To think that the PTA is voluntary?

[malificent7]

I used to help the pta as and when i could with the Christmas fare etc.

Then i got more work so i had to stop. I will nog forget one of the PTA have a moan at me in the playground that some mhms were not pulling their wieght as they were not in the PTA. When i said id love to help but couldnt she said "we are all in the same boat" She didnt work.

Aibu to think that if you volunteer you shouldnt moan about people not volunteering for whatever reason!?

Voluntary means just that!

Our PTA hold fairs at 3.30 on a Friday and then whinges when no one helps or (surprise) turns up at the event!

Past experience shows nobody comes if we hold events at weekends, so when else should we hold them?

You could "pay off" your 3-hourly contribution with a hefty donation to school funds if you so pleased . . . at a vastly inflated rate.

Three hours at the rate I get paid, or the rate I'm charged out at?

I think this could be clever. If every parent offered half a day or the equivalent of their pay then those who are really struggling would be giving under a fiver and those who work stupid hours in the City will be paying £££

Re Christmas Fair: the year we had it on a Saturday (rather than Friday 5pm) we raised double the money. But we can't get volunteers for Saturdays - teachers will stay late but not give up a day - so it's Fridays again.

Squirrel... your plan was good until you said the cash donation has to be inflated! Why?!

Ittoo because time is more valuable in lots of ways. If you don't want to give up time, you pay more for that option.

If people don't want to man the stalls or turn up at the weekend, perhaps you need to absorb the message that people in your school just dont want it. You can't force people.
And you can't charge them the equivalent of half a day's pay if they don't want to give up their time. They will quite rightly say that they are paying tax and that is their contribution. Agree with the poster upthread who said you would do better to lobby the govt who are cutting budgets.

This is what is wrong with pta types - the feeling that you are entitled to say how other people should spend their time and money. Do what you want and if no one appreciates it, stop if that is your preference, but don't badger people for whom the pta is not a priority.
Most of us are doing our bit for the school budget anyway, by supplying all the books our dcs use and doing a shed load of photocopying because the school no longer has the budget to pay for this stuff. We supplement the school coffers by paying the transport for swimming lessons (which is compulsory and therefore cost should not really be passed on to parents but paid by the state imo), buying at book sales and give our time to help out on school trips.
If some people want to make the pta their little project then crack on but please accept it is not everyones else's obligation to do it too.

Well said Adderyn

When I was not working I could have easily managed the time but when you are working you have a million and one other things to do and it is just not a priority. Unfortunately, but not always, a huge number of parents are in such organisations for the wrong reasons (gossiping, own self-esteem). I am a teacher and have witnessed this in my own school. In my kids school, there are lots of fundraising events which are costly and time-consuming and you feel obliged to contribute to/help with. While they are for the benefit of our children, I sometimes wonder would it actually be detrimental if the kids missed out on outdoor equipment (should they not be making their own entertainment). However, sometimes they do pay for things likes buses for trips (v expensive).

YANBU those who want to do, those who don't don't... it is voluntary... if someone tried to pressure me into doing it with those types of comments I would tell them to shove off

Am never sure why the assumption that those of us not in full time paid employment..are those that ought to have the time. Somebody please enlighten me..because although I have always pulled my weight on various PTAs over the years, I've certainly never found it easy to find the time. Not when I was working 60 hour weeks in the city and not when at home doing the multitude of other non paid things I do.
We have always contributed generously through the school donation schemes too.
Yes there are certainly the pta types..they are a well known breed. Some I have encountered, might even be classed as playground bullies.
So yes OP, it should be entirely voluntary, yanbu!

I think you have to accept that some people are community-minded and others just aren't. If you don't accept this and if you are a helper, you would just be hopping mad most of the time, and that's such a waste of energy. I do think though some of the excuses people put forward are transparently flimsy. So many people use the excuse that they have little ones....Our school allows parents to bring pre-school siblings along to PTA meetings, if we didn't do that, our meeting headcount would be on average 2!!

We have a seriously stroppy PTA whose members moan about being the only ones who do things for the school but honestly, as others have said, hardly any of the events they organise each year 'for the children' are things the children actively want. And most of the parents absolutely dread all these wretched duty events that we feel obliged to cart the children along to 'to show support'.

Also, when I did attempt to volunteer one year after a particularly aggressive email went out moaning about not enough people turning up to their AGM, I was told that they weren't really looking for 'people like me'. Lone parents? Working mums? No idea, as I was so pissed off I didn't even ask, just decided to leave them to it henceforth.

I've just stood down as co-chair after 7 years partly because I was getting so stroppy. The labelling on here 'pta types' etc makes me sick. Every single woman (and they were all women) on our committee worked outside of the home, at one point we all worked and had pre-schoolers at home.
All this 'I'm too busy' is just passing the buck and I abhor it.

