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?

There are several separate issues.

• everyone doing everything is inefficient and a waste of energy and mothers of small children have no energy to spare. An instinctive understanding of this may be what makes some mothers hang back. It's annoying to be standing about in a group all vying to be the one that takes the mat that is being passed out of the cupboard by the one person who can fit in the cupboard to get them out. Obviously one should pass to one or two receivers, and the rest do something else or take a break.

• a separate question is how you get the individuals who are doing this to be fairly distributed. you have to be proactive to do this - formally with rotas, or informally by asking individuals to do things direclty

• if you fail to do this, people who don't fancy being on their feet and on duty 100% of the time won't want to help at all, as they will instinctively fear that doing anything at all will shift them into the worker class

• if you don't organise, and expect all the people to be on duty all the time although this is a waste of energy and inefficient, many won't want to come as they instinctively know that this is inefficiency, there is a potential economy of scale that is being lost by bad organisation, and they could run round clearing up their own toddler's snack at home without the hassle

People seem to think payment has something to do with it - publish accounts. (or not necessarily true accounts - more generalised budgets) you could do this simply on an A4 sheet you pin up

"monthly takings - £x
hire of all per month £y
Snack costs £Z
Current credit in play group account £a
Yearly extra expenses averaged per month £b

Cost of staff £0 - all volunteers
Profit - £0. We aim to be self-sufficient but do not make a profit"

Talk to people about what they like and what they don't like and go into the issue of costs with them in relation to what they say. Make sure that they understand how it all works.

It will be very hard at this point to start implementing a routine, a rota or anything else, to be honest.

You need to state at the time of joining that everyone is expected to take on a chore in turn.

The one I ran (and a couple I attended) had a kind of 'code of conduct' if you like, that everyone got on signing up. On it was the information that we had a rota for washing up & you would be expected to have your turn & a rota for preparing snacks. If you weren't happy to help

1] your toddler wouldn't be allowed to have a snack
2] you weren't allowed tea/coffee.

It worked, because people knew from the off.

But to suddenly expect things to change, well you can try, but people get into a comfort zone that is hard to break out of.

TheScience Just suddenly giving people jobs like that isn't going to work. If someone announced 'differentname is washing up, everyone take your cups to her' with no advance notice I'd do it, but I would be pretty pissed off & it would make me consider my attendance in future. You will piss people like that if they have no idea it is coming.

I

I think actually the main issue is the change in size. For some reason, one session has stayed fairly small and it still has that co operative feel but the other session has expanded a lot and that is the one that is causing the problems. The whole approach has to change. When there are only 10 children and 10 adults it's fine for three people to run everything - it's easier in fact. But when there's 25 children and 25 adults it all gets a chaotic and we are run ragged. And it's then that we get the "you're not serving me properly" attitude. One new parent came along a couple of weeks ago, very late in the session after the tea stuff had been cleared away and asked for a cup of tea. So I had to stop the four million jobs I was doing and cater for this person who had just turned up, very late. It hacked me off, majorly.

I think overall it needs to be more formal as people are taking advantage of its informality. This in itself annoys me, as adults should be trusted to do the right thing without being monitored but needs must. September is crunch time, and if things haven't improved then I will just close the group. I will be heartbroken if it comes to that, and I will have to find something else for my younger DS to do, but the last thing I want is for the whole thing to just become a chore that I resent.

Funnily enough, I think if we make it more formal some people will stop coming so it might have the positive side effect of getting rid of the freeloaders.

I'm very involved in a sports club that caters for 5-24 year olds & needs huge amount of input to keep it going and run competitions.

Same attitudes unfortunately.

Recently we introduced a rule that alongside membership fees you had to commit to 1/2 day help per year.

Caused all sorts of issues, but did force people in the end to help and working ok so far.

I think playgroup that you need to be more assertive and more directive.

Ie thr mum who turned up late wanting tea after the tea things had been cleared away. Perhaps you should have pointed her in the direction of the tea stuff and let her get on with it. If she then didn't make a cup she clearly didn't want one enough.

I think a list of rules would be good on the wall and you could have different pricing for people who help out and those who don't. Raise the non helper price it make the point.

As a newbie I definitely wouldn't mind being told to help with something specific but would hang back at first if I wasn't sure what I should do. So feel free to breezily allocate the tasks out.

And as for food on the floor shame them. I was a London zoo recently and there was a family with triplets who left utter chaos opinion their wake in the restaurant. I have no doubt that triplets are hard work but there were three adults (mother, father, nanny) none of whom thought it worth picking up any of the carnage or even attempting to make their table less disgusting. Horrible attitude.

We had similar issues. A friend and I helped out the organisers a lot, but many parents didn't help at all, which is just so selfish and such a bad example to the children.

What my son loved, and seemed to work very well was doing the helping. I have lovely photos of a group of children putting chairs away and they used to love all rolling the big playmate up together. The children were only 2 but it really made the session easier and even younger children would try and help.

Maybe you could have a treat for any child that put their plate on the tray, and have the tidy up time as part of the session before final song.

My views on whether or not I like people are often formed by how much I see them helping clear up or not after events. I like our local MP because he helped me stack some chairs in a lowly village hall one night.

When my children were at playgroup, many years ago, we were told when they started that there was a rota for parents to stay and help once a week, and we were expected to participate; most parents did willingly, but there were always the few who were far too busy to help, despite standing there chatting. Nothing changes; you will find exactly the same at PTA events, school fairs, trips, library events, scouts, guides etc. and don't even start on U3A.

abra1d so true, I was flabbergasted that the teachers who were giving up their Easter Holiday to run a school trip, didn't deserve help with chairs at the info evening.

If I was them I'd not bother staying after school, just bang out an email.

Yes, and it would be a snarky email. too, Nocomet.

At my co-op toddler group, all the children are fed snack at the same time at the table. Once they leave the table, the snack goes as we don't want food all over the toys etc but they are allowed to come back and eat. Any annoucements are done at snack time including reminders to clear up. It's a lovely group, but there are still those who either deliberately turn up slightly too late to help set up or use stand around watching the rest of us.

We pay 2.50 and that covers a drink of instant shite, water for DC and a bit of fruit too. Hall is cheap to hire at 7 pounds an hour. Toys are donated.

Op why not work out the cost of employing someone to set up, make drinks/snacks and then pack away. Then add it to the cost of the play group. It might add another 50p but who cares. Clearly everyones knackered and just want to chill.

Because it's very unlikely the play group is set up to be an employer, for one, and OP may not want that additional responsibility for something that was supposed to be fun.

I agree that you need to ask/tell people what to do. There might be some lazy bastards but most people don't mind a bit of tidying I would think. When I went to a Playgroup like the one you describe I would happily have helped out but I had no idea where things went/what to do. If there had been more information either on a poster or just verbally I would have been pleased to do it. I wouldn't have volunteered though because of the commitment and because of not being able to watch my own kids while volunteering. If it's a big Playgroup, it's hard to keep an eye on kids.

Viking - employing someone is far far from an easy option. In fact it would add massively to my workload.