant. The first is in the nature of raising money voluntarily and the second is about financial situation, not number of children. Parents don't have to send their kids to your fundraising events.

I think toutlemonde's point about PTAs trying to provide services for kids instead of using their parents as a revenue stream is a more coherent position.

Um, yes! It is a school disco, not library books. Some things should be available to all. Other things are fundraising, so fairly enough a cost is charged.

I live in an area where a lot of people have a lot of money. I don't. We choose what we go to school activity wise, depending on how much money we have spare.

I tell my children when we can't afford something, because it is fair that they grow up knowing how money works and how to budget.

The school activities cost a lot more here, sometimes we go when we can.

If I couldn't afford the disco, we would have one at home!

Married - read my post - I am organising the event. It doesnt affect me either way, I am thinking of a way to help other families.

I am sick and tired of the way people on AIBU do not read the posts correctly. It is sometimes the case that posters are to quick to fire the sarcastic and negative responses before reading the post correctly first.

Why would you want to halve the fund raising potential of an event?

charity2 have my first