VENT - Why do people make things difficult?

"jojo" wrote in message
om...

"bizby40" wrote in message
...
[snip]

here goes:
How old are the girls? I'm assuming 10 years old or older?
Do the girls get allowances? Can the children not contribute on their own?

You know, I'm not used to my kids getting older. It never even
occurred to me to ask the girls themselves to contribute towards
anything.

1st. I understand your vent, but blow off worrying about what they are
wearing. It won't matter to the scout leader

Oh, I don't care. Well, I did think it would be nice if they were in
their uniforms so that it would obviously be a "Girl Scout" picture,
but I don't care which individual girls do or don't have which parts
of the uniform.

2nd. call a local frame shop to find out approx. what your idea will
cost...you will be surprised to
find it may be over $100.00 if the frame shop does the matting and
framing.
3rd. If you are going to do the work yourself, figure out what it's going
to
cost.
4th. Set a dollar amount for each child to donate based on your approx.
cost
and call all the parents to get a
firm yes or no for that amount.

I ranted about calling people in another post, so I won't repeat that here.
In retrospect it probably would have been a good idea to get committments
beforehand. I just didn't think of it. At this point it's too late.

a: only photograph the girls that contribute
b: photograph all the girls, but only the girls that contribute sign the
matte
c: all the girls sign the matte, but only contributing parents sign the
card

thoughts....
If you want this present to be from the entire troop, the entire troop
needs
to pitch in.

Would be nice.

If only a few parents are interested, then take a picture of only those
girls, they sign the matte and
the card reads: Happy retirement from your friends in troop 2014.

If get fed up and want to give this as a give from your family, don't sign
the matte, but sign the card from your family
only.

The initial way I would approach it is this.
Call ALL the parents. Hi, many of us thought it would be a god idea to bla
bla bla.
The gift will cost approx. ?? per child. If you would like to contribute
and
have your child in the picture I need this much money from you. If you
cannot convince them to contribute, drop them. It obviously is not that
important to them.

Well, I think the picture would mean more to the leaders if the entire troop
were in it. And I wouldn't want the girls to feel left out just because
their parents don't contribute.

Bizby

jojo

"Banty" wrote in message
...
I'm a chump :-)

lol -- no you're a good person. A better person than I am at any rate.

No, really - to my mind, it's my *time* that by far the more valuable
chunk of
my giving anyway, some money too is a nit. And far and away outweighs the
hassle of explaining why I don't want Mrs. Smith's barely-in-time and
barely-readable, though free, newsletter copies, why Mr. Jones should get
a
newsletter as well as Mrs. Jones, why the weather maps stuff is really
really
cool, etc .etc.

It's not the right answer for everybody, but there it is..

I also avoid all the organizing type of stuff, frankly, so I can't help
you
there. With volunteer work, you really gotta hang loose about what other
people
do as far as their committments. A lot of people are just flakes.

If *I* were doing your thing, I'd work with the girls only, talk to the
parents
about the uniforms for the picture day and that's it. And have it be a
totally
girls' thing. And eat the costs. Not saying that's the answer for you..

I've seen a lot of really neat ideas go by the wayside because money came
up.
But I'm not the only chump - in our Cub Scout pack our Secretary srpung
for
individual family photo albums with camp photos. Must have been at least
a good
hundred dollars.

I do know that a lot of volunteers do end up paying for a lot of things
out of pocket. That's true to some extent for me as well -- as in the
B&G dinner thing above, and certainly in other things I've done as
well. I guess the difference for me in this case is that it's supposed
to be a gift from the troop. I probably should have asked people
ahead of time to let me know for sure whether they wanted to
participate, rather than taking silence as tacit approval. I'll know
better next time.

Bizby

Cheers,
Banty

Banty wrote:

I also avoid all the organizing type of stuff, frankly, so I can't help you
there. With volunteer work, you really gotta hang loose about what other people
do as far as their committments. A lot of people are just flakes.

If *I* were doing your thing, I'd work with the girls only, talk to the parents
about the uniforms for the picture day and that's it. And have it be a totally
girls' thing. And eat the costs. Not saying that's the answer for you..

