Can you please explain to me why you would choose not to help at a PTA event?

[Hassled]

A genuine question, although I have to admit to being a tad exasperated at the moment. I feel I'm missing a point somewhere, but I'm not sure what.

Let's say that there was a big PTA fundraising event (BBQ) coming up. The PTA have sent out newsletters etc making it clear that they want to raise funds to improve the school playground and to replace existing sports strips. You plan to attend with your DP, you're not in any way unwell and don't have a baby in tow. Why would you not volunteer to run a stall for half an hour? If you were specifically asked if you could help, why would you say no?

All I can come up with is a) you value the rare time you have as a family too much to want to interrupt the evening by one parent being elsewhere for half an hour or b) you haven't really grasped the reason PTA events take place (i.e. the improved playground) and dismiss the events as not really your concern. Both of which are valid, I guess, but I really want to know what else goes on in people's minds in these cicumstances. Have I just turned into too much of a PTA harpy?

I don t have child care so happy to go and spend money. would be hesitant to get more involved because of the large element of ' glory hunting martyrs' that inhabit our PTA. Have suggested many good ideas as have others. but the idea that really take off are generally suggestion for the old school members where as new members ideas tend to be relegated to the ' you have no idea sit back and listen to the experts' bin. suggestions such as a christmas door knock that would involve 100 ( almost half the parents at the school) volunteers knocking on doors for money at nightin the middle of winter have been suggested by the hardened core.

Funnily enough i am currently organising our end of term BBQ for Thursday.
I have virtually pleaded and begged parents to help out and that hasnt worked

DS is not at school yet, and when he is I might well volunteer to help with stuff that's actually fun for the DC. But the 'social' events for parents really are only for clipboard wankers. Other people have got social lives, and the vast majority really aren't into all this home-made bunting, fancy dress theme nights and Good Clean Fun anyway.

But for some people the PTA is part of their social lives, in that some of the PTA people are their mates. Nothing wrong with that is there? If they can combine their social lives with making some money for the school, I don't see why anyone else should get their panties in a bunch about it. (Rudeness and deliberate exclusion are another matter of course.)

I was interested in Swedes's post:

'The PTA needs to decide on its purpose/mission. Is it about raising funds or is it about something else entirely? If its mission is fundraising and I was a time and motion management consultant, I would have no alternative but to close down every PTA I've ever come across.'

Now I completely agree that as fundraising machines PTAs are loooodicrously inefficient, but what's the alternative (given that the PTA is entirely free)? Would you really suggest hiring a professional fundraising outfit? Do you think it would have the same goodwill? (Maybe it would, I dunno.)

I have often thought that our PTA could be simply replaced by a letter to parents every half term or so saying 'Please give us £25', but of course only about 25 per cent of parents would stump up.

I've read till page 4 of this and then had my will to live sucked out of me. I can see both points of view.

View A: You work/are busy/have other comittments/feel the gvt should fund things/PTA members can be a pain in the arse - particularly a bunch of women who don't work and use the PTA as their new mission in life. So quite frankly, no thank you.

View B: Without PTA funds won't be raised. Funds are needed to improve things for your children. Why should a handful of people have to do it all? There are too many people who can't be arsed.

I run my own business. I am busy. But I am on the pre-school committee - haven't got to big school yet. I donate my time by helping the committee do it's website, PR and marketing because that's what I do for a living. I also bake cakes for every event and man stalls when I can.

Why do I do it?
a) because someone has to and if everyone adopted the attitude of 'can't, too busy' then the pre-school would close. And then I'd have no childcare and I'd be up shit street.

b) I love the fact for the first time in my life, I feel as though I get the bigger picture. It's not all about me and my work and my needs. There are other community related things that need to be done.

c) It was a good way for me to meet people and make new friends. Believe me, they weren't friendly or open at first. To the contrary. Committee meetings were like something out of a horror film. I couldn't believe that a bunch of women would meet during a week night and not have any kind of friendly chat. It was just Mission Impossible. Must tick off the agenda. So I invited them all to my house for a non-committee meeting so that we could actually find out a bit about each other. And they came. And we had fun. And now it actually does feel like a girls night out when we meet - except that we have to discuss fetes and sports day.

And I also do my utmost to be nice to anyone new so that they don't feel excluded.

It's not that hard people. And it's not the end of the world if you can or you can't. Just be nice and friendly and help when you can.

Okay, I feel we've explored the alternatives and identified the only rational solution

MEANS-TESTED PITAS.

