To wonder how to get school parents to volunteer to do anything?

[FishfingerFlinger]

I’m a somewhat reluctant volunteer for the school PTA - only reluctant because I have a full-on job (12hr+ days most of this week) another volunteer role and am frankly frazzled.

Trying to get volunteers to help do small tasks for the school fair and no one will do ANYTHING. Everyone wants the school fair to happen. Everyone moans if it doesn’t happen. But they think the magic fairies make it happen?

Some schools seem to have an abundance of volunteers making elaborate fairs happen. All I’m asking is for someone to man the bat the rat stall for half an hour and I can’t even get that.

What am i doing wrong here?

I work full time, more than happy to help out, have offered and asked about meetings and stuff. Apparently the PTA disappears after 5pm, meetings must take place at 3.30pm, discos for the kids are straight after school and last 45mins.

I don't have enough annual leave to look after my own child for all of the school holidays so I definitely can't use any of it to attend a meeting to discuss what raffle tickets we should get. So I just give them money any time they ask for donations and have ruled out any possibility of actually being able to participate.

Its great that you volunteer, good for you, but why blaiming SAHP not volunteering? Is that because their time is worthless to you? People choose to give up their paid job to be SAHP for various reasons, but that doesnt necessarily include being a volunteer.

Im one of those people you said except I dont drive a SUV. I dont volunteer because most of those activities are organisef for fundraising, not very meaningful. To me if school organised it we will participate to support school, but if no one organises I couldnt care less. If I want my kids to have certain activities for their learning or social experieces like concerts, competitions and funfairs etc, I will pay for it and take them there but I dont want extra job to organise it.

No parent should be obliged to volunteer or feel guilty not to. Maybe those activities are really important to some, but certainly not to everyone.

By the way, reading that back I know I sound totally rubbish, and that feeling of being exposed as being totally rubbish also puts me off

Can one of the older year groups help man the stall? We had year 6s man some of the stalls when there weren't enough parents willing to help and it was great! It was only half an hour at a time so they still got a chance to enjoy the rest of the day

I really feel for the head of the PTA at my DS's school. He works FT but has really thrown himself into the role and can't get enough volunteers for the Summer fayre either. I am a lone parent, DS10 has SEN and could not be left unsupervised or help me on the stall and besides which I have DD3. It sounds like you have done all the right things. I think at ours they have tried to do too many stalls so that a lot of volunteers are required. Message came around today saying that some of the stalls will be cancelled if no one comes forward soon. Some of the year 6s have created and are running their own stalls, is that a possibility?

I don’t volunteer for things like the school fair because of medical issues. I look for things I can volunteer for to help out as I am able, but most of the tasks need people who aren’t like me. My issues are hidden so people don’t realize just from seeing me in passing how restricted my life really is so probably think I am just shirking my duty as a volunteer.

im always happy to donate money. In fact, if the point of the fair is to raise money, I would be quietly wondering why you are having it in the first place. I would rather give cash and skip the inefficiency.

If the point is a fun activity for the children, then I would look for activities that are not so heavily dependent on large numbers of volunteers.

@tuitui I think you've mistaken me for someone else. I didn't say a word about SAHPs

Ran a pta but called it friends of ??school so insurance would let grandparents 6th forms help. Grandparents got free refreshments and 6th formers get a reference. Alternatively can the year 6 kids not help.

When my sons were at secondary school ( the same school I went to) the PTA decided to do a summer fair. They asked for volunteers to set up everything on the Friday afternoon ready for Saturday. I worked a half day Friday ( was a Primary school teacher) so I put my name down. They asked us to arrive for 12.30. There were about 20 of us ( lots of us were children at the school and now parents of the children so no awkwardness of not knowing anyone). When we arrived we knocked on the staff room door. We were told they were all having lunch and would be out later and to wait outside. Fuck me it was like being 11 again. There was no list of jobs we could have just got on with. No equipment. We were supposed to be setting up stalls thst were proper market type stalls. No one knew where the key was to get them out. It was a total shit storm of pointless , inefficient faffing about.. I did my bit but I didn't bother to volunteer again.