That's usually my solution too, but it is a luxury to be able to
use it as a solution ;-)
As far as people being flakes, some are, but some are just
overcommitted in other areas. The person who isn't pulling her (it's
almost always mom, isn't it? :-/) weight with the girl scouts may be
the overworked and underappreciated person running the show for the
youth soccer league, or whatever. There certainly are folks who end
up taking the lead with most things their kids do (usually because
they're competent at the job and too much of a sucker to say no)
and others who never do anything, but there are a lot of folks in
between too.
As far as managing costs goes, if I'm not willing to pay
for it all, I would never just ask everyone if they're interested
in idea X. They'll all tell you it's a wonderful idea and you'll
go forward thinking that means they're willing to pull their weight
with the idea, but most of them just mean they'd love to see you
handle the situation without any input from them. If I want
cooperation from others, I'll float the idea with *specific*
information:

"What do you all think about doing X? It would requi

1) Everyone to do X, Y, and Z
2) Everyone to contribute $N
3) Volunteers to fill jobs A, B, and C

If everyone agrees to #1 and #2 and there are enough
volunteers to cover #3, I'll be happy to coordinate."

Anything short of that level of specificity won't get
you the support you want.

Best wishes,
Ericka

In article , bizby40 says...



I do know that a lot of volunteers do end up paying for a lot of things
out of pocket. That's true to some extent for me as well -- as in the
B&G dinner thing above, and certainly in other things I've done as
well. I guess the difference for me in this case is that it's supposed
to be a gift from the troop. I probably should have asked people
ahead of time to let me know for sure whether they wanted to
participate, rather than taking silence as tacit approval. I'll know
better next time.

Bizby

Well, $10 is a little much, I'm sure the parents involved did a little
calculation in their head as to how many kids x 10 = a lot more than a picture
frame. I know you meant to make a gift certificate out of the remainder, but
it's still a little much. If you had an exact figure such that each family
could see what the calculation was, the reaction might have been a little
better.

But, there's the whole question of chasing everyone down, stragglers such that
you know you'll be stuck with some out-of-pocket, etc. Like I said, I avoid all
this stuff :-)

Events like Blue and Gold dinners all had to be paid in advance - we'd even go
through the artifice of selling the tickets for them.

I do appreciate what some people said about getting nicket-and-dimed by all this
gift stuff. By fifth grade I was pretty tired of it. Actually, I've not seen
any thankyou gifts to the Pack leaders or any of the Scoutmasters. As a Den
coleader me and the leader got thankyous when our boys were Sr. Webelos about to
cross over. But the Den is a more small-scale personal group.

Banty

bizby40 wrote:
Our Girl Scout leaders are retiring after 5 years. All I wanted to do was
to get a little gift, show a little appreciation. After all, we haven't
given them anything as a group *ever*.

So I send out e-mail and ask for ideas - "Great idea! Thanks! Whatever you
want to do is fine!"

Grrr.

So I decide to give them a framed picture of the girls, and have the girls
sign the matte. I also decided to get a little brass plate to go on the
picture frame. I asked the parents to have their girls wear their uniforms
to school tomorrow (regular meeting day) so I could get the picture. I also
asked for donations to pay for the framing, with whatever is left over to be
put into gift certificates for the leaders.

"How much should we donate?"

"Oh, I don't know, how about $10"

"$10 is too much!"

"Okay, well whatever you want is fine."

"My daughter doesn't have a uniform!"

"I only meant her sash or vest -- most of the girls don't have full
uniforms."

"Well, *my* daughter doesn't have a sash or vest!"

Grrr.

"Look, wear whatever you want -- show up or don't show up -- donate or don't
donate -- I *don't* care anymore! Why did I ever get into this???"

Okay, I didn't actually send out that last one, but the others all went back
and forth. Now I know why I'm not the one to try to organize anything from
a group. Too much hassle. You know, I didn't expect every parent to
donate, but this isn't a collection for the co-worker you didn't really like
in the first place, these two women have put in countless hours over the
course of 5 long years for *our* children! There are ~15 regular meetings
during the year, plus field trips, camping and so forth. It's a tremendous
amount of work, and I'm personally ashamed that we've never done anything as
a group to show our appreciation. I've given them token thank you gifts in
the past, as have a few others, but the bulk of the parents have not.

