I need to rant about our preschool committee

[Eddas]

Is it normal for a preschool committee to be as disorganised as ours? I know everyone is volunteering but why volunteer if you gonna be blah about things.

We have a quiz night planned for friday. It was advertised, only on posters at preschool, but they only went up last tuesday. The lady who volunteered to print tickets had to be asked today(by me) when I would get the tickets in order to be able to sell them. I mean ffs it's 4 days away and not one ticket has been sold How many people will be able to come and get others to come in a few days? I'm just imagining an embarassing turn out.

Also, the christmas bazaar seems to be just as rubbishly organised. Ok so we have a month still but I have no idea what i'll be doing at it and we have only 5 committee memebers so presumably i'll be doing quite a bit.

I am new to all this committee business(signed up in oct) but really, is it always a shambles? How are they expecting to raise money

The other thing is, i mentioned advertising the preschool to our chairperson and she said they would need new children in Jan. As far as I know no adverts have gone anywhere yet. If I was a parent of a child coming to that age where they can go to preschool(2 1/2-3) then I would be looking around now or even before now. Surely they would realise this

Maybe I expect too much. Don't know. Anyway someone tell me to lighten up, leave these people to muddle through. Maybe the committee isn't the place for me

Thanks for reading

We run a very organised pre-school committee, but unfortunately you are always relying on volunteers to come onto the committee and sometimes that means beggers can't be choosers.We struggle constantly to get people interested and are just lucky to have a very good group at the moment.
Don't give up as it sounds like your committee really needs you. Ask them the questions that you've asked here and if you don't think it's going well make some suggestions and generally stick your oar in a bit more!!

Some years the committees are better than others, depends on the combination of people and their talents. usually it's the drive of the chairperson that keeps things going. Could you offer to do some quite specific things to get things moving?

I don't want to put anyone's nose out of joint by wading in I think I need to think of delicate ways to coax things along. My firt thing will be to suggest a christmas bazaar get together. Maybe I can say come to mine whilst the kids are at preschool, my house is closest to the school and then it won't be my saying don't you think we should meet and inferring that someone should offer their house IYKWIM.

Right decison made, will mention it tomorrow and suggest a meeting at mine on thursday. Then i can slip into the conversation about the advertising/people looking for place for january around now We can gauge how well the quiz night tickets are going too

x-post happystory what do you think of my pro-active approach?

I know it's all to do with people. Our chair is really nice and seems pretty good. But is new to the job. This is my first experiance with anything like this. I really want to help and make dd's preschool keep going. ds will hopefully go there too. I know they had committtee problems last year. This one, as as small as it is, should hopefully stay for a few years. As I said there's only 5 members and out of them I think all bar the treasure(her dc starts school next spet) will stay on for a few years as their smallest dc's are only babies so will more than likely stay on until they finish IYSWIM.

That sounds good. It sounds like your committee will take a little time to bed in, but you'll get there in the end. Good luck with the fundraising.

i think i would try to relax about the quiz as others have organised it, but for future events or things you suggest yourself, take a bigger role and say up front what you would like to do - it sounds like they will really benefit from your enthusiasm so dont get disheartened if the quiz isnt as good as it could have been - focus on the xmas bazaar and do as you say about a meeting etc

Thanks nimnom and newgirl.

The quiz isn't my project as you say. It's just that I said i'd sell the tickets because i'm at preschool everyday dropping off dd, so kind of feel if tickets don't sell I haven't done a good job. As I said to the chairlady though, it's pretty hard to sell tickets without the tickets, she just gave me a rye, i know smile. Next time i'l volunteer to print them too There in lies the problem

Feel better about it now and will try my best to badger people into coming. The tickets are only £2.50 so may suggest, in a cheeky i'm joking way, that people buy 2 and see who they can get to come along You know 'oh go on it's only a fiver i don't have any change atm so you may aswell'

We'll see

It is tough. as chair myself I know it took me the best part of the first year to work out what I should be doing. The job is enormous. We run fundraising as a seperate sub committee, maybe you could volunteer to organise something similar, I go to some, but not all, of their meetings. My time is taken up more on the running of pre school - staffing, liasing with the admissions secretary, the lease (our current premises are up for redevelopment),OFSTED, H and S and numerous other things which seem to crop up on a daily basis.

