Making It Up

Contact

When do charity requests cross the line?

—

by

Jax Blunt
in

Last night Big returned home from Guides with the instruction that they’ve to take £1.50 in next week as they are going to buy Innocent Smoothies and knit hats for them for charity. This confused me on several levels. First of all, it’s not how I understood the campaign to work, and when I looked it up on the website to check, I discovered the knitting phase is over anyway. I don’t know whether the Guider has hold of the wrong end of the stick, or whether she’s just expressed it badly to the Guides, but either way, I thought charitable donations were supposed to be voluntary so instructing the guides to take in £1.50 doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of the game really.

The stream of requests from Guides atm seems to be endless. Just before half term they spent an evening painting canvases, which were then sent home to be finished. The instruction there was that they were then supposed to take relatives in to the following session and there would be an art auction in support of the hut they use.

Fair enough, you might say, if it’s a one off. But along with the £1.50 instruction last night, there was a slip of paper saying the division is having a Christmas craft sale a week on Saturday, and a warning that there’s going to be a Body shop party before Christmas that relatives need to be invited to. So in the space of 4 months, that’s one external charity demand (really can’t be called a request), and three strongly worded requests related to fundraising for the Guides themselves. And all that is on top of the £15 subs every half term, making it a fairly expensive activity.

Am I missing something? Is this really how Guiding works in the modern world? I thought it was all about girls bonding, and developing skills, having adventures under canvas (Big’s group had a one night sleepover in the hut, which cost £10 iirc) and becoming young women. I didn’t think it was supposed to be about endless requests for money, thinly disguised as charitable activities 🙁 I’d be really interested to hear how this works in other places, please feel free to comment. Or am I just an uncharitable old skinflint?

Comments

18 responses to “When do charity requests cross the line?”

  1. Hayley avatar
    Hayley

    Hmmm certainly not how I ran my unit. We kept things as cheap as possible and only did cheap crafts etc rather than more expensive ones like canvas etc. Our parents couldn’t afford expensive trips etc so we didn’t do them. We once did a sleepover for a quid! Guides can be thrifty too but it doesn’t sound like your guider is!

    Reply
    1. Jax avatar
      Jax

      it’s not just the Guide activities though, it’s the constant slightly charitable requests that are wearing.

      Reply
  2. Another Goldfish avatar
    Another Goldfish

    I know I often feel the same about enforced charity.
    While at University I used to work part-time as a data entry clerk for just over minimum wage. Every week they had a dress down Friday for charity. It was just a pound, but it was never really offered as a choice. It felt even more dodgy when the company used to brag about how much money their employees had raised – it felt like we were being taxed weekely for their benefit.
    Eventually I started refusing and I came in normal office dress. It felt a bit stingy, but I we had limited finances at the time. If I was going to donate money I was going to choose where it went rather than be told who I had to give money too.

    Reply
    1. Jax avatar
      Jax

      That’s another of my bugbears – being charged to go to work. And I remember at university a group of charity collectors blocking a path we all had to use and threatening ppl with wet sponges if we didn’t cough up – I think that’s blackmail, not charity, and had a heated debate on the topic there and then.

      Reply
  3. Heidi avatar
    Heidi

    I’m completely with you on this one. My eldest two are forever coming home with ‘demands’ for money for this, that and the other.
    We used to attend a toddler group that was fundraising almost weekly. That was on top of the weekly attendance fee AND a yearly subscription. It became a very expensive couple of hours so we gave up going.

    Reply
    1. Jax avatar
      Jax

      Even Big is worried by it, and it’s affecting her enjoyment, which seems grossly unfair. Can’t imagine how it is for children who are really strapped for cash – the peer pressure to contribute is immense.

      Reply
  4. Lorna avatar
    Lorna

    Maybe you should have a word with the organiser.
    20 years ago when my daughter went to her various clubs things like this were happening and money was tight (to say the least) it was a choice of agreeing to their ‘demands’ or finding another activity for her which is what we had to do, she went to Judo, there they just had the fees advertised, it was good to know we weren’t going to get hassled every week and to be able to budget a set amount.

