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?

Parents have joined the PTA to try and change things but those that run it refuse to listen and continue with doing things their way. So any new volunteers give up and leave

Thing is, you can’t just walk in with your new ideas and expect instant change. These things take time. Perhaps new volunteers could offer to run a new event in addition to the old, to see how it goes? I accept PTAs can be resistant to change, but new volunteers shouldn’t expect things to change overnight.

Loads of misogyny on here as well......

Because this stuff is a waste of time unless you really don't have much of a life and are into fucking cupcakes

It’s unfortunate people feel this way really . I do my bit (am not on the PTA but help/volunteer) mainly cos they do make a lot of money for the school

The whole PTA needs a rebrand if this is what people think deep down

I don't do it any more because I encountered all the pissy attitudes on this thread when I did it. People seemed to think my engagement was actually a message about their lack thereof.

They wanted their kids to take part though. And they wanted me to do the cheap fucking child care it basically was while they 'were doing something important, actually working' - that's a direct quote.

People felt it was fine to slag off the arrangement of everything without doing anything to change it or help themselves and would constantly make thinly veiled digs about SAHPs while assuming that we were so thick we wouldn't realise that's what they were doing. Made me feel quite differently about the school 'community' actually.

That's why I don't.

I've always been happy to help because the PTA fundraises for events that my children enjoy plus things like playground equipment and a school minivan that they use and that the school couldn't conceivably afford otherwise. Also they and their friends rather enjoy things like school fairs anyway.

It's all very well people saying there are better ways to fundraise, but in my experience they don't seem to go to the PTA with suggestions or offer to help with them themselves; and the people who say they would rather just contribute the money very rarely actually do so.

Because ds is now 22 and I don't have to do it any more!!!

I ran a monthly club at ds's secondary school for 4 years. It was hard work. parents were keen for their children to participate, as it was 2.5 hours without their kids, so enough time for a meal out, time together etc, but were not willing to be on the parent rota once a year, or even join the committee. They would drop their kids off early, whilst we were setting up, and pick them up sometimes an hour late, so I was left with their kids in the school car park at 2300 or later some night.

They were quick to take advantage, but also very quick to criticise. On the occasions I didn't have an adequate ratio of parents, I didn't run the club. That soon got their attention!

I went to one meeting and helped out at an event. I felt like an alien. It was like being the child in class that no-one really wants to talk to. Never went back. I'd rather chuck money in the pot and make my contribution that way. Most of the 200 people that attend your event are there to contribute in their own way by spending their money.

Because I joined the PTA in Sept and by Christmas it was clear that the PTA mafia didn’t like me and I wasn’t welcome.

Also they and their friends rather enjoy things like school fairs anyway

This is true, fetes and discos and cake sales may not make a huge amount of money, but the kids love them! It’s not just about the money raised. It’s about the whole school community experience.

In my experience, new people would come to a meeting (fantastic), criticise old way of doing things (not so fantastic) then make suggestions as to what they think would work (again excellent). We would then ask them to organise this new idea or at least help and they would run for the hills. So they expected us to pay out lots of money and do lots of extra work on their behalf.

If you want to change things my advice is to go along, help with what they are already doing and then make changes.

Tbh I think this is just symptomatic of society today. Blood transfusion, organ donation, youth organisations, charities. Everyone wants these services available should they need them but very few actually sign up, make donations or volunteer for them.

Quite a lot of people who have posted on here DO volunteer for those things though. Everyone has to prioritise and for many parents existing wider voluntary work is more important to them than the PTA.

I have time but I wouldn't do it because I'm not sociable and the social aspect would wear me out

I'm a full time working single parent. Have tried it before but all so cliquey and when you sign up for a thirty minute slot at the fair it ends up being a whole afternoon.

I am one of those who are shy and the socialising tires me...

I am a governor at a school for pupils with severe and profound multiple learning disabilities. I chose to do this rather than be a governor at my son's own (mainstream) school because I felt it would be overall more beneficial to the community. This means the spare time I might have to donate to my own son's school events is taken up with various duties at this other school (in fact it's much more time than would be needed at DS school). I do always help at the summer fair as it's a huge task for small group to take on. But I feel I do my bit, it's just done elsewhere.

The model that all these PTAs are based on is one that's dependent on the unpaid labour of women, who are assumed to have nothing better to do with their time. Cakes and fetes and shit like that, which very few people actually like or want to get involved with - it's a model that hasn't changed since the 1950s and it simply doesn't fit with most people's lives, interests and capacity to help nowadays.

