PTA mum with bad attitude or AITA?

[Mama7]

School festive celebrations today after school being run by the PTA. They were selling hot drinks, sweets and crispy crème donuts with some songs performed by the school choir. Email clearly states that the celebrations start at 3:30 however all donuts (which were billed as the main event) were already sold by the time we got there at 3:25, 5 minutes BEFORE the celebrations were even due to start.
I asked if there were any donuts left and was abruptly told no, my autistic 6 year old started to cry as I’d promised her one (absolutely my mistake there!) I (politely) replied “oh what a shame, the email said it didn’t start until half past, there’s going to be some disappointed children” The PTA woman then went into a rant saying “if you don’t like it maybe you should volunteer for the PTA, source the donuts, collect the donuts, organise the event and it started at 20 past so you should have got here sooner!” I replied that I wasn’t criticising the PTA, just merely pointing out that the children who didn’t manage to get one would be disappointed and the email clearly says it starts at half past. She said NO, maybe it’s the choir that start at half past. I said “I'm not lying, I’d be happy to show you the email?” She then turned to another PTA woman where they were both clearly talking about me.
My bug bear (as well as being spoken to like an idiot) is that people were walking away with huge boxes fitting 12 donuts and other people just had disappointed kids to deal with. Surely there should be a limit to make it fair.?
Im considering writing to the head and asking them to consider having a limit per person next year to avoid this or AITA who should have managed my child and mines expectations better.?

This.

Volunteers fuck up and if you aren't prepared to be part of the solution, at least don't

A) be passive aggressive hy MERELY pointing out anything
B) pulling up an email - whatever the start time, the donuts are gone
C) don't moan to the head about a voluntary group you won't muck in to help.

Of course they won't set a limit because they dont want any left and it's money in the bank.

Tell me you know nothing about autism with telling me you know nothing about autism!

Vibes to all. I can see how it could happen -- I have been involved in organising events where we realised very quickly that due to our lack of experience we'd undercatered and had to send someone out on an emergency speed run to get more supplies (from CostCo).

They're volunteers and won't have done it deliberately so not much point getting angry or complaining.

Instead of being a donut just offer to organise them next year!

Just go to the shop and buy the kid a donut?

I mentioned it once? And yes youre right, which is why i said that was my mistake.

Why? Not everyone can help due to other commitments and if they state a time then they should stick to it.

And this sort of event they should know that the donuts are for the children, not to feed the families back at home

Absolutely fair enough thank you!

I wonder whether the donuts were donated by Krispy Kreme and therefore that is why they had no control over numbers.

She was rather rude but perhaps stressed herself that she may have been explaining this a few times already.

You acknowledge you shouldn't have promised an autistic 6 year old something that was not within your control.

Could you not have swung by Tesco after to buy as many as you wanted?

I wonder how many more things the PTA have been involved in for the last couple of days. Ours used to organise ,buy, wrap and find a willing volunteer for the nursery childrens Father Christmas visit, many helped to set up food for class Christmas parties, organise the after school Carol singing in the playground, buy, collect and decorate ( after finding where the decorations had been stored since last year) about 3 huge Christmas trees, sort out the nativity costumes, and get them washed and put away for next year, decorate the halls and other communal areas , then earlier in the month they would have run the Christmas Fair ( another Santa needed here, plus appropriate gifts to be bought and wrapped) , run most of the stalls and refreshments, counted and accounted for any money raised and tracked down to the bank to deposit it. I think the PTA member was remarkable restrained to be honest.

Not sure why this has gone bold!

I think you were the unreasonable one. It's a shame that it went differently then what they planned but I'm sure it was hard to judge how many to get, when she said they were all gone you it doesn't achieve anything for you to complain about the start time and the email it's just awkward. They are just volunteers doing their best. I think I'd have just taken my child and gone to the donut shop personally.

I did do that afterwards. I think you’re right, thank you for your reply

Why did you need to point out that 'children would be disappointed'? - she would already know that; you were having a dig, and now you want to email and complain about a volunteer and a doughnut. Please don't.

Please don't write to the Head about the mismanagement of a donut stall by some volunteers.

Maybe if you are still desperate to send an email you could send one to the PTA thanking them for all the effort they put in to making your child’s school a better place.

How large is your school? The Krispy Kreme donut charity scheme has a maximum purchase so they can only buy 50 boxes. That's only 600 donuts which isn't too many if some people want a box. When our PTA did it we sold out pretty quickly too. I'm sure most PTA's are like ours and as soon as the volunteers have set up they start selling because it's too big a risk to turn people away and then have a load of wasted cakes/donuts/chocolate bars or whatever we're selling. And the rush at 3:30 would make it madness to wait until then to start selling. We don't have enough volunteers for crowd control

This

You sound very worked up OP

I was stating a fact but can totally see why she and you may have taken it like that and youre right I probably should have just kept my mouth shut. To be clear I wasn’t saying I was going to complain to the head, the PTA genuinely do a wonderful job. It was more
of a could this other way work better and save disappointment. But I see now that if I want to have an opinion on how it’s run I should become a member of the PTA. Thanks for your reply 💜

Sorry OP, you shouldn't have said anything to the frazzled volunteer - that kind of feedback should be saved for after event, what did you expect the volunteer to do about it there and then? I imagine it had been a very hectic few minutes for her. Why don't you volunteer for the donut stand next year and you can implement your suggestions in person.

They are volunteers 🙄🙄🙄. Special place
in hell for those that don’t help then whine to those that do that their voluntary service is not up to scratch

Brings to mind the 2014 BBQ debacle. Our lovely friendship group were in charge of the primary school bbq and the BBQs were quite shit and slow. Ended up with Dh and my lovely friend (both having done a full days work) being shouted at by chavvy parents. Never again. Dh has never volunteered for anything since and still gets pissed off about it!

Look, no-one likes to see their 6 year old disappointed but why were you remonstrating with a volunteer, at a clearly very busy time?

She didn't need it right there and then, and anything you said could've been sent in an email tomorrow.

I suspect you haven’t read my replies. I’m most certainly not desperate to send an email 😂

One of those situations where I would have thought 'balls, that wasn't very well planned was it" but would have said "thanks so much for arranging this event."

They are volunteers, literally anything they do is more than you would have had without them.

That is easy to say with hindsight, but they had no idea how quickly they would get bought and they obviously didn't want to waste money on unsold ones.