I think that's another thing, I have no idea what the roles of chair, treasure, secretary are so I don't know what they have to do. Maybe me and the other committee member could volunteer to take charge of fundraising. We know each other very well as have known each other for 15 years (she is EandH on mn) Maybe that would take a burden off the others? We would love the challenge too and would give EandH something to organise which she'd love

That sounds like a really good idea.

You def need someone in charge of fundraising, tomeone needs to have their head around it. Esp if the treasurer does all the bookkeeping too.
Why not see how the quiz goes and make notes, basically create a manual for every event on the calendar for future reference. You can draw up a calendar too, just a piece of A4 with events and timelines for important stuff - will help everyone feel more organised.

I have asked EandH what she thinks of the idea and she agrees that it'd be good if we were dealing with the fundraising leaving the others to their jobs and giving us some scope for doing things off our own backs. SHe suggested setting dates for things way in advance, so we'd meet in Jan and talk through the whole year ahead. Lets hope the chairperson is up for the idea. Hopefully she will be as it sounds like all the other committee members have lots to be thinking/getting on with. I will ask for details of fundraising events from the past and how much they raised and will start off detailing how well things do. EG for the christmas bazaar I will detail what each stall makes so we know which ones to scrap for the next year. I'm an accountant so these things excite me(that was a joke btw, but I am an accountant)

Oh I do get excited about these things and I'm not an accountant LOL.
Yup, give each stallholder a piece of printed paper to tot up income, then the cash can end up in one big bucket for counting and you can analyse the successes later.
How about an Xmas giftwrapping evening over mulled wine prior to the bazaar - will there be gifts for the kids, lucky dip prizes, Xmas craft stuff to cut out?

That sounds far too organised if I had received the minutes of our meeting a few weeks back i'd be able to tell you what there is but it's a bit atm which is why we(IMO) need a meeting asap so it's not a shambles I have loads of ideas but having not dealt with or been to a christmas bazaar before(apart from when I was at school way back!) I don't know what people expect. I did go to their easter one but thought it was a little crap expected a bit more but not sure what. There wasn't much for the kids to do. I did say that at our meeting but wasn't met with a great response! But IMO when dealing with something for 3-4 yo you need to aim it at them and have lots of stalls where they get involved.

One idea I swiped from on here, but am yet to suggest, is making up reindeer food in little jars. I have been keeping ds's baby jars just incase. Then all you need is some glitter and museli and the kids can fill it up. WOuldn't cost much.

I can feel my ears burning me organised never (eand h quickly stuffs the preschool events diary and brand new divided notebook she bought behind her back!)

We def need to be more organised and make a success of christmas bazaar as my work have agreed to match any fndraising we do up to £250 so in an ideal world school makes £250 and work give £250 and we end up with £500 !!
Well I'll be at the meeting on thurs

you know you'll enjoy it eah

Well, I finally got the tickets for the quiz, that's on friday and there's about 20(not expecting many people then) And it says quiz and raffle. Do we have raffle prizes Not that I know of. But guess we'll have to have one now. Anyone know a magic spell to cast to get some prizes. No. Oh so the committee will give them ffs

Ridiculous.

Oh well, best get selling them then.

the chairlady took home a ticket and was going to print off some more. She has just rung to say it says raffle. She's now re-doing them without the raffle

Advice to all. If you don't want to/can't do something then don't volunteer

Sorry to be critical but it sounds like your chairlady hasn't got her finger right on the pulse. How, at this late stage did she not know about the raffle being on the tickets?
To get some prizes - one of you stand outside and ask the parents directly - I'm sure you'll have a few by Friday.Good Luck.

Reindeer food is easypeasy, you'd def volunteer to do it all though. If you little bags you just staple on a bit of card with instructions. Colour some granulated sugar with food colouring instead of glitter in the oats - then it's a bit more eco-friendly .