You pay £250 an academic year - you never have to talk to any PITA members, attend any godforsaken barbecues and dinner dancces. Quizzes too. In fact, pay £250 and you buy a get out of jail free card.
You pay £100 an academic year - you do both the summer and the winter Fayres. (Ha ha and you don't get to pick the stall either)
You pay £nothing a year - you have to go into school for two hours a week to support the reading skills of other people's children. And you have to go to both Fayres. And you have to go to barbecues and dinner dances. And you have to kiss the headmistress.

Does this seem fair?

Our schol collects money from every parent at the star of each term for the PTA. We pay £5.00 per term. But we still do a number of events like a bonfire night or raffles at the Christmas shows.

Like most of the PTA's its the same parents who do it time and again and get moaned at. I do involve my kids when I can in it ie I sold glow sticks at the bonfire night and my son helped me....he is only 6. For him it was exciting and I didn't need a babysitter.

We don't aim to make money but cover our costs and invlve the school where we can. We got the local dept store to do a make up evening which the 6th formers etc went to, did a quiz night whihc we got the senior school kids to run and tried to do a summer fete which we had a lot of people talk about but no volunteers to organise. Imagine how we got moaned at when we cancelled it.

For me the PTA is a great way to find out about the school and feedback to the head what the parents think. He supports us and we give something back

PML Quattro! Brilliant solution

katie - yes they do!

Be realistic though and dont do looooong films as the rooms can get hot and little ones do get restless.

We get the teachers to bring them to the room having dropped off coats and bags in the hall and give them a drink.

Half way through we do an interval and they can nip to the toilet, have another drink and grab a pint pot (pint plastic cup from Macro) of popcorn. Morrisons are the cheapest!

PTA take cups home to wash so we use them next time. We now have it down to a fine art!

I would if when we get there I have the time. However the same old Q - why should you have to raise funds to run a school. Have you looked at how much your household paid in tax and NI last year?

I help out in other ways - ie. in the classroom - I can;t give up all my free time for school.

Besdies or PTA is very well organisded by a group of people, who do not tend to request help outside their ou circle of friends.

Trouble with asking for donations at the beginning of the year is that so few people would actually pay it that you would still end up needing all the other fund-raising to make up the 'shortfall'. Last year we asked parents for donations towards new books for library.Of the very few people who donated only one was not a PTA member or regular helper. So much for the 'I'd much rather just write a cheque' approach. A number of us want to step down next term but are worried that if we do no-one else will come forward. I think we should just do it and then if there are too few left then they should announce there will be no Christmas Fair, Summer Fair etc and wait and see what people say.

PW: if the PTA wants to do adult social evenings for the benefit of PTA members who have no lives, then good luck to them, but they really shouldn't whine if other people don't want to attend grim enforced jollity sprees.

Last time I manned a lucky dip the kids kept putting back what they had taken because they didn't like it and trying again, and again, and again. Parents standing beside them smiled indulgently and one came back with his child later because she had "changed her mind". I now bake cakes and donate stuff but will never help again.

That's something else I don't understand. There are a lot of people on here who seem to have the attitude that socializing with other parents from your child's school is somehow "substandard" socializing, and that people with "real" social lives don't want to do it. The parents at school are the same people that you meet at work, or in the pub or at lap dancing clubs or at book groups or anywhere else you meet your "real" friends, surely?

Or is there a separate set of people called "parents" that are completely different "real" people"?

Not read the whole thread but in response to the OP - I agree in an ideal world all parents would get involved. However its not an ideal world.

Our school is smallish and our PTA puts regular events on to raise money. The only time they have asked for help this year is once.

However, the simple reason i did not volunteer is the fact that the PTA is a clique and they dont speak to anybody outside their group. So after a year of being ignored I wasnt willing to help - although I would have liked to.

Instead I gave a some decent donations for prizes and spent money on the day.

No Seeker, it's just that given that any social life we have is very limited and squeezed in with a shoe horn (also baby sitters at a premium) when we get the chance to socialise with other adults, I have a list of close friends I'd rather jump off the school hamster wheel and see them first.

Yet another trip into school for bingo or whatever just doesn't appeal.

We'll I wouldn't because I spend all day in school teaching! And at the end of the day I don't want to get a baby sitter to go back in to another school. I suppose that I figue that I've done my bit for the education of the next generation at work

Wouldn't sneer at the PTA though, that was nasty!

One thing I do really like about our PTA is the attitude that you can drop in and out as you like. Come to whichever meetings you can, help out where you can, just go on the email list if that's all you want to do.

Now is that a luxury because our PTA well-served - or are they well-served because people don't feel like they're making a life-long committment just by walking through the door?

[shocj] at 'what good would you be'

I'd have been tempted to say 'Farking good at running you over you patronising git' and then giving her a vigorous demo. Several times