Fund Raising Fairs During Session Time

[Guest]

Bit of a rant coming, sorry!

 

We've just had our Xmas Fair this morning, during what would have been session time. Despite me saying to the fund raising committee that this should not happen in a session and should be on a Saturday, they ignored me and went ahead anyway.

 

I have various issues with this - it looks unprofessional, it makes things tricky for parents like me who rely on the childcare to work, in theory we presumably should tell the LEA that we're not in session that day (they don't mention it), also I'd imagine there are insurance implications. It also means that some dads who might attend will miss out because they're working, plus we don't get any 'passing traffic'. Also, we had 4 staff in for this morning, all of them being paid, obviously they all helped out but that's not quite the same thing. And let's face, it could just be the day that Ofsted decide to turn up.

 

Now, what do others think? Am I being mean? Should I point blank insist that they don't do it during session time? They have always done it this way, so it's a historical thing, like a few other negative habits that I've had to sort out since I started as Chair.

 

Rant over, would love to hear what other settings do and what you think I should say about the Easter Fair, which apparently is also on a week day.

[Upsy Daisy]

Do you have a separate room where you could still provide childcare while the fair is going on?

[vickymck]

Hi Suzie,

you are completely within your rights to rant, this isn't right. It should be outside of session times, surely you would raise more money on a weekend anyway. If I was one of your parents I would be very annoyed, particularly if I thought the setting had received funding for this session and my child had not been able to attend, I would be questioning their priorites.

 

Take Care

[Inge]

In our area if you were funded for the session you would have to provide childcare ... the only way you could do this is if the day was unfunded and we would have to open a different day to supply it to get the full term funding....

 

I have done this in the past but only in addition to the pre-school taking children.. so the children would be in as usual and we would have a fund-raiser alongside... but we had plenty of room to separate the two... and in our case more parents were able to attend weekdays - not ususal but it was our circumstances at the time.

 

Usually we held any fund-raisers on a weekend or sometimes after session time, so parents would collect and stay... this one worked really well..

 

I do agree it needs sorting and will he hard to do as there is always the ' but its always been done like that' element to overcome.

 

maybe the fact that you probably would have to return a full days funding could be a starting point..

 

Inge

[Guest]

Thanks, we don't have a separate room so that's not an option.

 

I'm tempted to phone the council and ask, but I'd hate for them to ask for the funding back. Mind you, that would ensure that they never do it that way again

[thumperrabbit]

We have coffee mornings that run at the same time as our session but are in another room.

 

We also have fundraisers at the end of any show that we do.

eg At Christmas or Easter the children do some sort of display/singing and all parents/grandparents/friends come to watch, once the children are finished the fundraising starts and this is still part of the session.

 

We have to do it like that though as we can never get anybody to come to anything outside of session times.

[hali]

no you are quite right it should not have been in session time

[Cait]

How on EARTH do you keep track of where children are? If Joe Public is wandering about how do you keep the children safe. In my setting there's no way that every child would have a parent there so theoretically a child could disappear with a stranger. There'd be people milling about with cups of tea around children - golly NO! nightmare! You go ahead and rant!

[Lyanne]

How on EARTH do you keep track of where children are? If Joe Public is wandering about how do you keep the children safe. In my setting there's no way that every child would have a parent there so theoretically a child could disappear with a stranger. There'd be people milling about with cups of tea around children - golly NO! nightmare! You go ahead and rant!

 

We had our Summer fair straight after the session (had parents helping set up and couple of extra staff in so all was set up by end of the session + being Summer fair & good weather, we had the stalls etc outside), but we had 2 children collected late - that was stressful enough, with most children wandering round with(out!) their parents, but keeping these two sat on a chair next to me, trying to phone their parents to see where they'd got to while sticking my fingers in my ears against the noise. (Turned out another member of staff had the message mum would be late but got distracted by the fair so didn't get to tell me!)

 

2 good reasons why straight after the session's bad enough, let alone during it!

[Guest]

We have ours at the weekends, always have done, i take my own children to help me on my stall and they are always interested when the children from the setting come in and vice versa on a monday with settings children, i think its nice to take some unpaid time and fundraise, we rely on a lot of it and this time of year its fun too, it also shows who's willing to do stuff because they love the job and really interested in what money we can raise for children/ setting and those who just do the job for convience! (Sorry went abit then but it's a whole other issue)

[Guest MaryEMac]

I agree with you Susie, it is not right for a session to be taken over by a fundraising event. There are so many issues raised by this, child protection, health and safety to name but 2. I would be very cross if my committee decided to fundraise like this.What's wrong with an evening or weekend? Put your foot down for Easter, you would be well within your rights.

 

Mary