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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To say sod it and actually go and help children who need it!!

234 replies

SimpleSaying1 · 31/10/2019 08:40

I run a Beaver scout group. When it started there was a great understanding from parents that this was a community thing and parents regularly volunteered and helped out. I was involved as my kids both went through and then I stayed on. As it has grown it has become a really popular and active group, with a big waiting list. But the generation of parents who grew it with me have moved on and it has left this really entitled and difficult bunch of parents who seem to think it is a service they are paying for and have no involvement. I struggle week on week to have enough leaders. The only person who really helps is my son who I helped start it for his peers and is now older!! This week I cancelled an event because after asking numerous times no one would help and I didn't have safe ratios. The ONLY comments I got were angry at me for messing up childcare planning and parents demanding part of their subs back because the session didn't run that week!!! I'm a good scout leader, I do a lot for the kids and I love it but even they seem to have a different attitude now. The area has become increasingly wealthy and I feel more and more that I'm providing after-school childcare rather than a meaningful activity that enriches children's lives. In another local town which is really much more deprived they are starting another group, they've got lots of parents volunteers and need an experienced leader. I am so, so tempted to jack it in with the group I've got (it would only carry on if a parent then picked it up) and go and work with this other group?

OP posts:
Rainatnight · 01/11/2019 08:52

OP, let us know if you get any reaction from the parents.

And bravo! Bear

Rainatnight · 01/11/2019 08:52

That was not meant to be a bear, it was supposed to be Flowers! But maybe it’s a beaver?

burblish · 01/11/2019 08:59

Well done, OP - and may I suggest you get parent rotas etc all put in place in advance of each term with the new group and be really firm about it, just in case you get a flurry of interested parent helpers in the first term, and then everyone there starts taking you for granted and the support starts tailing off like with the current bunch. FWIW, I’m so grateful for the people like you who run the groups my DC have attended - and at all of them, there has been a firm and, in my view, entirely reasonable expectation that parents help out at least twice a term, and organise swaps if they can’t do their allotted slots.

W0rriedMum · 01/11/2019 09:01

I noticed this when in Cubs/Brownies. The same people who dropped in bottles of wine to their hairdresser at Xmas didn't even give a Christmas card to the leaders who volunteered every week for the kids.

We help run an organisation and my DH puts a lot of time into it for free. The parents are immensely grateful, clubbing together for a nice wine or present at Christmas etc. It isn't the present that matters but knowing that the effort is appreciated.

I hope your new group works out better! No doubt about it, parents are getting more entitled these days.

Thehop · 01/11/2019 09:01

Well done Op! Your new unit is lucky to have you!

bananacakerox · 01/11/2019 09:11

I have a similar experience in our cub & scout group. I help every other week & another parent helps every week just about. Leaders then juggle numbers to ensure the ratio is workable. It's never easy getting parents to help sadly.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 01/11/2019 11:08

Rainatnight - don't the Scouts use the Jungle Book appellations? So Akela for the leader and Baloo? You can get away with it if so, Baloo being a bear! Grin

Waspnest · 01/11/2019 12:30

Well done OP, I think you've done the right thing. Maybe it'll make the parents stop and think about their attitude vanishingly unlikely.

MuggaTea · 22/01/2020 14:51

hows it going with the new group?

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