Archive through October 28, 2002
TV ClubHouse: Archive: 2003 April:
Random topics... (ARCHIVES):
Archive through October 28, 2002
Abbynormal | Sunday, September 22, 2002 - 07:12 pm     We have never allowed our kids to sell. We live in a town that has 6000 max, with roughly 2200 being school kids, who's left to sell to? Here, the PTO rules, and it's very clique-ish. Any new ideas or outside suggestions are not welcome. Sounds harsh, but it's true. The last one they had, was a pepsi sale. You could get 24 20oz bottles for $18.00. At first I thought that was high, but if you figure it out, you'd save $6.00 before tax. You'd have to be a pepsi guzzler though to get any benefits, I think. |
Myjohnhenry | Sunday, September 22, 2002 - 07:28 pm     Whit...I think part of the reason that the fundraisers are still around are because of the belief that people want something tangible in return for their money so the candy bars, wrapping paper, tins, cookies, Pepsi's, discount cards, coupon books all leave people feeling good...they helped some kids and they got something they needed, wanted, desired, could use in return. Personally, I don't feel that way and donate to the food bank, buy toys at Christmas, donate school supplies and volunteer and they all leave me feeling happier and less pressured and stressed. (Not to say that I don't appreciate the things I "purchase" just that I don't "need" it to do it) I am not a fan of sending kids out door to door unless they are adult supervised. The kids at our school watch a video and there is warning information sent home with the packets and in the newsletter. |
Suitsmefine | Sunday, September 22, 2002 - 07:58 pm     Our school no longer has fundraisers that require door to door sales.....We do the food bank donations and toy drives during the holiday season and last year my fifth grader had to sell magazine subscriptions, but no door to door was involved, sent out invitations to help the school with computer software by subscribing. SO we sent them to family we Knew wanted to subscribe , due to subscription running out on mags they were already getting. I fully support our school with my taxes, time and donations...but I will NEVER let either of my children sell door to door or bother our friends and relatives with fundraising, I find it disturbing that so many schools still do....How many bad things have to happen to even one of these children before they get it???? |
Whit4you | Sunday, September 22, 2002 - 08:23 pm     That's exactly it - and why I wanted to talk about the fact I had one child and most of my friends had 2 or three. My issue with this goes mostly to the fact a corp is making a huge profit off the millions of school children who do the labor for them. But it is really a 'bother' - cause you don't want to tell your friends NO - ya know what I mean? I didn't let my son do the leg work for corps - so felt I could say no to my friends kids... but you gotta realize I had sooo many friends then... and each had 2 or 3 kids... that was 20 or 30 times a year I'd get hit up to help their kids make a profit for some corp. And for a few of those years I was very poor - but to the parents of those kids it was just 'a few bucks" but when you have 10+ friends with 20 or 30 kids all wanting 'just a few bucks" when your living on 90 bucks a week it ads up very fast... makes YOU feel guilty - or makes you feel stingy... and so on. I don't know how YOU feel getting hit up - but it makes ME feel bad if I do decline my friends reqest to help their kid out... they just don't realize how many times a year we each get hit up. IF - it the profit went to the school and NOT some corp using our kids, it wouldn't be as big a deal for me. |
Urgrace | Sunday, September 22, 2002 - 10:56 pm     The best fund raisers we participated in were festivals. The organizers would elect one adult person to go 'door to door' to the businesses in the area to get donations for a prize drawing. The businesses would donate cash or services or a prize (like a plant from a nursery). The prizes would be listed then the tickets would be sold for a dollar or five for four dollars. The parents would sell the tickets which was easy because the prizes were worth much more than a dollar or five, BUT no one had to buy a ticket to attend! The children only participated by attending the festival. The festival would also have booths set up for nickle and dime spending for things like face painting, ball tossing, picking up ducks, dunking the teachers, fishing in a pond, picture taking, musical chairs, cake walk, puppet shows, etc. for all to enjoy. There were also crafts booths if parents wanted to make and donate homemade items or baked goods. Then they would have the drawing for the ticket prizes. It took a lot of parent participation, but the more parents there were the less they had to do and the less money it took per family. They usually had the most funds raised, and the kids didn't have to do any of the work. It was also fun. The concept here was for younger or special needs children but could be adapted for older kids. While on the subject of door to door, my family has always supported the kids when they knock on our door even since our kids are grown and no longer attending school, but when the kids from a neighboring town or city come to my door they are turned away. We support the kids from our town and feel those kids should raise the money in their own town. |
Whit4you | Sunday, September 22, 2002 - 11:13 pm     Urgrace - ya we had those everyear too - and I thought those were great... the money raised by each class's booths and their raffle - went towards activities for that class. And I THINK but not sure on this that a small % of what we raised went to a collected fund for uh something lol don't remember what? our class worked our buns off every year though and we earned alot towards fun trips and activities...
