To think people should be a little more appreciative of volunteers entertaining their children

[FillyPutty]

We went to look at a Stagecoach school.

£27/week. The owner had his Porsche parked outside in the disabled space (there were plenty of free spaces, I presume this is a Porsche thing that you park in the disabled space not to get your car scratched or something, I don't really know.)

16 children being taught to sing by one teacher.

DS was a member of a non-profit choir previously. There were about 10 children, three qualified volunteer staff and it cost less than £27 for the whole term.

He also does Scouts, again it costs less than £27 for the whole term, they do lots of activities and again several volunteers giving their time without payment.

From what I can see people don't really appreciate or respect the time given by people running these groups, and would rather sign up in droves (apparently Stagecoach are beating people off with a stick) for expensive and inferior profit-making groups.

My kids go to commercial and voluntary activities. I like to think I'm nice to all of them.

I sometimes park in the disabled bay when I drop ds2 at Stagecoach. IF I have ds1 (who has a blue badge) with me. I don't always display the blue badge though because it's on private land, on a non-working day.

When ds2's Stagecoach singing teacher coached him for free in a lunch break for an audition I gave her some maltesers. When he got the part I gave her a bottle of wine I try to say thank you to people who do more than they have to (whether working for a voluntary or commercial activity).

DS1 also attends drama groups attached to the local (regional) theatre. They are much cheaper than Stagecoach but presumably get part funded by other organisations. (Although their sessions are shorter as well, and they may pay their staff less - I know Stagecoach pay teachers reasonably well).

And while Stagecoach is £27 a week, because ds2 is in an extra group he gets 4.5 hours of tuition a week for that. £6 an hour isn't so bad - cheaper than his swimming lessons, or surfing lessons, or drum lessons. He was actually offered another 3 hours on top of that as well for free, on a different day, but it clashed with ds3's swimming so we had to say no as we couldn't get him there. If he'd taken that up he would have been paying £3.60 an hour.

Bargain!