So I'm a bit surprised at how few people have responded at all. And rather
frustrated by those being difficult about it. And honestly, I didn't know
what to say to the woman whose daughter doesn't have a sash or vest. I know
her well enough to know money isn't the issue. Her son has a full scout
uniform, and both kids are well equipped for the many sports they play. I
mean, obviously she doesn't need to have the vest to be in the picture, but
why the heck doesn't she have it? It's not even the girl's first year in
scouts!

Anyway, I do have one question. If the bulk of the parents donated, then I
was planning to give the pictures from the "troop". However, if only 4 or 5
out of 23 help out, what should I do? Should I give only the people that
donated a chance to sign the card? Would you feel cheated if everyone who
did nothing was given the same "credit" as you if you donated?

Bizby


Maybe simplify a bit and give the signed picture of the girls and
eliminate the need to collect $$ from people, since that really is the
hardest part, and most annoying when people either commit to and don't
pay and you're left with paying for most. I hate being the change
collector, and I admittedly get bugged when people 'forget' to pay me,
who takes credit, etc. If you want to give a gift card or you and 2 or
3 other families want to go in on a gift card, then go for it, but don't
expect everyone to chip in because generally they won't. Give the
picture as a heartfelt thanks from all the *girls* and separately give a
gift card from you and the others who donated, maybe as *parents* who
know of and appreciate the extra effort they put in on behalf of their
kids. Either way, it is very nice of you to coordinate the effort of
thanks!

cara

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:26:22 -0500, "bizby40"
wrote:

Well, I think the picture would mean more to the leaders if the entire troop
were in it. And I wouldn't want the girls to feel left out just because
their parents don't contribute.

Definitely. As a former girls scout leader, I would hate to think
that any of the girls felt left out of a picture or gift for lack of
money. Many of my girls didn't have much. And for future reference,
we like things made by the girls that don't cost too much too.


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

"Jeff" ) writes:
I understand your feelings.
If only a few parents donate, you might say, special thanks to Sarah, Joan,
Millie and Susie who helped pay for this. But you probably shouldn't. That
would be too tactless.

No, no! Don't say that!! Either just
have those parents sign the card, or have all
the parents (that you can contact) sign the card.
Or have the girls sign the card.
The thanks are to the scout leaders --
don't mess up that message by
giving thanks to someone else.
--
Cathy
A *much* better world is possible.

"bizby40" ) writes:
Well, I think the picture would mean more to the leaders if the entire troop
were in it. And I wouldn't want the girls to feel left out just because
their parents don't contribute.

Yes, and if there's a card signed by the parents,
I think the troop leaders will be happier if it's
signed by all the parents.

It's very difficult to discuss things and come
to a consensus by email. It just doesn't work.
By email you can say, "here's the plan.
Suggested donation such-and-such. Let me
know if you're in or out." That will work.
Leaving any of the details up in the air just doesn't work
out by email. Some peole don't read their email often
enough or are in a hurry while reading
it or are not in a mood for doinating to
anything while reading email.
--
Cathy
A *much* better world is possible.

Banty ) writes:
No, really - to my mind, it's my *time* that by far the more valuable chunk of
my giving anyway, some money too is a nit.

I did this too. If it takes up some of my valuable
time to keep track of a receipt for a small amount of money
and do the paperwork to get it refunded -- sometimes I'd rather
just forget it and pay it myself. I figure the time
spent sorting out the receipts and stuff doesn't
really contribute to society overall, besides being
an un-favourite thing for me to spend time doing.
--
Cathy
A *much* better world is possible.

Ericka Kammerer ) writes:
"What do you all think about doing X? It would requi

1) Everyone to do X, Y, and Z
2) Everyone to contribute $N
3) Volunteers to fill jobs A, B, and C

If everyone agrees to #1 and #2 and there are enough
volunteers to cover #3, I'll be happy to coordinate."

Excellent!

I tried to do this sort of thing when deciding
whether to do Girl Guide field trips or not, but I
didn't manage to get that specific about it.
That sounds like the way to do it!
Oh, one more thing: the deadline date.
"If we have enough volunteers by XX date,
we'll go ahead." Later if people ask
"Weren't we going to do X?" you say,
"No, nobody volunteered to do C."
A week before the deadline you can send another
email, "We still need someone to do C or
we won't be doing it."

The deadline date has to be weeks ahead
to leave time to organize the thing, usually.
--
Cathy
A *much* better world is possible.