A group of parents sent an annonymous letter to the officers of our PTO telling us all the things we were doing wrong. The letter had no return address, was type written, and contained obvious spelling and grammatical errors we felt were intentional to disguise identities. You cannot respond to annonymous criticism. Our principal's advice was to ignore it. That is exactly what we did. All the other comments we have heard have been positive.

Thanks you guys!! I know I'm being sensitive, but like I said, there's been a lot of BS going on concerning this project. We really feel as though we have to watch our every step. (Check out my last posting under "Too good to be true?" in Fundraising to get an idea).

I especially like C's response, which I plan on using. Especially since we've been BEGGING for help and ideas! I think it's less a jealousy issue, and more a PIA (Pain in the A**) thing--you know, that person(s) everyone seems to have who lives to find things to be an a-hole about. They have yet to contribute anything positive, but find more things than you could shake a stick at to find problems with!

Wow, I think you should pat yourself on the back if you only got one complaint! You will never make everyone happy, so if you only upset one person, consider the program a success!

In my "real" job I deal with a lot of professional educational events (briefings and conferences) and thus get attendee feedback on each one. I've gotten very cynical. I really do care about what our attendees think, but you just can't please everyone. It's exactly the same thing with PTO events.

Her concern merits consideration next time around, but remember it is just ONE person making ONE comment. Don't give it more weight than is fair just because she mentioned it to the principal. You probably had 10 (or more) parents make comments about liking the program, and it sounds like the program was successful.

Just pat yourselves on the back for a job well done, focus on the positives, and move on.

Just one complaint. LOL! I would let it slide. No one is forcing this person's child to put a penny in a jar(or did you hire a few bullies to take care of that? [img]tongue.gif[/img] ). If someone says something just say "Oh, I am sorry did I over look you at the meeting we were discussing it at?" or "My VP, et al, didn't tell me you called them with comments from the x number of letters we sent out on that." Usually if you call them they will hush about that subject and dig up something else to gripe about. They are probably just jealous they didn't think of it. As the end of the year approaches it gets kinda rough for everyone and the gripers love that! Just let it go in one ear and out the other. Personally I think letting the kids help out their school and community is a good character builder.

Kicked off our "Spare Change Friday" fundraiser today: brought in 157.52, and a complaint. I was made aware by our principal that "a parent" had complained to her about our activity. "The Parent" (and others, she claimed) felt it was improper to hit-up little kids for their hard-earned money.

Our principal stood up for us by saying she'd Oked it, and that the goal was to try and include the children in the fundraising so they'd feel like they'd contributed. BUT--I could tell she was regretting OK-ing it.

While I understand criticism comes with the territory, I can't help resent not being confronted to my face. Especially since my, my VP's and our fundraising coordinator's names and phone numbers have been all over everything we send out and we were very open about wanting comments and suggestions, and asked for them when we sent out our information survey.

I know I'll get over it, but I'm admittedly aggravated. How do you handle an "anonymous" complaint? Should I just let it go and not worry about it, or should I address it somehow? Our board (including me, I'm the pres) is a little hyper-sensitive as we've had obstacles (personal attacks and political) every step of they way with this project.