That's so true reanimated and I think the general air of sexism and stepford wifery is another thing that puts me off ours. I'm the kind of person who would instinctively want to raise feminist points / take issue with sexist assumptions and I know that would just be met with blank stares – in reality I'd just bite my tongue and feel frustrated and annoyed.

Things like emails being sent out asking for help from mums, and organising things that are mainly meant to be for women (PTA fashion show, complete with catwalk, shoot me now) and everyone getting full of giggly admiration if a man does anything whatsoever.

It's the kind of school where feminist concerns, or indeed any kind of political thought, just gets you labelled as scary.

While the Christmas Fair isn’t my idea of fun really, I’d rather have that than a “ladies night” which seems to be all the rage now

In my experience, don't apply pressure. I am a PTA Chair and shock horror, work full time.

I think the people that help are the same people each time. Our PTA isn't cliquey but I think they become so because essentially it's the same people all of the time. None of our PTA are SAHP. The meetings are always in the evening in the pub.

Kids discos are well attended. Adult/family events are not. We always make loads at sponsored events because, effectively it's just handing money over.

The parents who piss me off are the ones who don't help, or contribute money even though the6 can afford to, but who never go to school and say please excuse DC from the panto/use of sports equipment/even5 paid for with PTA money raised. The ones who bitch about the PTA being cliquey/alphamum etc etc etc (reading this thread) but whose children still fucking benefit.

There could certainly be an air of superiority about certain schools PTAs. I used to work in a school kitchen and we'd dread their events because we would go home leaving the kitchen clean and tidy (it was an external catering company ) and in the morning would come in to find the place a mess; surfaces full of food debris/crumbs, sinks dirty, bins full etc . So we'd have to clean up before we could start work then find they had borrowed things like bowls/cups etc and we'd have to do a tour of the school to find the missing items because we needed them. They would also use the paper towels/disposable cloths/washing up liquid which we would only get a limited supply of to get through the term.

It was when they took the (reusable) anti back bottle (which is diluted with a squirt of anti bac and topped up with water) which was empty and filled it up with washing up liquid and left it for the head cook to find somewhere that took 10 minutes to hunt for in the school that she hit the roof because she'd just spent 10 minutes removing all their stuff from her kitchen and then had to spend an age trying to clean washing up liquid out of the anti back bottle so she could clean her work surfaces and start the dinners. She put in a complaint to the head and locked everything away after that. The PTA used to blank her and boycott her dinners - all because she wanted to be able to go into work and start work straight away because that is how she left it. I don't think she's there anymore but the PTA were really full of themselves at that school.

Reanimated that's very true.

I always staff the refreshments stall at the kids' football matches if I'm not working, and did crossing patrol for years because it has a point to it.

I'm now part of a college class myself who wanted to run a cake sale to raise funds for a trip, and was immediately and publicly asked to sort it out because I'm a mum I immediately and publicly replied that instead someone who isn't a mum can organise it, perhaps the excitable young male class rep who tried to delegate to me, and I promise to buy a slice of cake for 50€ instead and consider that cheap, because my time has value and organising and baking will cost me hours, and I have 3 kids also requiring cake baking and stall staffing for both school and hobbies as well as working the same hours and attending the same college course and writing the same assignments as everyone else in the class, only two others of whom have dependents.

This caused a stunned silence. The cake sale has failed to happen.

Run a school lottery
Set up a just giving page with requests for specific items that people can donate too
sponsored events
Basically anything but school discos/fetes/ cake bakes and dress up days
Its boring and it always falls on the mothers,
Every school mail I ever had was asking for 'mums' to bake a cake or donate shite that no one wants to buy at school fetes.
I dont want to go traipsing round a supermarket for cake ingredients then have to bake and deliver to school to watch it being sold for 20% of what it cost me to make. Or have to sort out a costume.
Would I have signed up for a school lottery at £1 a week with a chance of a small cash prize. Yes I would. School then get s a regular donation.
A just giving page towards new PE equipment Yep would have done that too. Bung a fiver online, easy and done within a few minutes.

If so many of you are saying that school fetes/bakes sales/Christmas Fairs are totally boring and uninteresting - how come so many people attend them and they do make money?

Our school fete and Christmas Fair were always packed out - and always the same few parents helping. Even the jumble sales were well supported .

Yes, the boring, tired, old fashioned event the OP organised had 200 people at it.........

Ragwort people go out of duty - they believe that they are supporting by going and spending money and don't realise that the people manning the stalls see them as takers.