Feel I am being bullied into being chair of our Pre-school committee....Help.

[VanillaPumpkin]

Our chair helped set up the pre-school and has done her time. She wants to resign but no-one has agreed to step in. I am quite pro-active helping as much as I can and doing recruitment etc on the committee and she approached me and asked me to do it. I said I had thought about it and decided I couldn't give it enough committment for various reasons. A week went by and I was collared again at church and asked if I would think about it as there was no-one else coming forward. I said I would consider it. I gave it a great deal of thought but still felt it was not for me. I cannot give it enough committment and importantly I am not at all happy about the Pre-school manager (older than me and much more experienced) 'reporting' to me. I explained this again and said no and felt relieved I had made the right decision.
We have a meeting tonight that has to happen as we have to decide on pay rises. I had called the chair earlier in the week to add something on to the agenda. I had to leave a message. The current chair just called me and said thanks for my call this week about the agenda, but she will not be able to make it tonight and so I can do what I want really !
Help.
The thing is we will all get there and I will end up running the meeting as no-one else will and actually I probably know what should be on the agenda.
I am really fed up though and feel I am having a position 'forced' upon me.
What can I do. I love this pre-school and how it is run and my dd has thrived there, but at the risk of sounding like my four year old this isn't fair!!!!

Just saw this thread had extra comments after I had abandoned it. The meeting we had was quite positive. Another lady chaired it when I asked if anyone wanted to chair , but she is resigning in July as her sone starts school in Jan (we are lucky to keep her till Jan as she is brilliant and worked out all the wages. I was asked again if I would do it and said in front of the whole committee that I couldn't. We went the route of deciding to create more roles to divide the work load down and to try to make the Chairs role more one of leading the meetings and being the Ofsted contact with some of the other responsibilities taken away in order to make it appear more attractive. Our Chair said without a replacement she can't resign so is staying for now, but legally you can't do more than 10 years and she has done 8 so it need to be sorted soon. It is difficult isn't it. I am going to do a letter for all the parents explaining how the pre-school runs and is funded etc and that we need parental involvement etc. It is ridiculous that there are groups all over the UK struggling on like this to provide the funded places the gvt has promised to us all .

vanilla,
I really feel for you in this situation. I haven't read the reat of the thread but just wanted to let you know that you are not alone. I think you are right in spreading the load. That is what we have done and it seems to be working well.
Good luck in getting more parents on board - that is a really big task and if you have any brainwaves let me know.
Good Luck

Thanks nimnom. I am drafting my letter on another thread at the moment (at the risk of outing myself when the parents read it lol).
Our chair does too much. So of course no one wants it. We are hoping that by taking a lot of the responsibilities away we may get someone. We are hoping to have someone take on maintenence, someone else recruitment/staffing/wages....someone else fundraising etc etc. We will see....