Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

...to be hacked off over how I've been conscripted to helping with an event at the church?

37 replies

MsHighwater · 31/01/2008 14:00

On Sunday, I was handed some sheets of paper in the crush to leave the building after the service. When I got home and read them, one was a letter dated last November asking for volunteers to help out with serving refreshments after a number of events taking place during 2008. This letter was headed "Dear girls,". The other pages were a letter dated this month explaining that the writer has drawn up a rota of helpers for the 3 dates and giving instructions about attending. The instructions included "If you can't manage your date, please arrange for someone else to do it" and "Please bring a packet of biscuits". The 3rd page was a rota with my name included on one of the 3 dates.

Now, I have no objections whatsoever to helping and would gladly have volunteered to do so if I'd received the November letter in November. But I think it's a bit bloody cheeky to put me on a rota without first having given me the chance to volunteer (and perhaps to ask for a particular date) especially when we're expected to arrange our own cover if we can't make the date we've been given and when we're expected to provide the biscuits as well!

To add insult, it's clear that only women have been asked to help. Apparently the men in our church can't be trusted with hot water! My feminist hackles are up.

I can manage the date and can afford the biscuits so I'll go along and help as requested. Should I mention my feelings about the way it was handled to the woman who organised it? What should I say?

OP posts:
EffiePerine · 31/01/2008 14:01

'Dear girls'????

I would object on that count alone

could you ask sweetly why men don't have the 'opportunity' of volunteering or is there a H&S issue with them working the kettle?

WriggleJiggle · 31/01/2008 14:03

If that happened to me, I'd deliberately not be able to make it. Or maybe I'd not be able to make it, and send dh instead

Original poster
MsHighwater · 31/01/2008 14:05

I think I will certainly raise the gender issue if no other. It's how to get across my annoyance about the whole thing without screwing it up. I like the woman who's organising things and don't want to fall out with her. I'm not very assertive about such things - at least not when I have to raise the matter.

OP posts:
cat64 · 31/01/2008 14:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

AMumInScotland · 31/01/2008 15:15

I would ask the writer how your name ended up on the rota when you didn't volunteer, and explain that in future you don't want anyone assuming that you are available. Up to you whether you do it this time or not, but I'd make sure it's not going to happen again.

jeremyspants · 31/01/2008 15:26

It is not as if the Church is strapped for cash either! Am fuming at the "Dear Girls' bit and the bring your own biscuits.
No. This smacks of taking a complete loan and a presumption that you will do the 'lovely Debbie McGee' thing.
Our minister never helped but had a posse running about after him. Get your minister to do his/her bit.
Oh, and BE ASSERTIVE yet raiseth not voice nor temperature.

Porpoise · 31/01/2008 15:29

Maybe the rota was devised by one of the church's little old ladies, who really has no idea how times have moved on?

Porpoise · 31/01/2008 15:29

Oh, and do remember that, if you complain, they may well ask YOU to do the rota next time!

larry5 · 31/01/2008 16:03

At our previous church there was a rota to prepare communion but what annoyed me was that if it was a female elder whose turn it was their name was listed but if it was a male elder they would put his wife down to do it instead! I complained because although I didn't mind preparing communion I did think that 1) men were perfectly capable of doing it and 2) even if they weren't they should have asked me first. The men now take their turn .

nametaken · 31/01/2008 16:08

What a blooming cheek - I'd be annoyed too

ibelieveindreaming · 31/01/2008 16:45

I'd be really angry, ask the organiser how your name ended up on the list as you didn't volunteer.

