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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

999 replies

whyismykid · 13/05/2018 15:40

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?

OP posts:
Teateaandmoretea · 13/05/2018 19:28

I've got better things to do with the small amount of free time I have than get involved with the PTA

^^I much prefer this type of honesty.

HotSauceCommittee · 13/05/2018 19:29

I did three years then got a FT job as the DCs were getting older. I’d “done my bit” and I just didn’t want to do it anymore.

AuntieStella · 13/05/2018 19:29

"It’s almost as if some of them feel.......guilty?"

Nah. No guilt. Because once they were so fucking rude to me, I put my volunteering efforts into somewhere where I actually had a role, however unimportant or unsung.

And, to the pp who thinks PTA is more important than British Heart Foundation - why? Do you never think anyone in your family will ever need the support, or the benefits if the research they fund? What god ever comes of trying to 'rank' people's preferred causes?

MrsPeacockDidIt · 13/05/2018 19:29

For all the poster saying that their PTA are cliquey I can offer up one reason this might be. When I got involved in our PTA there were only a few members so I roped in parents who I knew well enough to ask. A lot did so and so to the outside world it might have looked as though we were cliquey but we were all there because we knew each other. We would have jumped at other people coming to join us !

Zintox · 13/05/2018 19:30

Because I have three jobs plus do other volunteer work and have special needs children and I'm exhausted. I have no room to take on anything more.

BumpowderSneezeonAndSnot · 13/05/2018 19:30

You do know that some deadlines are infinitely more important than being sneered at by people and made to feel like something they've stepped in. All in the name of raising funds for some not needed equipment.

Like I said earlier. You have no idea what some of us do for jobs.

corcaithecat · 13/05/2018 19:31

When my DS first started school, I went to a Parents Association AGM and as the Treasurer was stepping down, I put my hand up (no-one else did) and was duly elected. The following week the Chair caught me at pick-up time and told me the current treasurer had been persuaded to stay on as they were dealing with the monies raised for a major project and it would be too complicated to explain the situation and that my services were no longer required. According to other school mum friends that I've got to know since, my face didn't fit as I was a foreigner.
Reminds me of Father Ted and 'the money was resting in my account...'
Hmm, so no, I've declined their invitations to help out since then and volunteer at various other activities that DS is involved with.

Goldenbear · 13/05/2018 19:31

They are 'terribly' important if you're comparing them to the activities of the PTA. If I don't work to these deadlines I would not be very good at my job, the job I need to pay for my children!

Teateaandmoretea · 13/05/2018 19:31

It's a choice bumpowder you are also sneering at my job suggesting that I don't have deadlines to meet.

BertrandRussell · 13/05/2018 19:32

There were 400 children at our primary school. So at least 400 parents/carers. Probably more like 600. Even if 400/500 worked long hours, were carers, volunteers in other places, had social anxiety or just plain didn't want to, surely out of the remaining 300, more than 6 could manage to turn out for an hour or so once a month?

Marriedwithchildren5 · 13/05/2018 19:32

BitchQueen90 My kids like me there. I take a/l for my weekend away with friends etc why wouldn't I for them?? Our pta does a lot for our school which I appreciate. I do as I wish with my a/l. So fuck that!

BumpowderSneezeonAndSnot · 13/05/2018 19:33

Not sneering. More, explaining you clearly have the luxury of working in a job that means you can swan off to do PTA stuff at will. Some jobs don't have that flexibility.

Teateaandmoretea · 13/05/2018 19:33

And I am not sneering at all, I am saying be honest you don't want to do it so say that. If you did then you would find a way. It's not compulsory but it's really insulting to those who do help to assume they may have nothing better to do.

Stopandlook · 13/05/2018 19:34

Haven’t read whole thread.
I work full time but volunteer more often than others who don’t so I don’t think that’s relevant.
What does stop me is that our new school PTA meets during school hours. Annoys me and just means I can’t volunteer as much. Our previous school (moved house) was much more working parent friendly.

BertrandRussell · 13/05/2018 19:34

And as for the Scout parents who sit in their cars watching as a couple of people put all the kit away then complain that the kids are out late......

BaronessBomburst · 13/05/2018 19:34

I don't particularly like gobby 8 year olds, and have no desire to spend extra time with them.