|
Urgrace | Monday, September 23, 2002 - 12:45 am     Whit, another fund raiser for the older kids that always did good here was the car washes, but since we have been in a drought for seven years that has not been an option. Water restrictions. Car washes are usually set up for smaller group fund raisers such as camp for cheerleaders or band, and the kids who participate are volunteers. I really like the activities for fundraising where the kids participate in a self-improvement activity instead of begging for bucks to buy junk. The bike-a-thons, walk-a-thons, book reading, basketball exhibition games and such are good for the kids and fun for the parents and other donors too. |
Whit4you | Monday, September 23, 2002 - 03:51 pm     Yup I don't have a problem with car washes either - people choose to go to them, not feel obligated to 'buy something' - in addition some corp isn't making money off of them. |
Dahli | Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 09:28 am     Oh Whit - you are amazing! I read your post on prostitution and am sitting here nodding my head off like one of those puppy ornaments you'll sometimes see in the back window of a passing car!! For more than 20 years I have been arguing this very point, drove my first husband nuts. I think it has everything to do with women's power and male insecurity. Notice the financial freedom exotic dancers and the like can have...? it's absolutely amazing and that superior earning power is very threatening to the powers that be. How could women be controlled then?? Adding the 'act' to the mix is too frightening since everyone knows vaginas actually belong to men - after all this is the only way they can ensure that the children that emerge are actually theirs!! Finanacial freedom and power are denied to women in so many ways but allowing them to use their most powerful (sexual) tool would upset the apple cart - methinks. The whole thing being cloaked in a morality issue is nothing but a red herring, and a total waste of time resources and effort especially in this day and age... FWIW |
Squaredsc | Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 11:05 am     my random topic is this, and i also posted it on the bb3 thread. but this is the first time i am not sorry to see a show end and neither will i miss any of the discussions on that board. and i think thats very sad. for some reason the bb3 board just wasn't enjoyable at all, well with the very beginning of the show the board was enjoyable and i had fun sharing my opinions. but it went downhill from there. i sure hope the survivor board will be better. ok, venting over. |
Northstar | Wednesday, September 25, 2002 - 11:55 am     Squaredsc, I was feeling a bit thin skinned a few days back regarding the BB board. I came over here and wha-la, read about Bush, war and child abuse, etc. If you still want to come to the board (as I did), I suggest the movie and library threads are good places to go. I too am hoping Survivor will be a bit more civil. While I firmly believe we're all welcome to our own opinions, sometimes things get a bit too personal. See ya on Survivor. |
Whit4you | Friday, October 25, 2002 - 05:23 pm     Dahli glad at least ONE person agrees with me on this - Squaredc - I agree with you! |
Twinkie | Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 02:41 am     I think a new thread should be added...."Really Interesting Emails You Have Received". Here's one I got recently: THREE LITTLE WORDS.. I suppose some degree of commerce would grind to a halt if telephone solicitors weren't able to call people at home during dinner hour. But that doesn't make it any more pleasant. Now Steve Rubenstein, a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, has proposed "Three Little Words" based on his brief experience in a telemarketing operation that would stop the nuisance for all time. The three little words are..................................................... "Hold On, Please." Saying this while putting down your phone and walking off instead of hanging up immediately would make each telemarketing call so time-consuming that boiler rooms would grind to a halt. When you eventually hear the phone company's beep-beep-beep tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task. This might be one of those articles you'll want to e-mail to your friends. "Three little words" that ELIMINATE telephone soliciting. GOOD IDEAS: When you get ads in your phone or utility bill, include them with the payment; let the companies throw them away. When you get those "pre approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and junk like that, most of them come with postage paid return envelopes, right? Well, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little envelopes! Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send the pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their application back! If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. You can send it back EMPTY if you want to just to keep them guessing! Eventually, the banks and credit card companies will begin getting their junk back in the mail. Let's let them know what it's like to get junk mail, and the best of it is that they're paying for it! ..............Twice! PILE OF MAIL Let's help keep our postal service busy since they say e-mail is cutting into their business, and that's why they need to increase postage again! Send this to a friend or two or three.............or fifty. |