CaptainCod · 31/01/2008 16:47

adn dear girls yes

CaptainCod · 31/01/2008 16:47

re. women i was once really cross in town as the army " couldnt gurantee the safety" of female officers going to put a weekend only tag on a soldier in his barracks

CaptainCod · 31/01/2008 16:48

in town?
in court

marina · 31/01/2008 16:52

I think larry may be on to something...do you have a dp MsHighwater? Did he dob you in?
In our church there is a tendency, divided equally between genders I have to say, to assume that married couples are one flesh (cannot think where they got that from ) and that either half can give approval for rotas etc
I would say something about being press-ganged, asking her to clarify when she consulted you about this.
I would check if the men are doing furniture shifting (yes, I know) before getting really het up about the all-female refreshment team. But yes, I would find that assumption really annoying too. But I'd sooner fiddle with biscuits than trot up and down with pews and mike stands

Original poster
MsHighwater · 31/01/2008 17:14

If it were a "little old lady", I'd be no happier but would probably not be as shocked as I am. The woman who wrote the letter and, I guess, made up the rota is, I guess, younger than me!

I'm puzzled about what identifiable group the names on the rota represent. The only other church "thing" I belong to is the Creche rota but this woman is not the creche organiser and, anyway, the group is NOT just creche mums. Dh is not responsible, bless him. He'd be just as likely to volunteer, if asked, as I am.

I'm going to have to find some way of raising it with her because I just can't let it pass without comment - on all the problems I have with it. I might have been more understanding if she had had difficulty finding me since November but I've been there practically every Sunday since I joined the church over 3 years ago and certainly since November. And she has my address and phone numbers, too so she really had no excuse for not asking me.

I don't want to refuse to do it because I would have volunteered given the chance.

OP posts:
Sarahjct · 31/01/2008 18:31

Just to redress the 'men can't be trusted with hot water' thing, my brother volunteered to co-ordinate the after mass teas and coffees a couple of years back. He thought it would be a case of organising a rota and doing a week himself every so often. He's been doing it single handed ever since. Not one bugger volunteered. Avoid church rotas like the plague!

TheFallenMadonna · 31/01/2008 18:34

If it were me I'd get DH to volunteer in my place.

In fact, my DH is the only man on our creche rota...

cat64 · 31/01/2008 19:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Original poster
MsHighwater · 31/01/2008 21:10

cat64, no, I don't think so. We're not close friends or anything but she does know who I am.

OP posts:
cat64 · 31/01/2008 22:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Clarinet60 · 01/02/2008 09:34

I would just ignore it and not turn up, because it's an extremely presumptuous cheek, IMO.

A similar thing happened at my church (which we hardly ever go to) in that it was assumed that I would distribute and collect all the Chrstian Aid envelopes on our street. I got DH to distribute them, then phoned the organiser and said I was unwilling to collect the money and someone else would have to do it. It was really hard for them to have to organise that and made them think twice about making such assumptions in future.

Don't give in - drop them in it!

sausageroll · 01/02/2008 10:13

Would this be, like a christian church? Don't Christian's help others, turn the other cheek etc. or do you just go to church to get your DCs into a nice school?

Presumably they're only asking you to buy a packet of biscuits, not be crucified to save the whole of personkind!

SueBaroo · 01/02/2008 10:39

lol @ sausageroll A wee bit confrontational, but I agree with the main point. 'Tis a church. A Christian family. Yes, you may well be understandably ticked off, but you mention it could have been handled better, maybe, and then you let it go.

It's a refreshment rota, asking for the princely sum of a pack of custard creams and the understanding that you don't have to, just could you ask someone else to take your place.

I am completely missing why this is a problem.

hermionegrangerat34 · 01/02/2008 10:57

I would mention the gender thing definitely.]

I suspect they put down people's names and asked them to find their own replacements because trying to get x number of people to give you dates is VERY hard! and its often much easier for people to swop amongst themselves than to ask a co-ordinator to arrange it all. However, they should definitely have asked you if you wanted to be on the rota at all.

I can see why you're annoyed. My ds1's beaver troop handed me a letter last term with my name down as the 'parent helper' on a random day - I couldn't possibly do it as I work that evening, and for the same reason couldn't swop. But in fact I didn't even read teh bit of paper so only found out after the date had passed...

But if you would have volunteered anyway if asked, I'd probably not make a big fuss but focus on the gender issue which is NOT ON!