Back when I was still at the toddler group stage of parenting, I went to a small and lovely group where we all ended up being friends. It was really nice until one of the mums took on the role of organiser. She was friendly enough, but her children were incredibly spoilt and she would pander to them in a way I've never seen before or since - the stories I could tell would make your hair curl.
We paid £3 each to attend the group, and this was our tea and biscuits fund, plus hall rental (cheap as chips)
Over the years, this money had built up, and when Spoilt Mum took over there was £600 or so in the group bank account.
Long story short, she decided to buy some new toys for the group - ride ons, that sort of thing. We all thought this was a brilliant idea. So did her 3 year old DD, who went shopping with her, and had full control over the choice of toys. Instead of the ride ons and good solid wooden toys we'd agreed upon, we ended up with flimsy shit that was totally inappropriate and would break after five minutes with one child using them, never mind 30.
To add insult to injury, the DD was allowed to take half the toys home with her after every group. The mum would fill up her Land-rover with them, DD would play with them all week, then return them (well, most of them) the following week
So we basically funded her DD's new toy haul
Of course the DD was incredibly spoilt, and thought the toys belonged to her, so every week she'd run screaming to her mum because another child had hold of "her" toy.
Eventually most of the toys disappeared for good. Spoilt mum made noises about how she was keeping them at home for her own DD, as it was just "too upsetting" to go through the same thing every week. She promised she'd replace the toys and money.
She continued to run the club for a few years after her children had aged out, as mine had. But I heard from the original mums with younger children, that when she finally gave it up, there wasn't a penny left in the bank account and 3/4 of the toys were gone for good.