To be close to giving up volunteering because I can't stand one of the parents?

[listsandbudgets]

DD does Brownies and for the last 18 months I've gone along to nearly every session to help. The girls are lovely as are Brown Owl and her helper Snowy Owl. However some of the parents are driving me mad.

At the end of the meeting I usually stand by the door and make sure each child goes out with the right parent. EVEiRY week the same parent is late - not by a couple of minutes but by a minimum of 10 - last week it was 30 minutes. Never a word of apology. Brown Owl couldn't wait as she had an "owl meeting" to go to so DD and I had to wait with the other Brownie. The parents weren't answering their phone so we could do nothing but wait with an increasingly upset little girl. Finally her mother turned up and without apology snapped at her DD to hurry up because they were running late.

I said politely "We did finish at 7.30 it would be really helpful if you could pick her up on time next week please" She snapped back "I pay you to be here, I'll pick her up whenever I like". For the sake of her DD I just said "yes I see but we do finish at 7.30"

The subs are £1.50 a week for an hour and a half of activities with all materials and room hire included. All the guiders and helpers are volunteers.

Its been rankling with me all week and dreading seeing her tonight. It wasn't that she was late it was that she treated me like some kind of underling, DD was late to bed and DS (3) was upset because we were so late back.

The original comment, right at the beginning, was to phone SS for advice.

Groups like Brownies and Cubs should have direct debit systems set up in my opinion.

Subs would be collected on time, and tardy pisstakers can take a £10 per 15 minute penalty for their out of hours childcare.

The type of bank account we have doesn't allow for Internet banking for brownies which then means we have to wait on the bank statement coming. Many of my brownies pay their subs first week back with no issue!

I said upthread I do the money for the Brownies and I also do the same for another group - I spend a huge amount of my time chasing up payments...usually from the same parents. (I deal with children who move from one group to another after a few years - I see the names and think oh no here we go again -or great no problems with this one!) Along with the odd good payer who forgets as a one off...
My plea would be (if you can) just pay things like brownie subs straight away so you don't forget - or if you are struggling for money talk to the person collecting the payment...so if they have to wait they know when to expect the money or in cases of true hardship eg Brownies is a charity, they want to be inclusive - they maybe able to waive some fees/ access a hardship fund. Talk to them! (Don't avoid them...)

Anyway sadly it isn't easy to collect direct debits ...you have to meet certain criteria/pay large sums -not anyone can do it. I am looking into it at the moment - there are companies that act as agencies that allow groups to collect DD but they charge per transaction. Which might be worth it if it saves the headache. (I believe the Scouts have set up their own DD system...sadly GG haven't)
I do take standing orders -but the parents have to make the payment -although often I notify in advance so they can set up a few payments at the same time.

Internet banking and brownies/charities - I do it. (I actually do 4 groups but only collect payments for 2).

I prefer it. I think if anything it is safer -if you get your accounts verified - as you can't forge cheques etc. You also don't have the problem of refunding someone expenses by cheque and them forgetting to bank it for six months/losing it etc...
It is dodgy as these accounts should have two signatories. And there is no bank (or actually I think there is one specialist one but their charges are crazy) that allows two user authorisation of a payment - so I can make payments on my own - one signatory. You could do something but it would involve two people being at the same computer together but that would be a lot of faff (worse than getting 2 signatures on a cheq).
The biggest problem is insurance - if I did run off with the money they wouldn't be insured - but for Brownies the District Commissioner (at least) is satisfied with what I am doing.

My safe guard is that we have another trustee who has access to telephone banking (used to be internet banking too but they now charge for that) -they can access the account, get the balance and question payments etc - but can't make any payments themselves.
I also never pay anything without a receipt which is cross referenced to the payment and often countersigned (unless it is a regular payment). And the accounts are always spot on - no discrepancies etc.
And the sum total in the accounts of three of them at least wouldn't pay my airfare to Brazil..and in all of them wouldn't cover the cost of the house I own and it is a small village...

