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 do bloody loads for our PTA, am the secretary for god's sake, still didn't get a reserved seat yesterday!
Am obviously doing something wrong here.

We have no PTA and no parents help at our nativity so no reserved seats at all. It's all a big scrum.

At our big school plays however, the parents that help with make up get reserved seats otherwise they wouldn't get a seat at all.

We always have a problem with parents unofficially reserving rows of seats with scarves etc so we have started tying the hall doors shut until the front of house staff arrive. There are several doors into the hall and the two back ones were not tied down because the stage had been built up against them. The only way into the hall was to use the 2 foot high gap left at the bottom of one door and crawl all the way underneath the (large) stage, avoiding stage legs, sound cables etc to reach the front row of seats - 2 parents still managed it!!

t PTAs are made up of arseholes.

I consider myself told

Apparently DS's school has a PTFA but I have absolutely no idea what they do, or how you would even join. I've never had any information about them at all, and the website is unenlightening. So, if any of them are moaning about no one volunteering/helping out, it's because we don't know anything about it.

Manic - issue numbered tickets and stick numbers on all the seats. That way there is no scrum or free-for-all. And you can waltz in just before it starts and get a seat. It's much less stressful for everyone than the first come gets a seat system.

Oh no. Our PITA email round begging for help at events. When you send one back saying "I will help. Tell me when/where" and they email back "ta" and nothing else, it puts you off.

Also when you help out for an entire day at a jubilee tea party and get ignored by the PTA Mean Girls that puts you off, too.

TBH Baubles your PTA sounds a right PITA ours was nice and friendly there were some full of themselves but on the whole they were fine,

Ours issue numbered tickets, the earlier you get your reply slip in the better the seat you get. Although they then had to issue an instruction that all correspondence must come through the classroom in the morning as people where getting the letter out of their DCs bookbag at hometime, filling it in and marching straight round to the office with them.

No PTA help with the Nativity play at our school but at other things where we do help we might get first dibs, eg the after school cake sale we need to be putting out the tables the minute assembly is over and then manning the counter instead of picking our DCs up so our DCs get sent straight to the hall and are at the front of the queue for cakes, they often help withe the last minute setting up and have to stay for the clearing up so that's reasonable I think.

If you don't like how your PTA runs join with other like minded folks and change it or quit whining. It's like voting, if you don't vote to change whatever you think is wrong don't bloody bang on about it afterwards.

QuiteLookingForwardToBeingAPartOfThePTATiggaxx

Maybe kids of PTA members get parts because they are from families that get stuck in? Just a thought...

Kungfupanda - you really should properly streak on Sports Day, then you'll win all parking ware for ever ad ever, as no-one will want to take on the Mad Bint Who Stripped At Sports Day

Because they spend hours and hours raising money for your kids to benefit and give up their time for free, dojng all the stuff you see like selling raffle tickets, organising events, serving refreshments and then plenty more that you don't see like all the admin, photocopying of stuff, making things so if the only perk they get is a front row seat at the play then good for them. They deserve it!

parking wars obviously

If you want to avoid the scrum to hand slips in as early as possible (which may happen at DS1's school, but I wouldn't know as it's always last minute for us), there's always an option of handing slips in by a certain date. Then randomly allocating the tickets by pulling all the slips out of the box until everyone has a ticket. Then you can give the leftover seats at the back to useless parents like me, who have to send their kids in with a note on the actual day of the school show.

Who said anything about parts, Muso?

I bet that the Chair of the PTA didn't like that her DD was one of about 700 donkeys...

You anti-PTA whiners may want to remove the broomsticks from your arses and consider removing your child from activities involving any of the stuff the PTA funds. You are the reason it is so bloody difficult to get anyone to help.

I disagree. My experience is that the PTA are the reason it's so difficult to get anyone to help. Our PTA was basically the 'mean girls'. I worked 3 days a week. The other 2 were spent as a volunteer classroom assistant in the school: 2 days a week, every week for 6 years. My husband was a governor. Yet they still looked at me like something they'd trod in.

Were you not wearing the regulation fleece/easy-iron trews, Nora? Tut, tut!

I think it was because I turned up at the school gate looking like I'd just fallen out of bed and brushed my hair with an egg whisk. Which was pretty close to the truth. As opposed to being perfectly groomed at 8.30 in the morning on my day off.

our PFA is full of the nice parents and utter misfits who don't belong to the cliques. It's lovely.

It's not called the PTA round here. It's called 'Friends of' the school. that way the teachers don't have to get involved.

Ours is a Friends of as well, but the resulting acronym sounds a bit silly. The teachers come to some of the meetings (mainly to agree dates and tell us what they would like to spend the money on), but thankfully stay away from our piss ups nights out.

Join the PTA, do something useful and stop moaning.

PS. I have done PTA jobs for 10 years and never got a seat reserved.

I just stand at the back, far easier.

Ours is also Friends Of, with the acronym FOSE. The members (DH was one) once spent a full hour at an after school meeting arguing about whether it should be pronounced "foss", "foes" or "fowse"

(DH quit at the end of the year - it was either that or run amok with a machine gun )

Best seats for the nativity play are usually a raffle prize at our school.

I think the pta mums miss outon alot during the year.

Even if they are not helping with the panto. On sports day I missed dd running beacuse I was making cream teas (had planned to step away for a few minutes but got caught up). I missed taking her around the fairs (dh always roped in to supervise). That's just off the top of my head.

We don't reserve places for the pta, (I've resigned now anyway) but I think it is a nice way of the school thanking the PTA for the thankless bloody task of fundraising. Particularly with ungrateful winges like the OP!