using own products for teacher's christmas gift?

[UpsideDownToast]

One of the parents at school has decided to organise the christmas gifts for DDs preschool teachers. There are 5 teachers in total.
She's posted on the group WhatsApp asking for donations, "£25 each or more if you can". Then lots of excited messages about how she's "splurged" out shopping, and lots and lots of follow up messages chasing up payments because she's spent so much and is out of pocket.
DH and I stayed silent but handed over the £25 because I figured it was too much of a drama otherwise.
Another parent asked if it was £25 per teacher and the Organiser was (IMO) deliberately vague in her reply, and it looks a lot as if that parent ended up donating £125.
But theoretically if all 25 parents "only" gave £25 each, the kitty would be £600.

I've just found out what she bought the teachers - christmas baubles, a candle, some sweets and an Arbonne lipcare thing.

The Organiser is frequently flogging her small business stuff on the WhatsApp group, and I know that Arbonne is a common MLM so I'm fairly certain that she's a Arbonne rep, or a close friend is. From the value of the other items, it seems that she's earning commission on this, and that this commission is being pocketed rather than set against the kitty.

AIBU to think that putting MLM stuff that you're earning commission on in a communal gift is pretty off?

I wouldn't have given the £25 tbf. I'm not against giving teachers presents, in fact we do but the class collections are always give what you can here whether it's a couple quid or £30. Everyone is in different situations.

But yeah YANBU. I would be annoyed at this too.

I've looked up all the presents and they've totalled at £89 for the ones I can find prices for. The candles, for example, are handmade and seem to be £26 each and a packet of artisanal cookies made at the local bakers (packet of 4 for £27!)

At the end of the day, we were foolish to hand over the money and then complain on how it's spent but artisanal cookies and handmade candles just seem a bit silly.
It's the MLM stuff that has my back up, but I am very against MLMs in general.

Ask for receipts

YABU for starting a post with absolutely no intention to confront her.

@Hetty0

YABU for starting a post with absolutely no intention to confront her.

Probably, but I'm a coward and was bullied at school so i'll be damned if I'm ostracised in a playground a second time around

No chance.

My advice to you is to learn to not give in to this sort of CFery, because if this is preschool then you've got many more years ahead of you for this.

Myself, if I were you and had already paid, I'd be asking the uncomfortable yet obvious questions "£25 per child, that £600 [or whatever] will get all 5 teachers masses of stuff, I can't wait to see the heaping pile of gifts" etc. If results are tiny then "perhaps we should send the last few hundred on to a charity in their name, I'm sure it would be appreciated and we can put that in the card."

Seriously OP, I know you're new to the game and I get it, because I've been there, but please don't feel as if just because this woman is pushy that she needs to be listened to. If she 'pushes' then push back "sorry, we've organised our own gift" etc.

I'm a teacher and also have primary school DC myself. I always opted out of group gifts, but caved the year DS's name was put into a 'frame' (which the teacher almost definitely binned!) and I hadn't contributed. I just felt guilty.

The amount gets more ridiculous every year (£15 each for a class of 30 X2 a year!), I think it's obscene and I wouldn't be comfortable receiving that myself.

Last year a Mum volunteered to give a voucher from her home beauty salon. So she obviously pocketed the money in lieu of carrying out the treatments. It's wrong.

Another friend set up her own gofundme page for her MLM book store. The money collected was to buy books to donate to her kids' school, with a nice little profit for her!

It's crazy that people think this is ok and actually go along with it.

@FreeBritnee

Fucking hell over my cold, dead body would I have given her £25.

Same!!!! ⬆️

Challenge her!! Don't let that go - its horrendous!!

I'm a Teaching Partner & it would mortify me to think that parents had been bullishly fleeced out of 25 quid by some godawful rude bully of a parent in order to get me a present. We GENUINELY don't expect anything- the whole gift thing makes most of us very uneasy & the best present of all, honestly, is a nice card, note, picture, etc. from the kids!

Well, if you aren't prepared to call her on it there isn't much to be done, is there?

I would speak to the Head and ask that something be said about parents and collections especially at £25. For me personally this is way too high and if you have more than one child it all adds up.

I know it's too far down the road now, but in future don't opt in - most teachers find this mass gift trend embarrassing. So many families can't afford to contribute and even if they could, spending more on the teacher than you might on a relative is ridiculous. A hand written thank you card from a child or a token, personal gift is very much appreciated but not expected.

I work in education and used to be a teacher myself - the best presents I ever received were a handmade flower, a shaped eraser and a keyring. They all cost very little but meant a lot - they all referenced personal moments between me and the children and I still have them. The flower and eraser sit on my desk and the keyring holds my keys.

I can’t believe a group of parents willingly accepted paying some random parent £25 in the first place for teacher gifts!!
It definitely wouldn’t happen where I live.

You do know it’s not compulsory to go along with the rest of the mob, don’t you?

For goodness sake OP, you need to grow up and stop being a scaredy cat and afraid of other people’s irrelevant opinions. You’re not a kid at school but a grown up adult. Just tell them thanks for inviting you to join their coven group, but you’re planning to organise your own gifts this year and then leave it at that.

