to be disappointed at the attitude of our playgroup attendees?

[playgroupwoes]

Regular post NC as this makes me identifiable.

When I moved here 2 and a half years ago as a SAHM I needed a way to meet friends and to get out with my DS so I started going to a playgroup which was run voluntarily by a group of local mums. I loved it and ended up going to both sessions every week. The way I saw it, the fact that I attended so often meant I was pretty much duty bound to at least help with the setting up/tidying away. As it happened I ended up joining the committee and now run the group with two other mums.

The group is very popular and we often get compliments on how well it's run etc. I really enjoy running it and meeting new people but lately the whole thing is being soured by how lazy and entitled our attendees seem to be - is this the norm or are we just unlucky?

The sessions start at 10 but a few mums regularly turn up early and then stand around chatting while we run around putting out toys. We know these mums well and they know how hard we work and yet they seem to have no qualms about simply not helping us. I sometimes ask for them to do things and here and there but tbh it's easier to get on with it than to constantly direct them when they know exactly what to do but are just too lazy to do it.

Equally there are a number of parents/grandparents who watch everyone else tidying up at the end and then just wander out without lifting a finger to help. We actually had to ask for people to tidy up their children's snack stuff - practically everyone was just leaving the mess all over the table for the skivvies to clear away.

Our numbers have increased a lot in the last year or so and that has made the attitude even worse for some reason - a couple of times recently I've had mums (it always seems to be mums, we have plenty of dads and grandparents too) snippily ask me where such and such is as though the service isn't up to scratch. It is infuriating.

The youngest children of the two other mums are starting fulltime nursery in September so we are looking for people to replace them so that the group can continue. I just cannot run it on my own so without volunteers the group will close.

Out of nearly 50 parents one solitary person has stepped up and as it happens she genuinely can't commit the time needed. Still, she and only she has done her best to help in any way she can and is a godsend. It's a shame she can't do more as she is great, but she has a genuine excuse for not being able to so.

Everyone else seems perfectly happy to watch volunteers run around after them and seem to see nothing wrong with not helping out.

AIBU to be really disappointed at the whole thing? I helped from the very first day I attended and never once sat down and expected my fellow parents to run around after me. I was hugely grateful these mums had started such a great group and was only too happy to help.

Is this apathy and unwillingness to step up a symptom of the society we live in, that people will happily just take and take and not contribute? Or are we, as I say, just unlucky? Can anyone explain this attitude and perhaps restore my positivity?

It is a symptom of the entitled, selfish society we now live in, IME.

I used to run a toddler group. It was the same then, 20 odd years ago.
The biggest nightmare was parents leaving the door open onto the street as they were leaving, obviously didn't care if anyone else's child escaped and got run over.

I have volunteered for various things over the years and the story is always the same, the selfish, vocal majority wanting the tiny number of volunteers to do everything, then complaining that we don't do enough, or do things the way they want. It doesn't occur to them that the club/group or whatever wouldn't exist if some of us didn't actually run it.

I don't think you are unlucky - I think this is normal.

I have found precisely the same thing at every other voluntary event/organisation I've been involved with. The same few do everything, a few will help if specifically asked, most will take advantage but do nothing/little to help, the rest will actively moan about everything.

Do you charge for it?

I've found that folk who are paying a couple of quid mistakenly think it buys a skivvy

I do find people more entitled. You see this in coffee shopsmothers just leaving their toddlers' mess all over the floor because someone will clear it up. You see it in our local playground, which i managebottles and wrappers left for someone to clear up. You see it with drivers dropping litter from their cars into lanes. Because some sucker like me will clear it up.

I'd compose a newsletter saying please help tidy up at the end of the sessio

then I'd put up a poster on the front door announcing that the group is voluntary and people need to help tidy or it will close

ditto the committee

volunteering can be a thankless task

I was in a similar position, spending half my one day off with pfb setting up, making snack, organising craft, leading singing, putting away, washing up, and not even seeing said pfb

We said very clearly that if nobody stepped up the group would close. It closed. People said what a shame it was. But they still didn't see the connection

It happens with every kind of volunteering I've ever done - even the PTA is always the same few volunteers crippling themselves to organise and staff things, and everyone else whinging that it wasn't how they would have done it.

Do you have a specific "tidy up" time in the last 10 minutes? Everyone helps tidy then sit down for a song.

It sounds fairly normal to me ,it's the same as trying to get people to run brownies and cub groups . Could you send out a letter saying that from next month you need to run a parent helper rota and that way you might find someone that helps and finds they enjoy it enough to do it each week , if not at least you are guaranteed help.

Yes we found exactly the same thing. I stopped doing it in the end because the new volunteers weren't coming through and I'd had enough.

yy to having official Tidy Up Time where all the toddlers are encouraged to put the toys back in the boxes, then adults carry the boxes. The children shame the adults into helping

ybalittle un

esp about setting up.. so what if they get there alittle earlier.. if their in the way just ask them nicely to wait out side... you chose to vounltier.. they didnt so why should they have to set up?

i would help my child to tidy up.. but i wouldnt go beyound that... why.. because im not their to run it with /for you.

if you nee dmore people than ask but dont be pissed off if they say no.

I helped at a toddler group 10 + years ago and it was the same. We sent a little note out in the end saying humorously something about how the group saved the sanity of mums and stopped batty childminders talking to themselves but that all this was at risk because we needed more pairs of hands.
Lots of people acknowledged how much the group did mean to them and then stepped up to help.
I think if we'd been heavy handed we'd have annoyed people but a touch of humour worked well.

