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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:
Hoppinggreen · 13/05/2018 19:55

Our meetings at at 7.30 in the pub
We have 1 nurse, a teacher, a project manager, a charity worker, a management consultant, a retired teacher and a PA on the committee
We don’t socialise outside the PTA and I hadn’t ever spoken to all but 2 of them before I joined so not a clique and not a load of SAHMs
I totally respect people who say it’s not for them or they have too much on already or that they simply don’t want to, but it really pisses me off when people claim that they can’t join because of the committee and how they behave. Utter bollocks
If you don’t want to/ can’t help then fine but don’t blame a load of people you don’t even know.
We treat everyone who offers to help with respect and gratitude

RainbowFairiesHaveNoPlot · 13/05/2018 19:56

We've actually switched to having joint chairs of the PTA where one leads one event and the other leads the next one to try to reduce the burnout on one person factor as well which seems to have worked OK.

Nonky · 13/05/2018 19:58

It really does frustrate me how so many posters say how uncliquey PTA’s are and how they aren’t full of Uber alpha SAH mums. I totally agree that not all of them are (my child’s current school PTA are lovely) but some of them (my child’s previous school) really are!!!!

sally831 · 13/05/2018 20:00

I just don't want to.I have no interest.I have nothing to prove and no one to answer to and I won't be made to feel guilty or bow to the extreme pressure put on the kids who come home and beg mummy and daddy to help.All the hassle and faff for a willow arch costing hundreds of pounds,it hardly seems an essential purchase to help my childs education.I am sorry but I am not one of those joiner in mummies but ask me for 50 quid for educational resorces and you can have it gladly!Just not my bag no excuses it just isn't

Teateaandmoretea · 13/05/2018 20:00

"pretty much everyone has a busy life for one reason or another." Do they? That's simply not true though is it?

It is of the people with young children I know, yes.

fiorentina · 13/05/2018 20:01

I do work FT and help whenever I can, at the fete etc, or anything that I can help in evenings. But I would to be honest rather pay a regular cash payment to the school if I could. The requests are never ending.

Elmersnewfriend · 13/05/2018 20:01

  1. Because I am a School governor at my other son's school

  2. the current chair is a complete twat... i.e. she recently said to someone who lives in our town, and who'd had the audacity to complain about her parking "don't you know I'm the Chair of the PTA"... plus regularly posts on Facebook about how proud she is that she votes Conservative, and then posts about how the school is desperate for our help and money... ermmmm really????

  3. I work

  4. totally agree that posts about how if no one volunteers, then the kids won't get their (utterly shit) Father's Day presents.... that sort of blackmail is just rubbish

TittyGolightly · 13/05/2018 20:02

ask me for 50 quid for educational resorces and you can have it gladly!Just not my bag no excuses it just isn't

Thought about doing this: give us £25 at the start of the year and we’ll leave you alone type thing. Trouble is the ones that don’t pay are the ones that smuggle their kids into the discos to avoid paying £2, or chuck them over the side of a bouncy castle rather than pay £1 for their child to go on it. Fuck that.

Tartanscarf · 13/05/2018 20:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Lostin3dspace · 13/05/2018 20:03

I never did, though I volunteer generally in other spheres.
My main issue was that I work full time. I perceived the school to be full of ladies who didn’t work, or worked part time, certainly the school office assumed I had time to just pop in and bring forgotten items.
The PTA meetings were generally after school, but before 5pm. So I couldn’t attend anyway. I found cake donations pointless - it would cost me say £8 in ingredients for 24 cupcakes, they’d be sold at £1 each, but there’s be loads left and a panic sale for 10p at the end, so it would have been better to just give the £8 in the first place.
I hate summer fayres. Kids buy a tonne of crap I’d rather they didn’t have. (Sweets / tat)
I didn’t find them very social either, because I worked full time and so was never at the school gates so barely knew anyone really.
I think if our PTA had said, ‘Opt out, send us £50 for this term, and we won’t bug you at all for the rest of the school year’ I’d have sent them £50. I have read about a PTA that did this.
I guess I’m being a misery here, but as I say, I volunteer in other spheres.

DamsonGin · 13/05/2018 20:04

Because I already volunteer in school enough.

grasspigeons · 13/05/2018 20:04

@whyismykid

I think the real question is at the end of your OP - the reasons why people don't volunteer are obvious and you included most of them.

