Exercises in Futility (or Desparately Needing To Vent)

[HomeschoolrsRUs]

I am so angry right now I could just scream, and so mad at myself I could just beat my head against a wall - pardon me while I vent. I absolutely HATE the government (oh, excuse me, public) school system.

Okay, trying to start this little Booster Club for my daughter's weightlifting team, right? I've jumped through all the hoops (and golly there are a million of them), and have been working my fingers to the bone to pull off our first fundraiser, an Ice Cream Social, which is SUPPOSED to be tomorrow night (8/16/07).

The lady who is SUPPOSED to be the liason with the school, well she had to have emergency surgery 2 weeks ago, so all the stuff she was supposed to get done working with the school officials all got pushed off on to me. Praise God, at LEAST she talked to everybody at the school (principal, athletic director, coach, activities coordinator) about the event, so they are all aware of it, with the exception of one.

Okay, so I thought the other lady had turned in the approval form, but she hadn't because of the medical situation coming up so unexpectedly. I got the form from her last week, and filled it out, but for some STUPID reason I put the form in my notebook and completely forgot about it (might have something to do with the fact that BOTH of my children were out of town, and it's the first time in I don't know HOW LONG I've been able to spend some alone time with my husband who was also off of work).

I found the form today, turned it in, but found out that there is an extremely high likelihood that the event will be denied approval -- supposedly it takes 10 STUPID DAYS for someone to pick up a pen and sign a STUPID FORM!!! EVERYBODY at the school already knows about the fundraiser/event, the school itself has to do NOTHING in relation to the event, they aren't responsible for ANYTHING having to do with the event, and yet, because somebody's too lazy to just sign their name to a form, all the hard work everybody has been doing (we've sold over $50 worth of tickets!) is going to be down the drain -- we are going to have to try to track down everyone who bought a ticket and return their money.

Okay, YES I KNOW it's my fault for not turning the form in on time -- I get that. And I KNOW I'm being whiny when I say, I've never done this sort of thing before, I'm new at this, there's never BEEN a booster club for weightlifting, and the OTHER LADY was supposed to be handling all this. But come on, it was one stupid mistake EASILY overcome by a stroke of a pen.

I'm just so upset about this (like you couldn't tell from this post, :sad:). I'm sure I'm going to get the inevitable, "that's what you get for making a mistake," but right now I'm feeling more like, "no good deed goes unpunished." http://www.freeconservatives.com/vb/images/icons/Crying00.gif

The coach is going to bat for me this afternoon at 4pm to try to get the form signed -- if you would say a prayer or keep a good thought for me. I can't bear having to face all the team members, parents, ticket buyers, and especially the lady who had the surgery.

< sigh > http://www.freeconservatives.com/vb/images/icons/Crying00.gif

[Rhino]

Thoughts and prayers heading your direction.

[Timberwolf]

Sounds to me like some goobermint school bureaucrat needs to have their hinder kicked so hard s/he wears his/her sphincter as a halo.

Prayers for a successful fundraiser commencing.

[Incident_command]

Sounds like a great reason for prayer. It made the list.
I had no idea girls have a weightlifting team. We've had a few powerlifters "female" in our gym from time to time and I am amazed at how good some of them are. Will keep it on our list till we hear from you.

[lowlander]

Sign it yourself.

[HomeschoolrsRUs]

Thanks for the encouragement, prayers and good thoughts y'all, it's greatly appreciated. I hope they'll find the mark overnight, because I have heard absolutely nothing from the Coach, from the school, from no one. I'm supposed to pick up the ice cream tomorrow morning, my Bubba was taking off early so he could help us set up for the event, but now I don't know if he needs to stay at work and try to get in touch with everyone who bought a ticket so we can tell them it's cancelled or not.

This just seems so utterly ridiculous to me. I wrote a letter to the Coach making it crystal clear that I will no longer deal with the school, and if the other lady is unable to, then things won't get accomplished - I sent it from the team e-mail address -- at least it made me feel better.

I'll update tomorrow if and when I find out anything, http://www.freeconservatives.com/vb/images/icons/shake000.gif

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IC, our tiny school has had a girls weightlifting team for four years now, but in the past two years it doubled -- went from three members to five, and last year we had 13! We are shooting for 20. I was researching the sport, trying to make a flyer to attract incoming Freshman girls to the team/sport, and I found out some very interesting information. Florida is the ONLY state to adopt and sanction girls weightlifting as a sport! It is growing by leaps and bounds, much as soccer has taken off. The program focuses on toning and condition instead of building body mass, individual performance and improvement, strength stamina and endurance. I've noticed that the girls seem to encourage each other, even membrs of the other teams, so while it IS competitive, the girls seem more excited and uplifted by the personal improvement aspect (bettering one's best) rather than the desire to beat the other team.
I found a great article that was in The New York Times, of all places, all about Florida Girls Weightlifting.
Florida Girls Lift Weights, and Gold Medal's - New York Times
(I'm not including the link, because you have to register to read the article, http://www.freeconservatives.com/vb/images/icons/crazy000.gif)

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lowlander,
That wouldn't help, first because the Coach wouldn't let us use the weight room for the fundraiser without school approval, and if we DID set up and try to hold it anyway, a school official would just come and shut us down. :sad:

[TeenageRepublican]

I'll share this with my youth group, even though I'm still pissed with the Youth Leader because he told me to run away from a fight, even though he threw the first punch. That's something I'm not willing to do, stand on the side lines and let this guy throw punches at me, some jerks need to learn a lesson.:bug:This is the only emoticon that is even close to what happened with this guy.

[lowlander]

lowlander,
That wouldn't help, first because the Coach wouldn't let us use the weight room for the fundraiser without school approval, and if we DID set up and try to hold it anyway, a school official would just come and shut us down. :sad:

...because it would be against the rules. I'm very sorry for you HomeschoolrsRUs.

Must be extremely frustrating. Perhaps you should drop it for a moment and just start over after in a couple of weeks.

[HomeschoolrsRUs]

They denied our request for the fundraiser. :flame:

I couldn't believe it. We still had the booth at the New Student Orientation though, so when I went to set up there were already people there for the Ice Cream Social! I felt so horrible having to put up the sign saying the Social had been postponed. I was blessed though, no one got upset, everyone was very nice about the whole thing.

We had a good turnout for the New Student Orientation, and I think possibly 4-5 girls are interested in the Team. Everyone had to pass by our booth on the way into the Media Center, so we are officially on the map, so to speak. The video played great on the new DVD player I got (a wide screen, on sale at Walmart for only $119!) Our booth looked much better than everyone else's :biggrin: (not that I'm biased or anything).

I do appreciate all the prayers, thoughts, and wishes -- they did keep me from jumping down someone's throat and doing a tapdance on their gizzard.

If anyone is interested, here is the team website I've been working on:
NHS_Lady_Lifters (http://eteamz.active.com/NHS_Lady_Lifter_Boosters/)

As a side note, they let us reschedule the Ice Cream Social for the night of the school-wide Open House (wasn't that generous of them? LOL)

[Timberwolf]

I do appreciate all the prayers, thoughts, and wishes -- they did keep me from jumping down someone's throat and doing a tapdance on their gizzard.
Now THAT'S an event to which I'd buy a ticket...'specially if ice cream were served before the "Main Event". :D