Freecycle and strapped schools

The last few weeks seem to have seen a deluge of letters from school asking for voluntary and involuntary contributions to the school funds. Firstly, I thought this was what we paid taxes for - to pay for the education of our kids. Secondly, what have Labour been doing with the education budget if our local schools are operating with such major deficits? And thirdly, why the hell can't the school exhibit a tiny bit of ingenuity when demanding money from parents?

This week I have discovered the joys of freecycle, and been reminded of what the average human is capable of thinking up when local councils etc degenerate into landfill lunacy. I went to our local tip today to get rid of real rubbish, and saw inside the skips an absolute mountain of stuff that doesn't belong in landfill. But, we are no longer allowed to take things of use to us, now the council have booted out our beloved Stig. He used to gather together all that was useful and we were allowed to take it away to reduce, reuse or recycle. Now, the two 'bouncers' who guard the skips prevent you from reducing the amount going to landfill. Hence the joy of Freecycle which allows you to post unwanted items, or seek items you need, all for free.

On looking back through the archives I spot a post saying that you can help fundraise for Freecycle using everyclick.com which pays money to the charity of your choice as you use the search engine.

So, why can't our local schools implement this type of fundraising idea? Not only that but maybe create a directory of local businesses to encourage parents, pupils and staff to shop locally? This would surely be an ideal 6th form project, showing them how to approach businesses to ask them to advertise in the directory, create the directory on paper and/or on the web, run accounts for the directory, promote it, encourage local people to use it etc. Tried suggesting this to the school as an alternative to "Every parent must give a tenner to make up the shortage in school funds" letter which they just emailed and sent to us via the sprogs.

That's another thing that is pissing me off. Reduce the amount of paper and admin by emailing letters, rather than printing them - don't do both. All that would seem to have done is create a whole new job for the admin staff who now have to email AND print the letters out.