Why do PTA parents get to reserve the best friffing seats at the school plays HMMMM?

[BaublesAndCuntingCarolSingers]

Seriously, pack it in.

I know you do good for the school yadda yadda but it DOES rather cheese one orf when one has being waiting for 30 minutes outside school to get a decent seat and then one finds that PTA wimmin have reserved all the good seats for them and their DHs/children's siblings. Then said PTA wimmin waft in 2 minutes before the performance starts.

You want a good seat then put the work in, m'kay? Kfanx. xxx

I just wish people wouldn't generalise from one bad experience. The smug PITA mum is an easy stereotype to bash, but the jokes start to wear thin after a while. Yes, I'm a PTA chair and maybe I'm blind to it, but I just don't recognise the picture the PTA bashers are painting. Everyone on our committee works, some full time (including me). We have Dads and Mums. We try to get as many people involved as possible by having different groups organising each event. Probably about 30 people per year organises something and the majority help out. We've raised over 20k in 2012 - that would have needed a voluntary donation of nearly £200 per family - there's no way we could ask for that. Every event either has to be a really efficient fundraiser, or really good fun. The quiz for January just sold out in two days flat. There's a waiting list for tables We don't do cake sales!!!

So maybe some PTA committees are vile/smug/martyrish/cliquey/inefficient ladies who lunch, but please don't imply they all are. Or more than a tiny minority in fact.

And I forgot to say - we don't get reserved seats for anything.

"but I just don't recognise the picture the PTA bashers are painting."

I agree. Our PTA didn't fit the MN stereotype either.

My observation of our PTA is that its all about so much more than the money
Its about imposing a particular ,narrow -minded view of how things should be done and about a small group of under-occupied women getting to exhert a bit of control

THIS

Owlbabies we obviously were at the same school.

If you have a nice friendly PTA group good for you - ours were horrible,petty and anyone who tried to join was frozen out .
All the you do it then comments - Lots of people volunteered to
join .Including me .
Unless you were rich,a SAHM and one of their friends you were not welcome !

OP YANBU.

Sitting at the front because one's autistic child might need to be escorted out = ok.

PTA people, if you sit at the front at all you are seriously uncool and deserve mockery.
Reserving a seat at the back is fine. Reserving yourself a seat at the front is the height of naffness.
our PTA members would never do that - they'd be mortified!

We have a related issue about the whole queuing parent thing. I have been rehearsing an orchestra (46 kids, 10 adults, including several adults who have arranged weeks before to take time of work to play along to support particular children). Half my rehearsals this half-term have been disrupted. There are many communication problems behind this but what staggers me is that in two cases, I've had to rearrange these 50 or so families not because there is a timetable clash, but because of the aggressive queuing parents who start entering school for the next event 45 minutes in advance. Once they've been let into the school, there is little choice but to stop my children learning in the hall because the corridors can only be cleared by moving the parents into the hall.

Last week, as I opened one door (just one - I knew what I might face) to let my kids out, I was met with requests to "help with the chairs". Luckily, the caretaker had briefed me so I met these with a warm smile and a "thank you so much for being willing to help, what we need you to do is form a gangway for us". Faces fell.

Well I hardly do anything for the PTA but I was given a free (!) ticket to a reserved front row seat at DDs concert last week, and bloomin loved it.

I've never managed to sit at the front before, and with close to 1000 people present it was unlikely that I ever would.

I really honestly couldn't care less whether it's uncool, worthy of mockery or irritating to other parents like the OP.

The HT thanked me for some of the things I've done this year and offered me the ticket, and as a general principle I don't say no to free stuff if it's good.

When I saw people I knew at the concert I mouthed 'I'm sitting on the front row' in an incredulous and excited way, which was probably even more annoying.

lingle, I think there's worse crimes a parent can commit than turning up early to try to get a good seat to see their child in a concert, and surely offering to help you with chairs is courteous and helpful? If you don't want them in the building, don't let them in until 5mins before the performance. Once the word got round they would stop coming early, knowing that to do so would just mean queuing in the cold outside (or if they still came, they wouldn't be inconveniencing anyone but themselves).

If parents have helped out at the school setting things up then sometimes they do get the best seats, but they are not neccessarily members of the PTA committee. Everyone would laugh if I tried to reserve myself a seat by virtue of merely being on the committee!

In the nursery nativity they reserve seats at the front for parents of those who are leaving that year, as they tend to have the main parts. Everyone gets their turn to be near the front. I didn't know about this when DD1 was Mary and just sat down near the back (as DD2 was only 10 months old and might kick off) and the staff found us and waved us to the front. It was lovely, particularly for DD2 who didn't kick off because she was mesmerised by seeing her big sis just in front of her on the stage.

I was chair of the PTA for two years. I wouldn't call it having the luxury of hours to fill. It was bloody hard work.