I volunteer at one of my DC's hobbies as I know the organisers and know what I'm doing, but the thought of volunteering at the school fair terrifies me. I don't know anyone and would feel so out of my depth. I'm not even in the WhatsApp group.

The 'minding my children' excuse is a cop out for most, especially if it is only 30minutes being asked of you.

Simply put, the children stay with you and help at the stall.
For very young ones, bring a bit of colouring or something.

I think a lot of parents just don’t feel able to on top of their other commitments.

single parents, parents who work away, commutes, younger children etc etc.

between work, DH working away, a toddler as well as school age DD…. it just feels too much most of the time.

I’ve managed a few things - sorting donations for raffle, chaperoning the disco. But say no 3/4 times.

DD’s school sends out a form where you can put your name down for slots for each task, each one is half an hour. It can be anyone, any carer or family member, grandparents etc.
I am not a natural joining-in type person, I do find school events awkward (it’s me not them) but the fact it was half an hour, well, I’m a big baby I know but even I can’t get claim half an hour is more than I can cope with😜(in the end DH and I both did an hour each on a stall, there was a volunteer shortage). Probably wouldn’t have just put my name in for someone to assign me a job in case it was a ‘scary’ one with a lot of responsibility. Also the guilt got me when they said it wouldn’t go ahead otherwise so probably go hard on that!

Volunteers generally are massively down so don’t take it personally.
I’d be blunt. We don’t have enough volunteers to run fayre. If anyone can help for 30 mins please sign up by Fri - everyone welcome dads, grannys, teen siblings. If no volunteers we will cancel.
We reached this point in Rainbows and Brownies. Had to be blunt - as there are ratios if we don’t get x helpers activity will be cancelled.

I know - I remember doing it with 2 year old and 4 year old. The 4 year old "helped" and the 2 year old sat in a buggy with a my phone for half an hour to keep him our of mischief

This.

place it on the shoulders of those responsible - so they can't complain about if it doesn't happen

My DC primary school used to allocate 1 stall per class. The reception class always used to get the toy stall which was a complete baptism of fire. I think we had either 1 hour or half hour slots, and I'd say the same maybe 12 parents used to do it each year. (All mums )

“St Rival School where my friends children go had donkey rides and a magician at their summer fair. It was marvellous….wouldn’t it be great if our school did something like that” 🙄🙄🙄

Haha exactly this!

at our school some of the games stalls are run by YR6's who love the responsibility. we then encourage the younger years to get their parents to man a kid/parent stall.

I think the fair is fun for kids and I volunteer for that reason. What worked at ours was saying there would be 2 people per stall so people can have a chat or take it in turns a bit to go round with DC. The main thing is to make it friendly and welcoming though especially for people who might not know it all works. I once volunteered at NCT and the organiser was such a queen bee I said never again.

Out of interest are these things you're asking parents to attend, after 5pm?

If not, chances are any working parent wouldn't be able to attend. They will likely already be saving annual leave to cover holidays and even if not, anyone with multiple children would have no annual leave left if they kept having to use it for this (the average employee gets 25 days to cover a full year).

Although these things all sound great in paper and most parents would love to be able to join their kids for reading at school, or volunteer for events; it's just not realistic in a time where people have to work!

I appreciate it’s frustrating and you’re busy but manage the time but not everyone had the capacity. I technically work part time but I’m doing about 3 different qualifications, juggling two small kids, a high stress job and just don’t have the capacity for anything else. I have no energy to exercise, I use up every ounce of motivation every day as it is. Countering sadly is a ‘nice to do’ and if it’ll tip you’re already 20 spinning plates into chaos people will say no.
That said I wouldn’t be annoyed if a school fair was cancelled due to volunteers as I’d assume everyone was in a similar position to me.

*volunteering not countering, sorry

What worked at our primary PTA was having jobs - and at events time slots - to sign up via an app. Might have been called signup (?). It encouraged me to volunteer anyway. I think if it looks like an open-ended job which might take over your life you tend not to. But when it’s an hour - and you can see how the school benefits (flagged up in school newsletter?) then it seems less daunting.

So people are bullied in to helping out? Absolutely no way I'd waste my A/L to help out at a school fayre. That's awful that people are made to feel so guilty for daring to work and have children.