to think this fundraising idea is batshit?

[PlasticTatNemesis]

The school my child goes to has a fabulous summer fair, and much respect to the PTA who organise it each year. In the run up to it we get asked to donate a bottle for mufti one week, chocolate for mufti another, soft toy for mufti another (the mental load associated with this could be a whole other thread...)

This year there is a new request: money in an envelope for mufti, minimum 50p. The envelopes will then be used for a stall where you pay 50p to buy an envelope, not knowing what is inside, with the idea you might win more than 50p.

Another mum on the (notorious) WhatsApp group tried to clarify this as they didn't understand how this worked as a school fundraiser, as if you all put 50p into the envelopes and the summer fair charges 50p for each, the school makes 50p for each 50p donated. If you put £50 into your envelope, the school makes 50p for the £50 donated, so essentially £49.50 of your money is a donation to another parent instead of the school. It has been clarified that this is indeed how it works, but the hope is the person who won more would spend their winnings on other summer fair stalls.

AIBU in thinking this is batshit? Some parents who had initially thought the money in envelopes were for donations to the school rather than a crazy stall where you are guaranteed to get at least as much money as you paid back are somewhat cross as they would not have donated money to such a ridiculous scheme.

(for the avoidance of doubt, there are no empty envelopes as apparently else this would fall foul of gambling rules, so it is literally a stall to get the same amount of hard cash or more for the money you pay. My mind is boggling.)

Putting a chocolate coin in half of them would be a great idea.

@Blondey2023

i live in the SE, I'm 54, mufti is not a new term for non uniform/home clothes

I’ve never heard of mufti before either, thought OPs autocorrect had gone wild until I read the replies.

It's army slang, but was originally an Arabic word. Arabic. Doesn't that terrify you?

We had similar to this at my child's primary. It was for the Christmas fair that only children attended. You had an envelope to decorate and then you put a small item/items in side as well as a small amount of money if you wanted to. It was the most popular stall at the fair along with the fill a jar one.

Why would that terrify you. A lot of army slang is from Arabic or Urdu as are a lot of words we commonly use like bungalow and pyjamas.

@CaptainMyCaptain

It doesn't terrify me. I love that our language uses words like this. I was responding to the bewildering pearl clutching at the use of the word, and the worry that it might be from another language. Incidentally, neither pyjama or bungalow are Arabic or Urdu.

@CaptainMyCaptain Pyjamas is Urdu and Hindi - my mistake.

From Malaysia I believe. I didn't want to derail the thread with a lecture on etymology.

@CaptainMyCaptain

Yes, sorry for derailing. Etymology is more interesting than batshit ideas for fundraising though.

I think it's bungalow that might be Malaysian there are definitely some words that are. Anyway, not the point of the thread so I will desist.

Indeed.

I’m in the south and all the schools my kids have attended say mufti day.

I don't really see a problem with this.

It's not really that dissimilar to donating a £50 bottle of whisky. Some lucky bugger is still going to win it for their £1 ticket for the tombola, wheras plenty of other people will win a £1 bath bomb.

No one throws their arms up in horror at the £49 worth of whisky that was 'donated to another parent rather than the school'.

Eh? Terrify 🤔

Most people aren’t buying £50 whisky to donate, are they? Donations are often “this bottle of whisky I was given through work but don’t drink so I’ll donate it”. Unwanted gifts, work freebies, decluttering. Zero cost to the giver. Whereas cash comes directly out of the family budget.

I didn't see any comments with 'worry', how bizarre that you think that. You don't know anyone's heritage yet assume a new word terrifies us from being from another language. Very strange

Ahh but see the bath bombs will cost less than a £1 to buy (and the whiskey will likely be donated). That's how it works. Most prizes are worth less than the the entry fee and then there are one or two that are much more valuable. You make a profit from the entry fees.

In the OP's model the lowest prize is 50p and it costs 50p to enter. They can only ever break even or make a loss. It's impossible to make a profit with this method and therefore not an effective fundraising strategy.

I went to school in another country and never ever had a school milking the parents- the state is responsible for fixing,renovating the schools and providing materials for children. How do the parents put up with this nonsense and not question where do your taxes actually go that the school is begging parents for some more pounds. The UKs education system is in such a bad state, most schools havent been modernized since they were built in the 60s,70s etc are so run down and depressing, if people saw the schools in the scandinavia or baltics etc,even a small village schoolfor 10ish pupils in my hometown is modernized bright and nice and clean vs what my local schools with 1000 times bigger population are in the uk.

and whats with encouraging kids to get into gambling under the pretense of being generous and helpful- how irresponsible

As for the uniforms..its wear whatever you are comfortable and like day every day where i came from, dont understand the british obsession with communistic uniforms which look like funeral outfits

It seems like a rather pointless exercise tbh.

Donations to the school would be much more sensible.

Put in this context, I guess I should be grateful - it is indeed preferable to the usual spent £3 on ingredients +2 hrs time and the resulting cakes be sold for a grand total of £2.

@StayAnonn the difference is you don't win a prize every time on the tombola, so conceivably a person could spend lots of money trying (and failing!) to win the whiskey, and if someone came and brought all the tombola tickets they would (a) still likely have prizes worth less than what they spent and (b) they could not instantly usse the prizes to buy whatever they wanted, they would have to sell them to others for cash.

With this envelope set up, if I turned up at the beginning and brought all the envelopes I'd be guaranteed to make a cold hard cash profit. It would make more sense as a fundraiser for the school headteacher to turn up at the beginning of the fair and do this...

Also love that mufti has caused such confusion - the school is in the south of England, and growing up the same term was used in schools I attended in both England and Scotland, so I had no idea it was not a widely known word.

But the Scandinavian countries pay much much more in income tax. Since the 1980s we have continually voted for parties which promote lower tax. Even the current Labour opposition are moaning about the tax burden.

The lib dems came up with the policy of adding 1p to income tax to fund the nhs...they were whitewashed at the next election.

I'm a Tory but expect to pay more tax in the future because we simply cannot afford to pay for all the services we require. Mind you a complete overhaul of the tax system so huge companies like Amazon etc. Can't about paying is long overdue

I think she was worried it was a disgusting NORTHERN word 🤮