All these hypothetical situations are irrelevant. The OP wasn't sitting waiting with a child, she wasn't desperate to get to her own children and she was still being told to call SS. It's irrelevant even if it was for advice. SS aren't an advice helpline. Anybody with any sense would realise that Brown Owl or the district commissioner or Brownie HQ would be more appropriate people to ask for advice than calling SS.

I said repeatedly that if emergency contacts were in place and a policy had been communicated to parents then calling SS would be okay. But that isn't the situation that the OP was asking about. And calling SS in the circumstances described would be fucking ridiculous. As demonstrated by the fact the OP sorted it out without involving SS. Because she actually has some sense.

And all this 'Nobody should ever be told not to call SS because it may discourage a victim of DV from calling SS' is bollocks designed to shut down discussion. Are we going to extend that to 999 or 101 or A & E? Nobody should ever be discouraged from ringing them about seagulls annoying them or having a cold?

And as for the personal remarks, yes, my children do go out to childcare and clubs and I volunteer for Beavers. Never worry about it, because in RL and not Mumsnet, most people seem to realise that ringing the authorities about problems you're perfectly capable of sorting out without them is a bit fucking dumb.

Groups like Brownies and Cubs should have direct debit systems set up in my opinion

We can't set up direct debits in general terms as it's quite expensive, I recently signed up to Gocardless which is a direct debit but a few parents are unhappy with the system and won't use it, we use standing orders for subs but parents can alter those, not us, so we can't charge them.

We use Gocardless for trips etc. and it is easier but they charge (a little, way less than e.g. Paypal). If anyone's interested in a referral discount message me...

unlucky83 it is 1% with Gocardless, it's a lot cheaper than most of them and cheaper than a stamp to chase one family's subs, which I've had to do before due to people not answering phone/texts.

Thanks Dr - I'll check them out...and maybe be after a referral discount!
Someone else has recommended one to me (used by another club) and I did check it out but then have forgotten their name -so waiting to see them again so I can ask.
It is one of those on the back burner things - but it would be lovely to not have to chase any more.

Nobody should ever be told not to call SS

Who said this?

unlucky Please do get in touch as we get a discount too!

I've only got about half the parents to actually sign up but only two families have said they definitely don't want to use it, the others either can't work out what it's for or can't get it to work (or it's just as thankless chasing them to sign up for something as it is chasing them to pay for something).

I'm about to send out reminders for payments for a trip, and to those signed up I think I will be saying "as you are signed up for the trip AND signed up to gocardless, if I don't hear from you by X date I will be taking your payment by this method".

As a parent I am not the best at remembering to pay for things or fill in forms but something like this I would leap all over as it saves me having to remember to actually do anything, replying to a text or email just to say "yes take my payment please" would be so much easier.

If you have a Treasurers account then you should be able to set up Internet banking (we are with BoS and banking is free for accounts in credit). You can set up online access to view the account only if you need a second person to verify transactions. Direct debits incur a charge, so we don't do that (or take card payments) but I do encourage people to pay fees by bank transfer - so much easier than faffing around with cheques.

SquirrelledAway that varies widely between banks. We are with Coop and have only the choice to have full internet banking - we CAN make transfers out with just one authorisation despite that not being the signing authorisation. However, we don't do that (just as we don't sign out loads of cash and go and spend it without agreeing what we are buying).

HBOS the bank we fought with for 18 months to get the signatories changed when the previous leader had to leave immediately!

The lesson being, never drop and run!

My mum dropped and ran at an evening class. In winter. In the snow. In the dark. I would have been about 10 or 11. No mobile phones back then!

The activity wasn't on and the hall was all shut up - ended up running/slipping home through knee deep snow in my trainers. Bad times but at least I was a walkable distance away.

drspouse if I had to get every transfer countersigned I would get nothing done - last year I paid out over £25k (not Brownies I hasten to add). In theory I should get everything countersigned but it's just not practical. We've agreed that the books are available for inspection by any member and all payments are backed up with invoices.

