To be annoyed with parents GGUK

[coconutwhip]

I'm a rainbow leader in GGUK. I loved being a leader up until about 2 years ago where quite frankly the parents have driven me to despair. Why don't parents respond to any communication that you send them! Even before covid the amount of parents that would acknowledge that you contacted them was poor. Throughout covid we've been sending emails with information, updating Facebook pages and most recently news that we will be running virtual sessions from September due to restrictions. In the email 3 options were given 1. Yes, 2. No, 3. Unsure. Out of my 25 parents only one yes one has responded. It's ridiculous.
We are just seen as a cheap babysitting service and I feel that awful.
Parents expect you to move heaven and earth for their child and even when you do that 9/10 times they don't turn up. E.g we were due to go bowling with a meal. Gave out a menu with 7 options. Parent of child A says child A doesn't eat anything off this menu she only likes this adult meal (£7) more expensive. We organise with the restaurant a way to provide it to this child on a smaller plate (as requested by parent) and then the parent calls on day to say that child A has gone to a friends house instead.
I don't feel parents appreciate the amount of hard work that goes on behind the scenes. It's not just an hour a week it's so much more than that and we don't get paid!!
If you are a parent of a girl who goes to GGUK please please help us leaders out. Reply to the emails, bring back your forms, don't pie us off last min.
AIBU to be annoyed by these parents?

You are definitely not being unreasonable to be annoyed/angry with entitled parents. I suspect if you emailed them to say you'd arranged an actual session they'd respond immediately, as you're probably right about them seeing you as a babysitting service. I don't know what the answer is...

Drop a massive hint to the parents by organising a courtesy badge for all of the children to take part in.
Factor in a questionnaire which addresses some pertinent points for both parents and kids to answer. And just maybe, there'll be a positive outcome.
Sometimes, people need educating into what decent manners actually look like.

I felt the same way. After 4 years running Beavers and then Cubs when my son moved up I quit as on top of 4 days teaching a week, planning the weekly meetings and buying/ organising all the resources along with having to beg parent helpers to sign up each week was just too much!

I think it's the same in most things where you volunteer your time to help out other people's children tbh. Scouts, football clubs, swimming clubs even the PTA!!
Other parents just seem to assume it will be ready for their dc when they want it. No appreciation of the effort & time that goes into running these groups. Same parents are usually the first to complain also!!

I think it's even more frustrating as for the online meetings they don't even need to provide anything other than a device to connect on. All crafts/materials would be delivered to their door.

Yadnu

I used to be a beaver scout unit and very few parents would stay to help at meetings or for camp. It is seen as babysitting by some

YANBU. It takes minutes to respond. Im a Cub leader... Scouts have a very easy to use Web based admin system (not sure if Guides has similar!), literally all the parents have to do is press the link in the email to do the response... But it can take a lot of cajoling to get them to do it and keep contact information updated. It's very frustrating.

I have been doing it 25 years - in 3 very different areas.

Parents have got worse over that time, not sure if its due to online communication etc or lives getting busier.

I try to not let it get to me and word things in a way that means they need to take responsibility or they don't get to take part.

Ie with our online meetngs if they didn't return the form they didn't get sent the link to zoom and I also planned not to let them into the meeting.

Some parents are fab, some will drive you to distraction - the one who cannot open any form electronically, or find anyone else to help, or return to me a paper copy I have posted her, once we did sort permission - child attended no meetings at all!

I will say this term I have had more positive feedback than normal about keeping some things normal.

I do think you have two types of people those who volunteer so get the background work so are on the ball if you send stuff out, others who think they can text at 630 to include a child in a meeting at 7pm that has been organised and booked for weeks!

I have dips where it annoys me - I know just smile and move on!

Oh god YANBU. I used to be a Scout leader and it was like this. I left eventually, because we relocated, but I think I'd have left anyway, even without the relocation.

I loved it otherwise, but it is so much work! And people just used to dump their kids, sometimes with extra kids who were at theirs for a sleepover.. It was so rude. I don't think people realise that it is volunteers having to do all the work in their spare time for free.