To ask why you don’t volunteer for school / PTA / Parent Council Events?

[whyismykid]

Is it because you are too busy? Don’t think it’s important? The people who organise these type of events are irritating? Think the school have all the funds they need so it’s not worth the bother?

What would enable you (or persuade you) to help out?

200 people attended the event I planned today and had a good time but only 8 people volunteered to help. I understand that the planning and preparing for events is time consuming (it totally is!) so I’d only expect a small number of people to be able to take that on, but it should be different for on the day help I would think? I made sure each volunteer slot was only 45 mins long, so that people could also take part with their families, and made it clear what each volunteer job involved. Online sign up
so super easy.

What else can I do? it’s a school of 750 pupils and I have a summer fair to attract volunteers for next, any ideas?

I work full time but volunteer when I can so it isn't an excuse for not volunteering at all.

It’s a bit difficult not to look like a clique when you’re one of the only 6 people who ever do anything.

I actually do have time to help with PTA etc, but what puts me off is a lot of the people involved in organising PTA stuff seems hard work and overbearing and it puts me off.

I find it too cliquey. The teachers like their little group of parent chums and anyone else who is new who tries to help is left out of conversations and ignored. So I’d rather leave them to it. Also, a lot of these women have been really rude to me in the past, giving dirty looks/choosing when to talk to me and not inviting my dd to joint parties that all the girls from the class have been invited to, so afaic they can fuck off and help themselves! I’ll go and enjoy the fetes and fairs however I want!

People do get ever so defensive, don’t they? . It’s almost as if some of them feel.......guilty?

Ours is fab and very welcoming. Sadly the funds raised are no longer for the fun stuff but essential things. Budgets cut right back. If you can offer some time it's the right thing to do.

I don't now as have done it for 7 years let the new guard pick up the baton

Because as a Single parent , no dad around ever from birthing, working, taking care of aging parent, 24/7 trying to keep it all together....

Only so much you can do in a day.

Son is the most important, bottom line..

joffrey I was asked to make something for the craft stall. I made a crochet baby blanket. nice yarn, muted colours.
It took me about a week of evenings and probably cost around a tenner in yarn. I had some colours already and had to buy in.
I didn't expect them to sell it for ££££. I was donating my time.
Want to guess how much it was on for?

TWO QUID! It was on a table next to the person who had asked me's stuff. Bottles covered in sand

I am not precious about my stuff but TWO quid ffs.

never again

Absolutely spot on @Dedoodooda

I'd have more respect for people if they just came out and said they can't be arsed.

I really dislike this attitude of 'I work FT'. So do you think that the PTA just have nothing better to do? The PTA also have jobs why are you different?

I would have offered OP. I also do the school uniform and guess what I work FT ....

It’s a bit difficult not to look like a clique when you’re one of the only 6 people who ever do anything.

Ain't that the truth

Because like pp I work full time, including some weekends. They also arrange events that working parents would struggle to attend, such as a summer fair at 3.30pm on a Friday afternoon.

I work full time, do other voluntary activities and know that it is impossible to be a casual helper at these things without the expectation to do more and more. The one time I did help out at my ds school for a pta event it became a major drain on my time for that week despite assurances to the contrary.

Quite frankly knowing the primary school PTA yes i do feel they have nothing else to do which is why the school becomes their lives.

I feel sorry for them. When their youngest turns 18 and moves out they'll have to find something else to do. I believe PTA mum's become WI members...

Well a lot of the pta at my ds school don't work ft that's why.

You may say you hate the attitude of people using the excuse of working full time Teatea, but all the volunteers I know of at dd's school are sam or work very part time.
Working full time and dealing with a family and household, with just 4 or 5 weeks annual leave a year is thoroughly exhausting and leaves little time or mental energy or much else.

I work 40 hours a week doing 10 hour shifts. The earliest I finish is 7pm, but could be 8,9 or even 10pm. The days I work varies from week to week, as do my finish times. So not a week of 7pm finishes. I would like to help as our PTA and school are great, but I just can't commit

Lack of time mainly.
I do (nearly) always do a slot at the fair & have often wondered why the people coming along in couples didn't volunteer.

Where I haven't it's because signing up then commits you to going when you might not be sure how the day is panning out or if my husband is going to be willing & able to look after the children whilst I volunteer.

As others have said, I've volunteered on numerous occasions and been treated very badly indeed. Our particular group are insular, cliquey, possessive and frankly off putting.

What crap bum. The chair of our pta got headhunted by a parent and now has an amazing job - largely on strength of how well she had run the pta. She doesn't volunteer anymore she's on the board of the company she joined.

My job means I am too busy. I work from home a lot in the evenings. Surely people understand that some jobs are more demanding than others. Yes, you could be full time but the work finishes when you leave the work place. For others that is not the case at all.

Crap for your school maybe not for mine.

Thankfully my children are at secondary school now so very much hands off!

Personally for me it’s past experiences. There was no pta at my sons SEN school so I set up a coffee morning. All started ok at first. Very low turn out but enough to make it worth doing. Very quickly another more vocal Mum started criticising me and set up a pta to run along side my coffee morning. She told me I couldn’t come to the pta meetings because the HT said I needed to concentrate on my coffee mornings. Then everyone stopped coming to my coffee mornings and joined the pta.

So 1) I find it all too hard Re where you sit in the mummy popularity stakes and 2) the school offered me zero support.

I do lots of other volunteering. I didn’t get any happy warm fuzzy feelings from helping the school. It was joyless and I felt like a bullied school girl again.

I would only do it at my other kids schools if I felt like I had a close supportive group of mums around me. But mostly it’s once bitten never again for me. I gave my time up to do a nice thing, I got mentally burnt by it. It really hurt actually and although it was a year ago I still cringe thinking how horrible it was and why I was so quickly alienated by the other mums. My sons moved school and I enjoy meeting up for socials or get together sin the sidelines, which if I am honest is where I am comfortable and where I fit in.

I work all week. In a school.
I contribute by attending the events with DC.
I contribute by spending money at fundraising events run by DC's school.