@VioletVesper Sorry, I don’t understand? Why do I take a photo of the receipt for the items I’ve bought with parents’ money? To show that I have been honest and spent the cash on what we all agreed we’d get! I don’t do a written tally of what individuals gave, if that is what you mistakenly assumed.

I buy a card to go with gift which doesn’t get signed by the kids, but just comes from ‘YX parents and children’. No shaming of anyone who doesn’t want to get a group gift or can’t contribute.

As someone who taught for over 25 years, a present or card made by the child or bought/made with real thought would be worth far more to me

You need to get a backbone rather than whinging about it on here

Why are you bothered about upsetting her?

Just challenge her, sorry xxx can you give us a exact breakdown of costs as it doesn’t seem a lot for our money?

I would also go back to the woman you think paid £125 and ask if she did, then say she needs £100 back

Then next year do your own thing, just a card saying thanks or something

We had an Arbonne pusher similarly try and organise a Christmas hamper for a Teacher.
We didn’t contribute and got our own personal gift for said teacher.

Oh that’s awful!

I’d hope that if you did stick your neck out and say something then other parents would back you because you definitely won’t be the only one thinking this is off.

If you aren’t brave enough to say anything this time, then refuse to contribute next time and blame your kids, saying that they have something in mind that they want to give the teacher already.

I would not let this lie. Non.

[quote Oriunda]@VioletVesper Sorry, I don’t understand? Why do I take a photo of the receipt for the items I’ve bought with parents’ money? To show that I have been honest and spent the cash on what we all agreed we’d get! I don’t do a written tally of what individuals gave, if that is what you mistakenly assumed.

I buy a card to go with gift which doesn’t get signed by the kids, but just comes from ‘YX parents and children’. No shaming of anyone who doesn’t want to get a group gift or can’t contribute.[/quote]
I wasn’t querying the receipt thing, but the taking it upon yourself to organise a group gift. As I said, I find it puts pressure/embarrassment on some parents who can’t afford it and can create upset/animosity even if it’s well intentioned. Threads often pop up on here from parents who feel obligated even though they can’t afford it or from organisers canvassing opinions as to whether kids of parents who haven’t contributed to a group gift should be named on the card (which frankly I find mean). It’s just not something I’d ever think to do so I was curious when you said you’ve often organised class gifts.

Again, I wasn’t meaning to be combative & thank you for taking the time to respond.

Nasty greedy little MLM trick, and absolutely standard practice if they can get away with it. The other sleight of hand is asking people to sponsor product to be donated to a charity in “care packs”. The MLM gets its fat profit, the Hun gets their commission and hits targets, the uplines get their cut too. The charity gets the care pack or whatever but gets a fraction of what they could have done if someone had donated cash direct. Who wants to donate to some Utah based pyramid scheme? The MLM gets to look charitable when that’s not the agenda at all.

That fellow parent of your @UpsideDownToast gets commission on each of those sales and gets to improve her volumes which will be rewarded and will please everyone further up the pyramid. It’s a nice little earner even though overall she will be losing money and probably has a back bedroom full of Arbonne her upline has pushed her to buy.

I bet there are others equally pissed off and I would tackle this collectively. I totally lost my shit over an Arbonne parent doing the same for a leaving gift and I seemed to be the only one at the time who was anti-MLM. I just said “I’m not giving you money so you can line your pockets and nobody wants shitty Green-washing MLM products”. I then banged on at length about data gathering on a school site (because she’ll have kept all your personal details in order to invite you to join her at some point or sell to you again). The upshot is I got MLM banned from the school and a missive sent about carrying out commercial activities in the school. In the end I was only unpopular with her.

A couple of years later she popped up again when the Head Teacher’s wife was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, calling around to her house to “offer support” which within 10 minutes was a hard sell of “chemo supporting, all natural, chemical-free (!) products”.

This is the trouble with MLM, the manipulation and control means that people abandon their moral compass in a desperate bid to satisfy uplines and claw back the often massive spend Arbonne encourages them to do to be a “Product of the Product”.

If you're happy to hand over your hard-earned dosh for it to be spent on a pack of 4 cookies costing £27, then more fool you. Jesus Christ.

Why on earth do you care about upsetting her? She doesn't have a care in the world about fleecing the lot of you and having a massive laugh at your expense.

She’s happy to take the piss out of all of you, I wouldn’t give a fuck about upsetting her

Good grief! Our class WhatsApp group got hijacked by a mumtrepreneur last Christmas who hoovered up the present kitty for her fairly ropey looking cupcake "gift baskets" but it wasn't anything like £25 each and you had to admire her chutzpah.

To be honest, I think the group were just happy someone stepped up to do the organising.

It’s cheeky AF, ask her what’s happening to the other £500. Honestly if you don’t make a stand now you’ll get fleeced at every opportunity!
Class collections rarely happened in my kids’ school and when they did it was completely voluntary and £5 each.