Just remember when you are slagging these people off that they have given up hours and hours of evening/ weekends/ spare time to run Christmas fayres, discos, quiz nights, coffee mornings etc etc. things your children enjoy and wouldn't happen if these people didn't volunteer their time.

We do it to help raise money for treats etc that otherwise you might have to pay for but also to put on social events that foster inclusivity amongst children and adults that help to create part of a schools community.

And people begrudge us a seat at a concert as a thank you for all the work we have done over the year? (FWIW our front row is reserved for Y6 leavers parents anyway!)

"I would rather fill them sticking matches into my own turds, than fill them by being an officious busybody on the PTA. "

Charming. I am sure your PTA are glad to not have you involved as you sound like a right cow, and you would probably put off nicer people from volunteering.

"surely offering to help you with chairs is courteous and helpful?"
I'd have thought so too but caretaker assured me it really meant "shall I put out three chairs at the front and sit on them?" And after seeing how they didn't want to help by making a gangway but did want to put chairs out, I'm afraid I believe him.

" If you don't want them in the building, don't let them in until 5mins before the performance". Have you been reading my agenda for my January review meeting?

PTA people, if you enjoy helping, help! Help by sitting at the back; help by spotting the mother of the child who everyone knows might meltdown and need removing and getting her to the front. Help by standing at the back. Help by holding the door open. Help by exploring whether the amount of staging used could be increased. That's what our PTA do (gosh, I'm getting a new-found appreciation of them!.)

another way to help: is a video being made? If not, why not?

It sounds like you have outsmarted them then lingle

But I have to say that our PTA does do all of those things that you suggest, at several events throughout the year.

They work hard actually, and I have never heard any of them moan about it or act the martyr.

They do raise a lot of money, but mostly they organise things that the children enjoy doing. I honestly do think that they fondly imagine that parents enjoy attending film club with their children, or dropping their children at a disco so that they can have a few hours to themselves.

They are also very inclusive - meetings alternate between evenings and afternoons, and are on different days of the week. They also make it clear that you can be on the PTA without attending any meetings at all - the minutes can be emailed if you just want to keep up to date with what's going on, and it would be lovely if you could help even for half an hour a year, at one event, but there's no pressure.

I dunno, just don't recognise any of the hideous caricatures portrayed here and feel a bit sad that people might feel that way about me.

adeucalione, I think those points are very fair, and certainly our PTA has a service culture, not an entitlement culture.

Getting to be in a primary school environment - which let's face it is a very appealing one indeed most of the time if you don't have to work there - is a privilege. Those who volunteer for the PTA do great work. But they also get to go into school through the door when it's closed to other parents. They may be preparing a raffle, but they get to catch a glimpse of their little munchkin in full PE kit trotting past them and thrilled to have a secret wave to mum, and to see the excitement shown by the kid from the "rough" family when he's baked his buns and brought them in to school. That's the reward. Not seat-bagging.

You're right of course, and I don't think that any of our PTA members expect any reward at all.

But I just don't have the willpower to say 'no' when the HT is waving a free, front row ticket in my face and I would bet my house that a goodly percentage of those on here moaning about it wouldn't either.

No doubt many will be on shortly to assure the internet that they themselves would never do anything so naff, mortifying etc and instead would donate it to a worthier candidate whilst they craned their necks from the back row.

Wrong to expect a reward, but not wrong to appreciate it when it is given.

Exactly. I read with kids in the school on one afternoon. Now, if that coincided with them setting up for a school play (it hasn't so far but if it did) when I'd finished I freely admit I'd probably go and help and get a good seat rather than go and queue up outside.

Well i'm PTA and ive not seen a full show in the 15yrs ive been doing it cause we have to brew up for the end to give parents a hot drink while they wait for their child to be changed etc

Our PTA also organises the raffle and prizes and we go out to churches to sell the tickets to our feeder schools

"Wrong to expect a reward, but not wrong to appreciate it when it is given."

That's fair adeucalione. It would have been a bit martyry to decline, I agree. But that was the head teacher's way of thanking you, not you deciding you were entitled to a "reward" for what is in fact the pleasure of helping at a primary school.

"We do it to help raise money for treats etc that otherwise you might have to pay for but also to put on social events that foster inclusivity amongst children and adults that help to create part of a schools community.

And people begrudge us a seat at a concert as a thank you for all the work we have done over the year? (FWIW our front row is reserved for Y6 leavers parents anyway!) "

That's another example of a fair policy - Y6 leavers.

But a policy of rewarding the PTA ladies with front seats yet simultaneously claiming that events "promote inclusion" would be a contradiction in terms.

"Charming. I am sure your PTA are glad to not have you involved as you sound like a right cow, and you would probably put off nicer people from volunteering."

It's true. I'm a mega bastard.

However, it's not me putting off the nice people from volunteering. The PTA manage that quite well already. :)