To think she shouldn't have given it all to charity shops?

[bubbleymummy]

We were asked to bring in items to sell at a car boot sale to raise money for our mother and toddler group. Everyone was really generous and brought in loads to give to the group organiser. The next week we were told that she had raised £50 for the group from the sale and the remaining items were given to a charity shop.

I was a bit annoyed by this because 1) I think that much more money could have been raised for the group considering how many items were donated (we're talking about boxes and bags full from about 15-20 people here). I know that the items I donated alone could have raised £50-100 and other people donated much more. It must have been a pretty useless car boot sale!

2. I think she should have asked before just giving stuff away. I would have rather taken stuff back and tried to sell it myself to raise money for the group.

So aibu?

It's not unusual to make so little from a car boot sale, but if I were taking donations off other people for a car boot, I'd do way more than one before giving the leftover stuff away.

That's what I thought! There's a brilliant car boot sale near us that is packed every week and I would have happily taken stuff along to it for a few weeks to raise money. It just seemed such a waste - not to give it to charity but that we could have raised so much more for the group.

YABU - you gave it to her, you can't specify what happens to it.

She did what she thought was best - let it go

can't blame her for not wanting to do more than one herself, but agree, she should have asked if someone else wanted to do one before she gave the stuff away, so maybe if there is another time, you know to volunteer... On the up side, your toddler group is now £50 better of

Did you offer to go along to the original car boot sale, or at the outset say that you would be happy to bring any remains to another car boot sale ?

Whilst I can understand why you are upset that profits were not maximised then I still thnk YABU. It is easy enough to criticize what someone else has done, but to call it useless when this lady has given up a large part of her weekend to raise money for the toddler group when presumably she has at least one young child of her own strikes me as being somewhat churlish. To then expect her to spend further personal time trying to sell the remnants to whom door to door maybe, just seems odd.

I was foolish enough to be the coordinator for a mother and toddler group for a very short period of time and quite frankly got fed up pretty quickly about the number of mums who were happy to criticize and carp but less forthcoming when volunteers were required or something needed doing.

So next time why don't you organise the car boot sale or fund raising effort.

Hi rookie. There were actually volunteers to go to the bootsale with her. Unfortunately I was at a wedding on the day so I couldnt help but I did offer to go the following week thinking that she was going to the big one that's on every week. It turned out she was just going to a small one-off local one. She had already taken stuff to the charity shop by the next meeting so I couldn't take any to the big boot sale myself.

I probably wouldn't think anything of it if it was just a few items but it was just so much stuff! People were really generous because they thought it was raising money for the group so it just seems so wrong to not even ask the group what to do or accept my offer to go the next week. Even if we'd listed some of the stuff on eBay we could have raised more. It's really demotivated me because technically we're still fundraising but we've given loads of potential funds away!

I'm guessing she thought that doing the car boot sale was a WONDERFUL idea and then she found out how much work it was...

Some peop[le are almost professional car booters (I run our NCT NNS and help out at the playgroup jumble sale and see the same people doing the rounds - none of whom have kids but deal in childrens stuff at these).....some people aren't

However she should have gone back to everyone and said "look, I have all this stuff in my garage and I'm not doing the car boot sale again - does anyone else want a try" - however maybe she had nowhere to store it and had to offload it at the charity shop on the way home

YANBU - she definitely should have asked you if you were still up for going the following week - the stuff was not 'given to her' it was given to the P&T Group to raise funds. Her arbitrarily deciding to donate it to charity is not on.

I agree with rookie and Bathsheba.

I can see why you were a bit annoyed, but the stuff finally went to a good cause, was not just dumped.

Oh, and she probably thought she was saving you the effort of having to worry about the stuff again.

I think you are right in a way because you gave her the stuff under the agreement it was to raise money for the group. However, it sounds like her intentions were for the best and perhaps she didnt have any where to store what was left or there wasn't enough left to bother with. To be fair she has clearly put herself out for a relatively small amount of money.