AIBU to be baffled a mum had no idea the school fayre was happening?

[xAwaywiththefairiesx]

Today my daughter's primary school had a spring fayre after school on the school field. Ice cream van, face-painting, various stalls with games, the usual. All arranged by the PTA to raise money for the school.
There was a mufti day today, and the children were asked to bring a donation to the school as an exchange for the mufti, something like cakes to sell or a teddy for the tombola or a bottle of wine as a prize or something.
One mum wanders onto the field after school, with both of her kids in mufti, looking around bewildered saying "What's this? Is this a new thing they're doing? Will it be every week?"

And this is so weird to me because the spring fayre has been organised for months. We have lots of emails asking for donations, several more asking for volunteers, we've had at least three leaflets home about it, and she obviously got the memo about mufti, the whole point in which was for the school fayre!

My phone own child has been banging on about it for three weeks.

How can she get so unaware? I'm not judging, honestly, I'm just baffled how it got past her.

Is it just me? Could you miss something like this after all that communication?

No, what I didn't get was that all the correspondence advising it was mufti day also said why it was mufti day. Very clearly. Right there on the same flyers and posters. I just found that baffling and wondered how it had happened. Other people have gave insight into that. And that's cool.

Not sure why people had to be so bitchy and nasty about the PTA.

I think its more a regional thing. I'm in my 40s and have never heard the term mufti until I read it on mumsnet.

Frankly I can see why they have an issue.

Literally none of that attitude is OP's posts. It's totally projection.

I know at some point over the years I will have half read something and didn’t get the full memo.

It is though. Faux ‘Bafflement’ about something that is fairly obvious to most makes it sound like bitterness that people aren’t recognising the efforts of the PTA as being very important.

We will have to agree to disagree on that then. I don't see it at all.

I do accept people have other things going on in their lives. I simply found it weird she saw one part but the rest was totally lost on her, that's all. It was interesting to hear other people's perspective. At no point did I say I didn't accept people's comments.

I intentionally omitted from my OP that I was even in the PTA. I wasn't going to even mention it. I only made it clear I was in attempts to stick up for myself and others when people started saying unnecessarily shitty things about PTAs.

Try to see it from my perspective. We've worked for months on this. I was sitting there with aching feet after running my part of the fayre for two hours, having a quick cuppa before we started the clean up operation which took another two hours. Then I went home and cooked dinner for my family and put my kids to bed.

Next week we will start preparation for the next money raising event.

If that was you, how would you feel after being told we are all doing pointless shit, we're self-righteous hair-flippers that do it all just to feel superior, annoy everyone, and the other nasty things that have been said.

I haven't said anything nasty to you non-PTA members. I haven't made judgements on why you don't get involved. And yet I'm the one with the attitude?!

Why don't you look over some of the things that have been said to me?

I just shared an anecdote about something I heard today that I thought was strange and vaguely amusing and was curious about other people's insights. Sheesh.

OP, you're obviously not obliged to answer but if you were so baffled, why didn't you just ask her?

Always the best way of finding out why your communications aren't working.

Don't you know you're meant to be so busy with a demanding important job that you have no time for anything so basic and menial as helping out at your kids school or making friends with the school gate 'cliques'. Too important and too busy

Because she wasn't talking to me. I overheard her say it to someone else as she passed by. I'm not going to chase after her and scream in her face "ITS THE SPRING FAYRE/FAIR!!! RESPECT THE PTA!!!"

I get it was hard work but it sounds like you are upset that your (collective) efforts weren’t given the status they deserved.

When I was a child I would have wanted to do the non-uniform bit so I would have nagged my parents about it. Many kids like that part. But
i wouldn’t have been bothered
about the fayre so wouldn’t have nagged about that.

This is what I'm wondering. It always seems to be mums who are expected to be across this kind of thing.

Clearly comms are in general working fine if they raised over £1k. One random woman made a bit of a daft comment not having noticed a load of information and thinking it was going to be weekly.

It's not deeper than that.

You should write for Motherland. 😂

Not really an AIBU is it?

No, I am upset at people's nastiness. I don't need my "status" recognised. I have made amazing friends and I have made a difference. That's enough to make being on the PTA worth it for me.
I don't need recognition, I just don't need negativity. It's hurtful.

As I said, this thread was never supposed to be about me being on the PTA. I hadn't even intended to mention it until I felt defensive over what was being said.

Absolutely - don’t people
realise that when you have children, you are expected to
devote 100% of your time to your child and the whims of the school and get your husband’s meal and slippers ready for when he gets home because how dare you have other things to think about 🤣

It was the use of ‘baffled’ that made you sound very judgy, whether it was intentional or not

As for the term "mufti"; I can't quote with authority, but I believe it originated indirectly from India. Roedean was a boarding school for girls (still is, I believe) established back in the days of the British Raj, when children were shipped "home" from the colonies for their education, having spent their early childhood in India, probably partly cared for by an amah, and familiar with words and phrases in the local language.
Roedean had a dress code, but at weekends, uniform rules were relaxed, and the girls "wore their own clothes" although going home was not an option. So it became an informal term which was generally understood, although a bit dated nowadays.
But as PP's have said, it doesn't take much to catch on with unfamiliar terms, and we certainly spent some time explaining terms such as "non-uniform day" (usually a charity fundraiser) and "shirtsleeve order" ( ties and jackets not compulsory in hot weather).

OP, I beg you: please stop calling it a ‘fayre’. It’s such a ridiculous spelling of ‘fair’. Just because a school calls it that (I assume that’s where you got it from) doesn’t mean you have to.

As to organisation of stuff in schools, I would never have been rude or dismissive of the PTA’s and class reps’ efforts. But I ran a mile from all of that. Terrible business.

Multiple people working for months raised £1,000. Couldn't you flip your thinking and all just work a day's paid work and donate that instead? Same financial gain for the school, massively less of your time spent doing it?!
I'm not saying the PTA should be the only ones funding the school, obviously, but when you put a financial value on your time that's actually a far more effective way to do so!

I'm baffled as to why you haven't been awarded an OBE for all the charity work that you don't like to mention.

Prime example of the nastiness directed at OP. None of which she has reciprocated

It was obvious you are on the pta op as you are stereotyping the worst type of pta member those who judge others, feel superior and feel the need to put others down and crow about what they did. You were being nasty about this mum. With no inkling of what’s going on in her life.

id leave the thread and think about your own behaviour. And think through why people are reacting to you as they are.