Jo_5329 | Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 03:35 am     I love the idea of sending back the junk you get in the bills. Since I use onling banking, I don't even think about the junk in the bill anymore. I just open it up, find the bill and toss the rest. But from this day forward, anything that comes from a company - if the envelope is pre-paid, it all goes back to them Jo |
Kaili | Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 10:52 am     That's a great idea- sounds fun too. I'm all about a little mischief! |
Sia | Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 08:33 pm     Twinkie, that's a fabulous idea about sending the junk mail back to the company that sent it to you! I think I WILL do that, too. Maybe they will get the message that people don't want to be bombarded with the extra inserts for overpriced, substandard-quality merchandise they're hawking on behalf of other companies. I have never responded to one of those bill-insert mail ads, so why do they persist in sending them to me? It's really aggravating. I also like the idea of making the telemarketer wait on hold, but if you do this, realize that you will then miss your opportunity to say to the caller "Please put me on your do-not-call list." I had a terrible time with a home-improvements company that kept calling me. I had to keep going higher in the organization to get them to leave me alone. Finally I reached a VP of Sales/Marketing, who told me that his telemarketers were trained to RESPOND ONLY to the phrase, "Please put me on your do-not-call list." |
Sia | Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 09:43 pm     As for the topic of our public schools forcing our children into hawking useless, overpriced merchandise to neighbors, friends and relatives, I hate that, too. I plan to call the school tomorrow. I guess the principal really isn't charge of the fundraising projects, but I want to speak with him about the lax procedures in place for picking up children who walk home from school or who are taken home by parents in their cars. Any child could be snatched by anyone; no procedures are used at all--the kids are just turned out onto the street en masse! It's awful. My son has ridden the bus home from Kindergarten all year long, but Friday I picked him up at school. I was furious to see that the children were just sent outside in a big group, with no school staff to oversee that kids weren't being abducted!!! A woman stood next to me in the cold rain with a newborn baby wrapped in a blanket waiting for her child. Another woman had three preschoolers, one of whom broke away from her and darted into the street. This is ridiculous! My niece and nephews' school had what they called a "car-line," which worked really well: a middle-schooler walked to my sister's car each morning when it was her turn, escorted her children to the schoolhouse, and she didn't have to get out of the car with her newborn in bad weather. This program worked year-round. The parent is given a number (like at the grocery store) which corresponds to a number assigned to each child. At the end of the day, a middle-schooler sees which car is next in line to pick up a student and walks to the school to call that child's number. The middle-schooler then walks the child to his car and helps him in with his backpack. Do any other schools out there do this, or do you have an even better, safer way of picking up your children at school? Thanks very much!! |
Wargod | Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 10:08 pm     My son is in first grade. When I take him to school, I park in the back where the busses load and drop the kids off. There are two gates. Each one is manned by a duty aid. When the busses come in, the kids get off and go in the gate. The kindergarteners line up til all of them are there, and when all busses are unloaded, they lock both gates and escort the kindergarteners to their class. I'm not sure about the last gate, because we don't use that one. At the end of the day, the kindergarteners are escorted to the back gates by the duty aids, who unlock the gates for the parents coming to get their kids. The kindergarteners are lined up inside the gate, where they wait for the rest of the kids. When its time, the kindergarteners are led to the bus, and seated, then the rest of the kids. First graders...when they get out of school, the bus kids go first..the loading zone is right behind there class...then the other kids are let out, only if a parent or older sibling is there. They are not allowed to walk out of school by themselves. The nice part is that during school all three gates are locked. The only way onto campus is through the front office where you sign in and out, and have to where a very prominent sticker on your shirt or jacket. The part that bothers me...in all the time I've been volunteering, they've never asked for I.D. Now, it might just be that they know who I am, and the teacher let them know I was going to be there, but I'd be a great deal more comfortable showing my I.D. |
Marej | Monday, October 28, 2002 - 06:26 am     How do you create a folder? Thank you. |
Draheid | Monday, October 28, 2002 - 07:16 am     Marej: A folder has been created for you. You can find it by Clicking here.  |
