Volunteering nightmare

[Oliveoiloli]

AIBU I think I have made a massive mistake. To get my DC into a much sort after childhood activity I volunteered to do some admin for the charity free of charge. My DC loves the club BUT my small bit of admin has turned into me being on call 24/7 basically acting as the offsite caretaker for the charity. I am already working full time and I’m beyond overwhelmed but feel so guilty- they are adamant DC can’t keep his place unless I volunteer but these people are trampling over boundaries. I am happy to do what I signed up for but being constantly contacted is driving me mad. I put an out of office on and now they are calling my personal phone. What do I do? Do I just find a new club for DC?

In my experience, the vast majority of children starting at scouts start after being on the waiting list. Occasionally (probably once or twice a year) a child will start because their parent has agreed to help out in some way (be a leader, or a trustee or similar). I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to do, as without volunteers, no children would be able to attend at all, as there'd be no group with out regular volunteers.

But it's not at all reasonable to shift the goal posts of what's expected from the volunteer after the child starts. Leaders should be very clear what's expected, and then stick to that, unless the parent wants to become more involved.

At our scout group, we wouldn't allow a child to jump the waiting list unless a parent was able to give regular, weekly help. We encourage all parents to help out occasionally, but it's not more than once a term, and wouldn't be enough to allow a child to jump the list.

I’d make myself very, very bad at the job. Have some fun.

You ignore the calls if the child is not at the club

I learned the hard way volunteering for a charity. It takes over your life if you let it.

You have to be assertive. They'll carry on taking the piss if you let them.

I once put a volunteer application for nature organisation for just doing 1h admin per week. Immediately 3 people emailed me with sagas, accusations against each other and a rich woman who didn't have paid work tried to get to know me , asking me for walks when there were still covid restrictions. It was just 1h admin per week.

I absolutely liked the main man but his colleagues just were beyond any normality

That's how charities are
Not very charitable at all

I am employed by a charity and volunteer for a different one. This is very inappropriate

I would imagine it is scouting but not all groups are the same. My eldest goes to one group where they ask very rarely for a helper if one of the leaders is ill. That's it. It's very well run.
I signed the youngest up at Squirrels at another group as ours didn't have one. Was told the list was too big and there would be no chance if him getting in before he aged out unless I volunteered. I agreed to be a helper as it was only 45 mins and barely time to get home and back.
Well, within 2 weeks they had me trained up as an assistant leader planning and running most of the sessions. The other leaders kids had left and they desperately wanted to give it up.
I was clear from the off, 1 year and then we are gone. I was asked if I was enjoying it after the first half term. In a word, no! The kids were feral and everything was so slap dash, last minute. Not how I work at all. I'm a teacher of this age group but my pupils listen to me! I reaffirmed my boundaries and planned. Set number of sessions and stepped back and let the others get on with it.
We moved to my eldest group for beavers and other than an occasional helper. I'm done.

Take yourself off any WhatsApp groups as they are a time suck. Set time aside to sort admin and only do it then. And make an exit plan!

I am very grateful for the advice. It’s fascinating to see how many others have experienced ‘scope creep’. Honestly happy to volunteer a few hours a week - it’s being on call 24/7 that makes me feel panicky. I will absolutely be using a number of these tactics. Thanks all

*fascinating and quite sad to see how many others have experienced scope creep. You can see why volunteers are hard to find :(

If its the scouts then everyone is a volunteer. (Except for those few paid people at " head office") So those that are asking the OP to do more than she agreed to do, are not some paid employee they are volunteers. Most will have full time jobs themselves, children of their own and a commitment to giving other peoples children a fantastic experience.
The movement has a desperate need for more volunteers because it is so popular.

@Pigriver Intresting to hear a teacher describing Squirrels as feral, I got roped into Beavers and I often thought some of them were feral because we the leaders weren't the best, all fairly new with little experience.
I certainly wouldn't touch Squirrels with a barge pole. They seem more calm at Cubs but then our Cubs leaders have skills. They just seem to stand for no nonsense!

Op what are you getting messages about at this time of the year, its summer!

I put an out of office on and now they are calling my personal phone. What do I do?

If it's Scouting or similar, make a new email, use Gmail if your club doesn't have a website/emails already set up for the role, something like Admin@mychildsactivity. Set up an automatic reply saying the email account is checked "once a week" or similar so there may be a delay in a response but you will get back to all enquiries. I'd also include basic information like "you can add your child to the waiting lists here", "the hall booking form can be found here" etc so the main easy questions are immediately answered. Then circulate said email account around all groups stating very clearly that for GDPR reasons you won't be using your personal accounts for charity purposes and that all correspondence should be sent to the new email address. Tell them that is good practice in case of SARs and add that as it's best to have a record of all charity business, requests are to be made via email rather than by phone.

I chair the Trustees for our Scout Group as well as doing other charity work and boundaries are definitely needed.

they are adamant DC can’t keep his place unless I volunteer
That's blackmail OP. ,

YABU by allowing this to continue. Communicate your boundaries and keep to them.

Its Scouts isn't it?

Honestly, it can't keep on the road with out parent volunteers, but see if you can negotiate to a managable level for the same reason. They ned all the help they can get.

Well how else do you stop people playing the system?
If Ops got her kid a place by saying, I'll volunteer, having an extra volunteer could mean theyve opened up an extra 6 spaces, one of which is the Ops kid, they can no longer offer those six spaces so how do they keep within their ratios? Other than roping another parent in, but no parent is going to volunteer for a club they can't get their kid into.

It's not blackmail. The child has jumped over perhaps 20 or 30 other children who are waiting because his mother agreed to a certain task. If she stops then he really should return to his place in the "queue".

I never said I would stop doing the task I agreed to. It’s the additional / surprise tasks that are causing stress.

Yes I agree with you, the extra tasks should not be added on. I was just replying in general to the blackmail accusations which are unfair.

DH is part of scouts as DS joined. No wait list issues, though. It's gone from a bit of assistance to organising activities, fundraising, camps, leaders meetings, etc.

He's also part of a men's group activity & over the years he's taken on more & more. He's talking about leaving because the increasing amount of work dumped on him makes it no longer enjoyable.

People want their DC / themselves to be involved, but don't want to do any work, so those that do, get more pressure on them to help.

So just set boundaries & times you're available, or you'll get snowned under with more & more.

My DH is a scout leader, has been for 10+ years and is group scout leader for a local group. They don’t use the tactics described, but do struggle massively for leaders so I can see how it happens. They struggle with even having people in roles such as treasurer which isn’t massively time consuming. Other groups in the area have folded. To be honest he’s wanted to leave for years but knows that if he leaves the group will more than likely close. No volunteers = no leaders and therefore no group.

once you volunteer and you seem good at what ever it is, then you do get selected more, hence why i built my cv of skills for different roles

Volunteering can definitely be difficult. I've done a number of volunteering roles since giving up work. I usually get in it for social contact, but often end up being told to shut up and do what I'm told, which is a bit miserable. In three of my four organisations there have been crimes committed, or accusations of crimes committed that required police involvement. The latest organisation I've joined has just shut down because of people coming to meetings who were out of control.

The one organisation that I've volunteered in without police involvement was the NHS, where the patients do tend to behave themselves, just because there are really obvious consequences if they behave badly.

I don't know why, but voluntary work is just very fiddly, and a bit like the wild west at times.

I think you probably need to move to a different organisation.

Why don’t you contact them and see if you can resolve this it would probably help them if they don’t understand it’s an issue
it usually helps to get all our resentments written down in advance
you have enabled the situation too by not taking action earlier sometimes we need to speak out promptly to protect our wellbeing