To think no good deed goes unpunished

[caffelattetogo]

Please tell me if IABU...

I was asked to run a fundraiser for a group my DC attends. It's a class to teach something I do professionally, and I have done for many years. All good, until it came to setting the ticket price - the treasurer looked on my website and saw how much I usually charge for a session. But this is in a village hall, not the venues I'd usually use, which cost much more to hire. I'd thought we could charge less than I usually do, as the experience won't be the same.
But maybe I was wrong: Tickets went on sale and have sold out.
I said I'd buy the materials and invoice them. No need, says the treasurer, and asks me to send her a list.
The session is on Saturday and the ingredients have arrived - with loads missing and much cheaper quality than I'd usually use. There's no way the food we are making will look or taste the same. I rang tonight and she isn't budging - says my list was too expensive and would eat up their profits. In total, the ingredients I wanted were about 25% of the ticket price. I'm giving my time and equipment for free.
Any other circumstances and I'd walk away, but I feel bad for the people who have bought tickets.
What should I do?

Are you doing this as a fundraiser or to make a profit?

OP there's no way in hell you can replace butter with margarine and get the same taste. And squirty cream is miles from clotted. You were right to stand your ground. Wish I had some scones now....

They have sold the tickets using your name. They have dis -respected your professionalism (which sold the tickets) so I would release a public statement prior to the event to let people know you are no longer associated with it, but wish them well.

Beyond unreasonable

Pull out but maybe you need to publicly nicely clarify the situation (that you were donating your time etc for free, making no profit from it, and they were charging same ticket price but grossly undercutting on ingredients) as they might imply to group members you left them high and dry out of greed when they were the greedy ones

Ok I know this isn’t a who has the bigger dick contest but genuinely, I can’t see anyone getting that kind of demonstration for just £20-30 – that’s hardly in the realm of silly money (but then I live in London where fresh ingredients go to die and people would probably pay £100 to gaze at a blank wall so that might be it).

But more to the point, where did you get £10 worth of ingredients from? A large corporation might save / siphon off tens of thousands by switching from butter to margarine, etc. Even if the organiser of OP’s event have only saved £5 difference per head, 20 participants still means £100 increased profit margin for them.

The OP already said she was doing it for free as asked to do workshop as a fundraiser and was providing the homemade jam as another contribution, the committee chose to charge attendees her usual workshop rates (that allow
for her overheads, hiring a suitable venue and all ingredients) but with only the baking ingredients as an outlay - they were doing the workshop at premises they own plus she wasn’t charging for her time! She offered to source her own ingredients and invoice them, which would have cost approx 25% of the ticket sales but their treasurer declined and requested a complete ingredients list that they would buy, but only spent 60% of what her ingredients would have cost not only buy buying inferior ingredients but also buying less than the requested quantities supposedly to ‘avoid waste’ - but you’d think someone who does this as a business would know, to the oz/g, how much ingredients she would need to produce a workshop for 25 (or however many) people plus her demonstration quantity therefore would have requested the correct amounts!!

Any muttering about how the evening went op?

Assume the organisers will say it went absolutely swimmingly and they will be putting on another in future because it went sooooooo well

As someone who also bakes, I absolutely agree that the correct ingredients absolutely affect all areas of the finished product. From looks to taste & quality.

If the workshops are your business, you have every right to protect your reputation.

If you were 'just' a parent offering to help out then they might be reasonable but in these specific circumstances - you are.

I once got squirty cream on a cream tea at a cafe and was appalled. Gross.

I bake and am not snobby about ingredients but they need to be appropriate to the dish. E.g. when making sponge cake I will happily use margarine for the batter as it makes the cake lighter but ALWAYS butter for the buttercream icing. Similarly I would always use butter for scones or sweet pastry as marg would be awful.

Yanbu at all op

Thoughts and prayers . . .

No, but good cooks use good ingredients.

I would not be happy if I had paid to attend this event and it was ruined by inferior product, I would prefer to be cancelled

I do the same, I don't claim back anything that I buy for PTA events. Nor do I claim back anything that I buy for Rainbows. I see it as charity contributions. Just don't ever tell my husband!

I think it would be very expensive to do that if ingredients cost 25% of ticket price. It was not just a demo, it was a hands on event where they take the product home so OP would need to buy enough for every attendee.

@caffelattetogo can you please come back and let us know if you get feeding on how the event goes?

Yes, I'm very curious, as well. Did the organizers ever apologize?

Never mind organisers apologising!

Did enraged ticket-holders set fire to the venue and run the organisers out of the county?

<hopeful>

Apologies, just I've spotted this. I've only heard their side of events, which was that it was marvellous (reported to a friend of mine, complete silence to me). I'm trying to find out what any of the participants thought, but no luck so far. I'll keep trying.

I've been so curious! Thank you. Please keep us posted...