Zachsmom | Monday, October 28, 2002 - 08:14 am     For those of you who want to send back "junk mail" let me give you a few tips and advice. I am a DBA for our company. Within our company we have 4 businesses. One of our main businesses is direct marketing. I prepare all the data for these mass mailings. These campaigns can be any where from 5,000 to 5,000,000. When you are sending back these solicitation forms be sure to write CANCEL or REMOVE otherwise you will just be sent another solicitation notice. We have one campaign that is on it's 7th drop and I only remove those records who have sent back some form of response. Depending on the company (and one of ours does this) when you send back a solicitation form with nothing marked on it, the company will bill you for the service it's soliciting for. (It's written somewhere in fine print that we will do so-even without signature- all of this is legal- be sure to read the fine print) Make a copy of the solicitation form where you stated REMOVE or CANCEL. If the company sends another notice to you, you can then report them to the BBB. There should be an 800 number on the solicitation form where you can call in to have your name removed from the mailing list.(customer service can take care of this) Ask the sales rep/customer service rep their name, write it down on the solictation form and if they send you another form contact the BBB. Let me also state that the data for campaigns are sometimes prepared 2 weeks in advanced (this is a mailhouse issue- takes about 2 weeks to print forms and mail them) so if you recieve another solicitation form within a month it's probably because you hit the data sent to mailhouse and your canceling..but you can call to follow up that your name was removed. You can also ask the customer service rep where the company that sends you these mailings who they purchase their data from. Get the name and number and call them to have your name removed from their database. Believe me..they also don't want your name in their database if you are not going to respond. They make money by selling names who they believe will respond to services. ( I make the decision on who to purchase our data on this critieria!) One way to avoid having your name on a mailing list is to not list your phone number with the telephone company. Two of the companies which we purchase our data take telephone directories and enter your information. They then sell these to direct marketing companies such as ours for a penny a record. Believe me when I say we do not want to continue to solicit you if you are not interested. We only want to solicit those who want our services!! Whew..I think this is the longest post I have ever written.. |
Sia | Monday, October 28, 2002 - 03:17 pm     Big surprise today: I called BP (Is it BP/Amoco now?) just because the statement happened to arrive today and the envelope was just STUFFED with third-party solicitations. I thought, "Just MAYBE if I ask nicely, someone will tell me how to keep from getting these inserts." I called the regular 800-number on the bill for billing inquiries and asked the customer service rep who answered if she could remove my name from the list for third-party solicitatons. She said she COULD, no problem, and to expect the change to take effect after the next billing cycle or two. Wow, that was so simple! I also asked her to make my name/address/phone number, etc. private and to add me to the list of BP customers who do not wish to be "sold" to other companies for solicitation, as well. She said, "No problem!" Easy as pie. I have been slowly weeding through my statements to request that my private info be kept private and thought I'd taken care of BP, but apparently not until today. Try this; the companies should get the hint that people want no phone calls or junk mail at home. I just hate that we have to ASK for this to be done. "Leave me alone" should be the default answer, imo and you should have to call and ASK to receive the phone calls and junk mail if you want them, LOL!
 |
Babyruth | Monday, October 28, 2002 - 05:09 pm     How come I can finally get into chat after weeks of no luck and now nobody is there? Murphy's law? Bad timing? Am I in the right place? I used the chat link at the top of these pages. |
Twinkie | Monday, October 28, 2002 - 05:48 pm     Here's another interesting email I received today: Every time you fill up the car, you can avoid putting more money into > the coffers of Saudi Arabia. Just buy from gas companies that don't > import their oil from the Saudis. Nothing is more frustrating than the > feeling that every time I fill-up the tank, I am sending my money to > people who are trying to kill me, my family, and my friends. I thought > it might be interesting for you to know which oil companies are the best > to buy gas from. > Major companies that import Middle Eastern oil (for the period 9/1/00 > - 8/31/01). > Shell................ 205,742,000 barrels > Chevron/Texaco....... 144,332,000 barrels > Exxon /Mobil......... 130,082,000 barrels > Marathon............. 117,740,000 barrels > Amoco................ 62,231,000 barrels > > If you do the math at $30/barrel, these imports amount to over $18 BILLION! > Here are some large companies that do not import Middle Eastern oil: > Citgo 0 barrels > Sunoco 0 barrels > Conoco 0 barrels > Sinclair 0 barrels > BP/Phillips 0 barrels > Hess 0 barrels > All of this information is available from the Department of Energy > and can be easily documented. Refineries located in the U.S. are > required to state where they get their oil and how much they are > importing. They report on a monthly basis. |
Wargod | Monday, October 28, 2002 - 06:05 pm     Hey, Babyruth, I'm in chat now. I think the only link to chat that works is in the chat reminder thread at the top of tha thread. It does look like chat wil be quiet tonight. |
|