Re: tidying up - most playgroups I go to have someone gaily shouting "tidy up time everybody" about 20 minutes before the end. That seems to work pretty well.

We then finish off with some singing once everything is tidied.

Our local toddler group has a similar thing, with mums and childminders arriving straight from the school drop off so arriving much earlier than the start time.

If they're not willing to help with setting up, could you go the other way and not open the door until 10am when everything is set up. That way, if they want their children to be inside before 10am they have to be helping to set up, or wait outside with everyone else?

Are you me??? I'm in exactly the same position it's rubbish isn't it I'm watching this thread with interest though. Even more infuriating though are committee members who do absolutely nothing either

All the toddler groups I've been to have a slightly different format. I have only been to one that isn't run by a church and generally the church ones seem to have plenty of church volunteers (non-parents) to set up, tidy away and make refreshments. There are some that have a designated tidy up time towards the end when everyone helps tidy up, so I've certainly helped with that.

I haven't helped set things up before as I am not usually there until a bit after the group starts, but if I got there and people were setting up I would help.

I understand the struggle to get more volunteers. I am on the committee of our local NCT and we can't seem to get more volunteers for love nor money. Is there a rota of helpers? You could perhaps get different people to volunteer to set up/clear away/make drinks each week. It shouldn't be too much commitment for them.

DS used to go to a playgroup which said they needed more committee members or they would close; however as they have been going since 1970 hopefully this isn't too likely. I would have been tempted to join but he left to go to school nursery.

People don't think.

I agree that telling everyone individually what is going on, and asking everyone to help is a good idea. I think that the bigger a group is, the less people realise that it is up to them to contribute.

It is not fun to have to do this. Everyone should be appreciative of what you do, and should be trying to help however they can. Some people are like little kids and do better when given a very specific job.

Thing is, that's just how it is.
Unless you are willing to say something to these people and face the backlash.

People like that are just about everywhere, there are just too many to take on.

As long as you & your lo are enjoying the group, if not, give it up. Let someone else do it.

How do you feel about being direct with some of the regulars? Just saying to them, "could you do xxx thanks..."

Maybe they don't want to step on toes.

IME people are just like this. My children attend a preschool run by a charity and committee of parents. The vast majority of the parents are only to happy to criticise when things are not exactly to their liking but rarely able to offer any time or any solutions to problems. There is no other provision around here. People still treat me as if I have personally set out to ruin their child's education. They often moan about 'health and safety' but then threaten to sue when their child falls over. Despite pointing it out often, people still seem to forget the voluntary nature of my participation! I find it very wearing tbh.

I agree with specific tasks. I might be wary of pitching in and getting in the way but would be happy to set the slide up if asked or whatever.

Our committee has been advertising for replacements since September, for this September, so it's really been in everyone's heads. Additionally we have a setup rota and a kitchen rota. Those on the rota to set up don't have to pay that day. Now I'm sure that helps!

The official jobs (treasurer, craft, snack, etc) are split up as small as they can be so nobody has too much to do.

There is an assumption that everyone will help (absent obvious bars such as late pregnancy or a newborn, although sometimes a heavily pg person will hold someone else's tiny baby and the new mother will tidy up, for example.

It's "being brought up by the village" in microcosm.

I used to work in a charity shop and someone came in for a refund. First time ever, so we had to get the till manual out. Cue tutting and sighing about "service". My colleague, bless her, did her best "stink eye" and said, "We do VOLUNTEER our time, you know."

It's very normal from what I've seen.
The only group I've been to where everyone helped tidy was a sure start one where the lady in charge made everyone do it before song time at the end.

We had a snack rota at our voluntry run playgroup, one parent would come in each day and do all the snacks, put them on a wheeled tray then pass them into the playgroup staff. You would then have a cuppa in the kitchen and wait for the tray, wash and dry all the dishes and put them away. You were expected to do it, some parents couldn't due to work so the GP done it. If you couldn't do it you had to try and find another parent to cover you.

Once its set up for the next intake of kids you would have to make sure when they come for visits before their child starts that this is what is expected of you

They also roped in help from the local childcare class at the local senior school which is great for giving them experience. Try and work something like that out. 2 would come in for a couple of weeks then another 2

I regularly attend two parent and toddler groups, in two neighbouring villages, with quite an overlap in attendance. Both charge two pounds attendance. One has a fabulous, large volunteer staff of retired people, who set up, make tea, set out the children's snack, and put away the toys etc afterwards - so very little is required from people attending with children.

The other is much smaller, and has no volunteers or committee - the doors are unlocked and money managed by one mother, after the previous organiser left when her child went to school. I always show up early and stay late to help with setting out the toys, putting them away, refreshments and clean-up, and one other mother also does this regularly, but we're pretty much it. The other parents just watch and drink tea and eat whatever cake is going. (About three people also do the baking.)

I don't particularly mind, but I am sometimes a bit baffled by how ten or so parents, able-bodied, without a tiny baby or tantrumming toddler in arms, can sit drinking tea and watching the same three people rushing about struggling to lift down heavy tractors and trampolines from high shelving, putting out chairs and craft tables and the baby change unit, serving the juice and snack, making tea, washing up, and then cleaning it all up again.