In terms of what you need to do to attract more volunteers for you Summer Fair. Looking at the replies:

cliquey/bitchy mums
not liking human interaction and preferring jobs like setting up
not getting good or any instructions
not felt welcome.

not sure what the money goes on
not an event their children/them enjoy - just a duty visit.
having to look after younger children

You aren't going to make people have more time, or have less issues/stuff going on in their life but you can tackle some of those things.

I don't know what a reasonably number of volunteers is for 750 pupils but i'd think 20-30 would be realistic

roominthesky · 13/05/2018 20:05

Single parent with no childcare so can't attend the meetings.

mirime · 13/05/2018 20:05

I work, usually don't get home until 7. DH works, sometimes gets home at 6, usually gets home at 7, sometimes gets home at 8, 9 or 10. His hours can change with very little notice as well, he has very limited flexibility and he often works weekends.

There are many things I'd like to do, and a number of things I'd like to get involved with locally, but it would be very difficult to commit to them. And quite frankly, I'm already exhausted and get very little time to myself, so the time I do get I need to spend doing things that are beneficial for me rather than things that are likely to stress me out.

TittyGolightly · 13/05/2018 20:07

Single parent with no childcare so can't attend the meetings.

So suggest the meetings are held somewhere you can take your children. (2/4 of ours are single parents, including a paramedic.)

Bowlofbabelfish · 13/05/2018 20:07

We both work. Our day starts by 6 to get to daycare and ends by about 9 when kids in bed and the essential housework is done. I’m usually in bed by 9:30.

Frankly nothing on earth would or could encourage me to get involved with the PTA or similar. My heart sinks when I see friends having to create shit for bake sales or costumes constantly.

daycare and school is supposed to make life easier for parents - if your PTA is making life harder and more stressful for parents then perhaps time for a rethink?

If it’s not impinging in parents and it’s essential school stuff then well done, I’m glad someone else is doing it so I don’t have to.

YouWereRight · 13/05/2018 20:08

I was. I helped at events. I helped at 3 film nights per term, one for each year group, multiple discos, food fairs and fetes.

The main body of the PTA changed to a group of friends, and I was told they didn't need me anymore. Now when they put a FB status about how tough it is to run events and nobody helps, the couple of us who were told we were unneeded roll our eyes.

user1471549213 · 13/05/2018 20:10

I work full time by the time I get home with the kids
it's 6pm most days then I need to feed my children and get them organised for bed and the next day, put them down for about 8pm then I need to feed myself, tidy up and shower for work the next day by the time I do this it's 10pm so if the volunteer meetings are then that's grand. Any earlier and it doesn't work for me.

OreoMini · 13/05/2018 20:11

Because I have better things to do with my time to be honest.

HwNwBrwnCw · 13/05/2018 20:12

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.

Yes I’ve found that with our school. There is a big percentage of children from ethnic minorities, yet the pta is all white. When some Asian ladies once volunteered to do something at a school fete, they plastered all over the next meeting minutes that it was good to get some other people involved who felt they may not have been involved in school events before 😱. Like no mention of having diversity or more helpful hands. They actually referred to them as “other people”. I doubt they’ll run the stall again after getting spoken about like that.

Lethaldrizzle · 13/05/2018 20:14

Having young children is not really an excuse as many schools have meetings in the morning. Just bring them with

livingthegoodlife · 13/05/2018 20:17

Because I don't know anyone else at the school and I'm shy

I don't have anyone to look after my other children

I don't plan to go to the summer fair so I feel no connection with it/interest in helping

I do make cakes for the school cake stall

I don't want to be trapped into having to volunteer repeatedly

livingthegoodlife · 13/05/2018 20:18

Yes maybe you could take children to a PTA meeting, but I can't have my toddlers running wild whilst I'm trying to sell cakes/supervise bouncy castle etc.

Ticketsfrom · 13/05/2018 20:18

I volunteer for another group, I work, and I have a DP who travels. I don’t want to give over what little time I have to the PTfA. I appreciate what they do but Inknowntheyre short handed and people who help out often get stuck with more than they asked for - I do bits and pieces.
I know how frustrating it is because we have 600 people in my other group network with about 5- 8’people organising everything.
I have no advice, other that getting a critical mass of people involved helps. When we have 15 people volunteering when they can it’s somkuch easier. We frequently go down the round of this event WILL NOT happen and people get in a flap and step up then. But it literallly takes that to motive the self buggers.

AuntieStella · 13/05/2018 20:19

I think the lack of awareness shown on this thread of just how much some people struggle, is astounding.

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