Groovee we must have been lucky then - we just had to have the person who was being removed sign the form to OK the removal, and then the new person sign the form to be added - took about 4 weeks. I guess if the person being removed doesn't play ball then that's a problem.

No it was the bank, they gave us one form, handed in then they said "oh it's not the right form" as the systems had changed with the merger of lloyds! Then they gave us the new form (which looked like the old one) as I didn't have an HBOS account, I had to trek up to the bank to get my ID sorted out. One branch told me to go to the named branch which doesn't exist and hasn't for well over 8 years! The other took everything and "forgot" to forward it, until someone came across it. Then they got stroppy when Tawny asked for Internet banking to view the account! No one seems to understand the type of account we have as apparently set up in the 70's! We try to work on a cash basis as much as possible!

Excellent!! Glad the dad did that.

Interesting discussion. At my son's scouts they overrun every week - by about 10 minutes. So people arrive later and later to collect. And then you guessed it, they finish 10 minutes early!

As for the "don't drop and run" - it amazes me how many people do this. I always wait for an adult before I go, and my son is nearly 13. He's a member of an athletics club and they have had drop and run incidents where the training has been cancelled and they've not been able to contact the parent (or it's taken ages for the parent to get home, get the message, and come back). So now you have to sign anyone up to year 9 age in, they get a plastic bracelet to wear, then you have to sign them out and give the bracelet back. If they're not signed in they can't do the activity. That's going a bit too much the other way for me (year 9 - 14 year olds who probably get themselves to all sorts of places on their own) but I can understand why they've gone down that route.

Squirrelled -sounds like we do the same thing, have similar systems - and in one I paid out just under £45k last year (again not Brownies) .. but normally it is around £30k.
I think the banks need to catch on and get these kind of accounts up and running...like I said I found one specialist bank who would do it but it seems they charge (even charities) for everything. Ideally you would set up the payments and then another trustee could log in and give them the ok...
The second signatory thing I think is important to cover your back - it is a hell of a lot of responsibility really...and in my case in a small place any suspicion/misunderstanding and word would get around - and even when it was them proven to be false (as it would) that wouldn't get around as fast...

And change of signatories - I had an absolute nightmare a few years ago with Nationwide. For that bank the people coming off need to sign the form and then sign to put someone on (our current account we change 2 out of 3 at a time so normally do all new forms) but as it is a contingency account it had been 'forgotten' - signatories hadn't been changed for years and no body knew who the previous signatories on it were... we could still get in touch with some of them -but we didn't know who and Nationwide said it couldn't tell us the names - even if we suggested names to them - (is one X? Sorry we can't say ). In the end after lots of correspondence they agreed to accept one signature and to tell us if it wasn't authorised, we went to the last person we could contact who remembered being a signatory and got them to sign and luckily they were still on there....otherwise we would just have to have tried someone else until we struck lucky ... needless to do the signatory changing for both banks at the same now ...

I think something to pick up form this thread is how many parents are
fucking thick operating under the misapprehension that many volunteer roles are "paid". I got the impression some people thought we were running PTA events for our own profit or were being paid to be there sometimes. Even if you were paying someone who was doing it as a job or business, you don't turn up late!

Exactly pearpotter. It sounds like the poor girls DM genuinely thought that the Brown Owl and helpers were paid, rather than generously giving their time up, so I do hope the Brown Owl put the woman right on that point.

she thought she was paying for 2 hours of evening babysitting, plus the materials provided for activities and the hall rental for 1 pound 50 pence? And in this lala land it was ok to arrive 30 mins late and imperiously state 'i will pick up my dd at whatever time i like! I am paying you for this ! In what universe does this make sense?
Oh and BOO , yes the op had her child with her waiting for this person and yes the op`s 3 year old was late being picked up and upset.