Cornishclio · 13/05/2018 19:34

OMG this takes me back. Because I worked in a bank part time when my two girls were at primary school I was approached to be treasurer of the school PTA all the way through their school years. Initially I said I would do it for a year but no one ever volunteered to replace me. Once the youngest left for secondary school I said I was leaving regardless. I then got collared to be secretary for the Girl Guides pack they belonged to and simultaneously treasurer for secondary school pta.

I agreed to them purely because the few people who did volunteer seemed so stretched I figured the more of us there were the less we all had to do and that did work for a while. I think they assumed that because I worked in banking I was good at numbers and so on but it did tick me off that there were SAHM who would not volunteer even though all their kids were school age and had loads more spare time than me. Once I got out after 14 years of voluntary service with PTA, Guides I never volunteered for anything after that. Some of it was enjoyable and I liked organising the fund raisers and made some great friends.

georgeisadinosaur · 13/05/2018 19:35

A proportion of the parents at the school will be single parents or ones with very little support. I just don't have an hour to spare with a baby to tow along, and just can't give up the time to man a stall or sell tickets etc.

Teateaandmoretea · 13/05/2018 19:35

I can't swan off, no. I do some admin for them that's behind the scenes. There are lots and lots of different jobs that dont include school day inclusion. You just prefer to assume that you have a harder job than everyone else.

BumpowderSneezeonAndSnot · 13/05/2018 19:35

You really have no clue. It's not as simple as "if you want to you would find the time" aside from the fact the mum's at our primary were bloody vile I, And evidently lots of posters on this thread, DO NOT HAVE THE TIME. I'm not sure how much clearer that statement can be made.

BertrandRussell · 13/05/2018 19:35

And we used to alternate PTA meetings so that sometimes they were in school time and sometimes in the evening- still got the same people coming to both......

FunkyHeroCat · 13/05/2018 19:36

I used to help out a lot at our (very active) PTA when I worked part time when my children were in lower school. I was a class rep at one point, and they knew that they could count on me to man a stall for the various fairs and cake sales.

However, as my kids got older I went back to work full time from financial necessity. I still helped out at the occasional thing, but definitely not as much.

My reasons were :-

  1. I felt I'd done my time.

  2. When I had time off I wanted to spend it with my children not manning some stall.

  3. I got a bit tired of the way that SAHPs didn't appreciate that my time was precious - they'd change arrangements for meetings at a moments notice because they had the free time to have a meeting at another time. I would usually have moved heaven and earth with work and kids to be at that meeting in particular.

  4. To whoever said 'just take annual leave' - how do I cover the holidays then? My annual leave doesn't cover the summer holidays alone, let alone all the others (even combined with DHs). How do you cover holidays? - you obviously DON'T work full time. You have 13 weeks of school holidays to cover - who working FT has that?

  5. I'm in a multicultural area of London, but the PTA was always just a well heeled monoculture - got a bit tired (and suspicious) of all that.

BertrandRussell · 13/05/2018 19:36

"And evidently lots of posters on this thread, DO NOT HAVE THE TIME. I'm not sure how much clearer that statement can be made"

Yep-loads of people don't have the time. Loads of others, however.....

JellySlice · 13/05/2018 19:37

i was bitten by the Clique after years of regular service at the various fairs. By the time my elder dc left and only my youngest remained at school, most of the other parents involved had moved on, too. I did not know most of the PTA helpers sny more. Suddenly I found myself turning up at events to man a particular stall, only to find that I'd been moved to another location - always the most unpopular location.

The woman in overall charge of the event would generally be surprised: I would still be down on her spreadsheet as doing what I had signed up for, often something she had specifically requested me to do.

It was blindingly obvious that groups of mums were rearranging assignments to suit themselves. Which is generally fine, but deeply unfair on the 'outsiders' who aren't consulted.

When it got to the point that I said "I cannot take the position you've moved me to because it is in full sun I am allergic to sunshine" (which they all knew) and they refused to swap back with me, and everyone else indoors refused to swap with me, I decided that I had had enough.

So that is why I stopped volunteering to help at events. I still did other volunteering, like pool guarding. Just not the fundraising ones.

Teateaandmoretea · 13/05/2018 19:38

Bumpowder unless you literally work 24/7 you don't want to do it and don't see it as a priority. That's fine, it's the justification about your life being busier than everyone else's that is offensive. Help, don't help I don't care but you have no idea what other people have to contend with.