My only question would be "when is the magic show." If it's during the school day, then EVERYONE should attend. If it's after school or on a weekend - then you have total right to say no - or say - it's $15 per student who didn't sell the cookie dough. (Either way, if you went from 30 tubs per kid to just 5 - I don't know if the magic show was the best motivator.)
I'd also like to hear the outcome of all of this. I don't understand how some parents are upset that their children can't attend when the magic show was clearly a reward for something accomplished. It's ludicrous!
If anything, the kids that DID sell the 5-tubs will be disheartened and demoralized if the rules were bent to accomodate those that didn't sell any -- those kids really have nothing to lose at the end because they didn't make the effort to go sell for fundraising.
Rules are rules for a reason. If you bend the rules at this fundraiser are you going to bend the rules at the next? I would have made sure to incorporate all pertinant information on the fundraiser along with the rules into your PTO minutes that go out to everyone or at least a flier of some sort in your Thursday folders.
We have turned away from fundraising companies at the elementary level since so many of our parents were getting tired of those type of fundraisers. Our solution was to do Walk-A-Thons where basically 100% of the monies collected go to the school and it's a healthy, positive alternative for the students. In the middle school level the principal does the cookie dough fundraiser at the beginning of the school year and has moderate success. The PTO does the weekly Wednesday pizza sales with a monthly baked good sale and of course, flowers for Valentine's Day, concessions at ball games and so forth. We are working on more education based events like Math night instead of focusing our energy into fundraising.
I agree -- if it was stated that only those that sold so much would get the reward stick to your guns-- I'd also re-think this one for next year though.
We had good luck with our cookie dough-- not as good as last year, but good none the less. We had a few containers that cracked in shipping and the company replaced them and gave an extra 3 tubs for the inconvenience.
The only bad thing they did is we also used them for our catalog sales, and they tagged both together-- it was just too much at once for people... most just didn't have the money for both. Good luck in your decision.
As long as your fundraiser and the individual reward was promoted these complaining parents have nothing to complain about.
If you or the company that you worked with changes things to grease the squeeky wheels then you are setting a bad precedence. Those children that sold what they were required deserve the reward and that is effectively that. I wouldn't send anything home explaining to the complainers. Maybe put something up on the website, but that's it. Send something home to the parents of the kids that met the requirement, but you don't have to explain anything to the others, unless they approach you.
If they do approach you you should stick to your guns. Explain that this is how we have run the fundraiser for years now and that the reward requirement was in the flier that went home, and that next year you'll make a point to highlight the requirement so those parents that didn't understand this year will next (or something,like that).