    Reply
    1. Jax avatar
      Jax

      I’m beginning to think that. The organiser is lovely, but I think maybe she has a different view of charity and money than some of us.

      Reply
  5. Elaine (Littlesheep) avatar
    Elaine (Littlesheep)

    I’d have a chat with the guider as a first off… if you are calm and reasonable about it and explain that it is worrying Big and that not everyone has the sort of extra money that you are being tapped for and that it stops it being a fun activity when it fills people with dread that they can’t afford to contribute each time, I’m sure she would want to sort it out.
    She possibly hasn’t added it all up and just sees it as a variety of different things (in my experience of this type of thing it’s also probable that it’s a few parents who feel they *have* to do all of it and most don’t do any of it!) …
    It’s also possible that she keeps getting asked to do the various different fundraisers by different people and doesn’t know how to say no so tries to keep everyone happy by taking up everyone’s suggestions…
    Hope you manage to resolve it!

    Reply
    1. Jax avatar
      Jax

      Thanks, that’s good advice. Big is reluctant to just quit, but it is beginning to make for an awkward experience – it’s also totally contrary to what I’ve told her about charity, which she has very strong views about.

      Reply
      1. Elaine (Littlesheep) avatar
        Elaine (Littlesheep)

        Maybe point that out to the guider too? They could do something about different charities and why people support different things – in an ideal world we’d all be able to donate as much money to as many charities as we wanted to but we don’t have an unlimited pot so we have to use our conscience to look at priorities.

        Reply
        1. Jax avatar
          Jax

          That’s a great idea – could be opening up a can of worms though!

          Reply
  6. Maria avatar
    Maria

    My, that sounds a bit extreme- Brownies is a machine! I never did it- but this is not how I imagined. Sounds a bit forceful. It should be voluntary and if there are events they should be organised carefully and not count on people being there because they’re forced to!

    Reply
    1. Jax avatar
      Jax

      My thoughts precisely – instructing children to bring in charity donations is not on, nor is telling them they must bring relatives. What about those from single parent families where the parent is looking after the rest of the children?

      Reply
  7. Mummy's Little Monkey (@Jax2000) avatar
    Mummy’s Little Monkey (@Jax2000)

    When I worked in central London I was CONSTANTLY bombarded by charity canvassers – I literally couldn’t walk to the sandwich shop without being stopped three times each way. It was particularly annoying as I already gave to three charities via direct debit every month. When I explained this to them they’d say: ‘Why not make it four??’ Grrrrrrr!!! I understand that, with so many charities out there, they need to remind us that they’re still there, but charity is something that should be given freely – not grudgingly.

    Reply
  8. Tbird Anni avatar
    Tbird Anni

    as previously ranted on friendfeed, Aprilia’s Guides are also beginning to take the ****. I’m pretty certain that fleecing parents for every last penny is not one of the five fundamentals of Guiding although community service is one of the areas of the Guide and Brownie programmes (and to a much lesser extent the Rainbow one too.) In Brownies we don’t do that much charity stuff but tend, where possible, to do practical stuff like tree planting etc which doesn’t cost the families anything except an occaisional weekend jaunt to drop off and pick up their daughters. Our district would like us all to raise more money but Brown Owl and I are decidedly thick skinned when it comes to women in their 20s telling us old farts what we must or must not do…..

    Reply
  9. Sarah, Maison Cupcake avatar
    Sarah, Maison Cupcake

    Hmm it sounds like they’re so busy raising money for themselves that they don’t have time to spend it… as you say, on what they could doing like going on trips etc. To be honest I don’t remember raising money for external causes with guides, it was just subs for our own stuff. But this was in 1985 so things may have changed now.
    I feel there are so many charities with high profile campaigns that it’s easy to coast from one thing to another. In the case of Innocent, I have a hard time reconciling that their motivation isn’t to sell more smoothies with cute bobble hats on them.

    Reply
    1. Jax avatar
      Jax

      And I think a lot of the time being seen to be doing is thought of almost better than the actual doing – can’t help thinking we’re sending the wrong messages somehow 🙁

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *