getting taken advantage of

Sometimes...Just sometimes.
I have a feeling that at some point in the not too distant future we shall be giving up Rainbow guides. This won't be without regret and a hefty dose of guilt. We started the pack up, have run it for a good 13 years and have enjoyed it. But it's getting tedious and tiring and samey. And where is the help and the enthusiasm from the parents? It simply doesn't exist anymore.
Me and Collette both work in the day now. I get home at 3.30 and have to be back out at 4.30 to drive across this sodding city to get there. She gets home similar time and has to sort out her kids... She has a small child to get organised too. Sometimes, when the city traffic has been bad I could cry at the thought of going through rush hour traffic again.
Then there's the hassle. Capitation (which is the insurance) is about 14 quid a child. We don't have the funds to pay that so we ask the parents... But they aren't interested. We have a couple of girls who haven't paid their subs for 5 weeks and more. We ask, they still don't pay. Then I got a narky email from one whose daughter didn't get an immediate brownie place as she hit 7. And I thought WTF? There's the woman who asked us to drive her child home every week even though it added 20 minutes to my journey home and was completely in the different direction for collette. But the audacity of it? You do it once as a huge favour then they take advantage.
Are we mugs or what?
I was also a bit narked at the catering coach last week. The guys who work there are ok, but they do take the piss at times.
Last Saturday there I am with party food coming out of my ears, crackers, decorations, sandwiches and a worker came into the coach and asked if I could cook him something hot. Now we never provide hot food Saturdays. We were only there for the kiddies Christmas party. I said no and he stormed out muttering about how disgusting it was.
Hang on a minute. Rainbows? Train station? We are volunteers. We don't get paid for doing this, we rarely get any form of praise or thanks. But we do it week after week.
And people wonder just why there aren't people out there who will do charity work?