Raffle prizes for quiz - we usually rustle up some unwanted Xmas pressies between committee and staff for things like that.

If the quiz goes pearshaped, put your foot down and make everyone agree an evening to come to yours (or to whoever has the most babysitting issues) before the Xmas bazaar. They honestly won't mind if it looks like you're going to be taking some work off their hands. Do what you can to help, then in the new year you can kick ass and get planning/organising (we'll help) .

hello all well eddas and i have just spent the afternoon talking about this and we are having a meeting with chairperon on thursday morning to sort xmas bazaar out properly, also get idea of numbers of tickets sold for quiz (so far 3 commitee members & 1 parent!!!) and if numbers aren't hig enough cancle quiz.

Also eddas found an old thread on here about writing letter to parents and letting them know without their support with fundraising the school simply cannot be financially viable!

nimnom, i made it sound like she'd printed the orginial tickets but they were done by our administrator so not really chairlady's fault! We have new tickets now. Counted the original batch and she'd printed 24 hardly much point doing the blessed thing for only 24 people!

Well, as eah said we sold the grand total on 1 ticket! all the others either had an excuse, didn't know about the quiz(even though each parent got handed a letter about it plus the poster) or looked at me and said 'no' in that way that meant, 'me at a quiz' yeah right IYKWIM. Will see what happens tomorrow as I will ask people before school so no excuse not to pick up the cashbefore they pick up dc

As eah also said I think we need to point out to the blah parents that we need support. So she emailed the chair a letter from a thread on here which we think should be given to the parents. The majority just don't seem interested which is but I guess happens alot.

Good idea about the sugar. I have some food coulouring so will try it out later to produce something to show the others on thursday as they all agreed to come to mine for a mini meeting, yay

It's impossible getting parents interested - half the time it's as if you're asking them to stick needles in their eyes rather than baking a cake or buying a raffle ticket! It's just a question of plugging away until someone listens. I got one person to sign up for a slot on a cake stall yesterday and felt like I'd won the lottery!!!

well done for getting someone to sign up ridiculous isn't it

I'm starting to think that things like the quiz might be more hassle than they're worth. You raise little and people just aren't interested. Think it'd be better to concentrate efforts on the christmas and easter bazaar whilst thinking of other things to do which other parents don't have to do much for. One idea I had is going to a bootfair. Ask parents to donate things suitable for selling a bootfair, people normally have loads of 'bits' about, then we go to a bootfair and sell it and the school keeps the cash. Some bootfairs won't charge a charity for the space so it could be money for a little effort and no outlay. I will suggest it for something to do in the summer. I'd willing give up 1/2 sunday am's to raise £100 or so[hopeful emoticon] That's probably more than the quiz night will raise.

It's just so disappointing that people just can't be bothered. Afterall their dc will benefit. People always want something for nothing

Maybe I expect too much. My mum was always on our committees when we were at playschool/primary school so I guess I grew up thinking that you just get involved.

Better to hijack an existing local pub quiz - offer a shareable prize for the winning team eg chocs in return for the entry money. That way if only a few parents turn up, the event is still fine.

You can also sell printed quizzes instead, I'm doing one at the moment for the NCT and will be recycling it in the new year for pre-school. Encourage parents to buy a few to sell on to friends, colleagues, family etc. You can sell them halfprice to local shops too as any income is profit basically.
Email me if you'd like a copy: [email protected]

thanks for that, great ideas booquets. Will email you

Today a lady bought 6 tickets she asked how many tables and i said only a few she just said it's hard getting parents involoved, she knows as she's on the primary school committee. AH so that's why she bought tickets! Yay.

Have been thinking that now we'll have 18 or so people coming, hopefully more. Maybe it'd be better to have teams of say 3. Then at least there's some kind of competition. Will suggest it at our bazaar meeting tomorrow!

I'm gonna try my hand at making some sweets for the christmas bazaar tonight. A practise run and the ladies coming tomorrow can be my guinee pigs, lucky things