If I've heard it once I've heard it a 100 times! I work, I've got a small child, I've got this, that and the other!! There is always something you can do to help, baking cakes, folding tickets, contacting companies for raffle prizes etc...etc.... Which can be done at home in lunch hours on the train.
At the end of the day the PTA money is spent on all of our children not just the select few that help run these events! "All" parents should man up, be positive and find something that you can do, rather than what they can't! Schools need our support in a very real way as finances are very tough! So whatever we give to them we give for the benefit of "our" children - who we love and are precious to us!

Agree that "i'm too busy" does not hold water in many cases, but people seem to think that it's more polite than "I can't be arsed".

Our PTA does a wide range of events - it's not all about the kids! We have a couple of discos a year and an annual spring fair which are family/kids events, but we gear our fundraising more to the parents with over 18s quiz nights (bring your own bottle and snacks, naff trophy for the winners), dads 5 a side football tournaments, a ladies night where we sell Prosecco at £12 a bottle and make a bloody fortune. And although we're a PTA there's not much "T" involvement - some teachers will attend events like the summer with their own children but there are only 2 teachers who ever offer practical help.

I agree that the real reason people don't volunteer is because they aren't willing to. It's nothing to do with work, kids, other commitments.

But the thing is, yes it is voluntary. People don't have to do it. I get that and I accept that. Still happy to do my bit.

The whole excuses thing really drives me mad. I'd much rather people were just honest and said, it's not something that I want to do. But of course no one is willing to do that because it makes them look like dicks. It's easier to imply that those who do help out are bossy, cliquey types with nothing else to do.

I have three kids, two pre-school age, but am an active member of our PTA. They know I can't always attend meetings/events so I'm a treasurer, working behind the scenes in my own time. We always have lots of jobs that can be done from home/in evenings (signs, wrapping, stickers, calling sponsors etc) and fitted around work/other commitments.
I definitely understand the comments about cliques but often it just looks that way to others- it's actually the effect of working very hard as a team to achieve a common goal. Tends to create bonds that probably wouldn't be formed in the playground.

I agree with you. Those types are exactly why I don't join the PTA. I contribute in other ways by baking cakes and bring in prizes for raffles etc but I don't get involved with the members as I've been privy to too many nasty comments.

Sparklyglitter. I agree with almost everything you say except I think that the dads need to 'woman up', no 'manning up' necessary.

See..there we go again...'we all worked outside the home..and had preschoolers too'...side speak for 'aren't we blooming marvellous'!
Yes there is most definitely a 'type'.

I used to go to the PTA meetings. I stopped as soon as I realised that those same group of mums who moaned about other parents not volunteering/helping out, didn't take a blind bit of notice of anyone coming in with fresh fund raising ideas etc, they wanted to organise it. Everything fell on deaf ears. Offers to help make crafts fell on deaf ears. So I left them to it.

There is a campaign every year in the legal profession to donate a "billable hour". That is, what your firm charges your time to clients at.

So some firms it will be £25. Others will be £500+ and anything inbetween.

The idea is that you donate the cost of an hour of your billable time to a legal charity.

It's fairly easy to come up with an equivalent hourly rate if you are salaried, if you earn £35K a year your hourly rate is £17.50. So you can donate a billable hour if you are in that sort of role, your hourly rate if you are salaried or your actual hourly rate if you eg earn the minimum wage.

So everyone donates according to ability.

Maybe I should suggest it to our PTA. I'm in a fairly affluent area, lots of people earning between £50K and £100K (and more) so they might get quite a lot of money. And so much easier than all the slog for fairs, discos etc. It could be per household not child.

I should have said "ability to pay".

I don't live in the UK right now, but our youngest is in a private preschool with an annual volunteering commitment. You either do x hours of volunteering per year or you pay $100 at the end of the year. They're usually really good at sending out electronic sign up sheets, so people can sign up to man a bouncy castle for an hour etc. They also dropped the traditional PTA idea and went for smaller, specific committees instead, e.g. events committee, school improvement/landscaping etc, so each committee can focus on smaller areas rather than having to have a big PTA meeting all the time.
Having said that, even as a SAHM I've been finding it difficult so far this year to volunteer for anything because of scheduling conflicts. Last year I was way over the minimum hours required.

I am a teacher and the last thing I want to do with my minimal free time is help out at another school (I do help out at mine). YANBU.

Reading this thread almost makes me think I should keep my PTA membership as a guilty secret. There seems to a fair bit of animosity and labelling and generalisation about people who are active members of their PTA. If this thread is a representation of the way non-PTA parents feel about committee members, then I feel a bit sad, unappreciated and disliked.

Have known so many of those types..basking in the virtuous accolade of PTA chiefs. Policing people's time without knowing a jot about what they do or don't do.

And then they step down disgruntled and angry and shoulder laden with the ever growing chip. Only they volunteered in the first place...and that's exactly what it is.