Pre-school committee members - would you allow a toddler group to use your toys and equipment?

[scarletlilybug]

Moved this from AIBU to here in the hope that some preschool committee members (or anyone else for that matter ) might have some further advice for me about how to handle this situation.

I'm treasurer for a local pre-school which uses a school classroom. We pay rent for the classroom for the 4 days we are open. The classroom is unused on Wednesdays, IFAIK.

The head of the school now wants to start a toddler group (I guess he is under government pressure to do so) and so he wants us to allow the toddler group to use our resources when we're not there (furniture, toys, art stuff, etc).

Am I being unresonable to think that this isn't really on? (genuine question, btw). We had a massive fundraising drive to raise money for new equipment over the last year, and we're run as a charity, completely separate from the school. I don't see why the school should expect to have free rein, when all of the stuff we're talking about actually belongs to the pre-school (we're a registered charity, btw). Or is it me?

Can't you just agree some ground rules and share i.e. all paints that are used must be replaced, anything broken must be replaced, it all must be put back as it was and so on.

Part of me thinks that would be okay.
OTOH, the pre-school (or, at least, the parents of children attending it) has paid for all the toys and equipment for its own use. I worry what will happen when something gets lost or broken. Or what if the room is left in a mess and the staff have to spend extra time tidying up? It's the pre-school which will end up bearing extra costs for no discernable benefit.

I saw your other thread
I'm not on a committee or anything but it would be a NO for me

They need to get their own equipment. You will probably need to label all your stuff and catalogue it if they have access to your storage

Yes I would. We do, in fact. But it's a small village and most of the children who go to toddler group in the school hall will go on to preschool in the school grounds and then to the primary school. So it seems a bit short sighted to be too worried.

Many of the same parents are involved in toddler group, preschool committee and school fundraising anyway. It's nice, the community sharing and mingling. It's what I like about living here. People not being petty about who raised money for what or who should benefit from which bit of fundraising.

I run a toddler group. I wouldn't expect to use a playschool's equipment in those circumstances. But I might like to discuss it with them and come up with some sort of deal - like maybe sharing big, bulky stuff which is hard to store, but not sharing consumable craft materials.

But I don't think you need feel obliged.

Sounds like the head just wants to use all your equipment, as the head would probably get a grant/funding from the government to set up a toddler group within the school. If they use your equipment then the head doesn't have to buy anything new and therefore can allocate the money to a different part of their budget.

Talk to the head and come to some arrangement.

I work at a preschool/playgroup where one session a week we run a toddler group. Obvioulsy it uses the same resources but is only run by two members of staff as parents/carers are there.

Could it be an option that your preschool take over the running of the toddler group - it would not be staff intensive ( only two needed) they would not be supervsing the children as sucj as parents/carers are there but they could keep an eye on resources , also it would encorage children to then move up to your playgroup.

The head will have to find someone to manage run it so why not your committee/ staff.

Our pre-school has to share equipment with an out of school club, so yes you should let them use the equipment, but they must pay/replace and breakages.