Re: RSVP (and pinatas)

In article <68v9ouF2uqoi9U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Tai says...

hschinske@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On May 12, 6:44?am, Chookie <ehreben...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Is it? ?I'd only ever ask for a phone no. if I expected to need it
in the near future. ?If some random parent waltzed up to me and
asked to swap numbers I'd think she was a bit odd. ?Is that what you
USians do? ?Obviously you are much more free with personal
information than we are: ?if a public school published a student
directory here the principal would probably be hung, drawn and
quartered!


That really surprises me. I'd have thought (though I don't know
precisely why) that folks in the US were much more likely to be
uptight about swapping addresses than those in Australia. Why is it
not done? Is it seen as unsafe somehow?

Not especially, and I'm rather surprised it is wherever Chookie is.

It's standard for the half-dozen or so schools I'm familiar with in my
Australian city for the parents to be asked in the first few weeks of the
new school year if they want their contact details to be published in a
class or year level list given out to all the children. It's an opt-in
system for privacy reasons and over 13 years or so at my children's primary
school (for the1st 7 years) it's been exceptional not to see an address and
one or more phone numbers given for a child. Now they are crammed with email
addresses, as well. Usually it's because the parent forgot to tick the right
box on the bumpf that came home with the child and then they have to wait
until the list is re-issued or phone the other parents to give them the
information.

The honour system of asking people not to distribute the lists outside the
school seems to work very well.

As far as you know!

Once a system like that is set up, unfortunately, since a lot of people *rely*
on that for parties and the like, the situation pressures people who otherwise
aren't comfortable with it to sign up.

I think they're generally a Bad Idea. We have it only for Scouts, which is a
much smaller, tighter-knit group of people with real and continuting needs to
coordinate closely. Having a list out there *only* for birthday parties and
such (other communications should be from the *school to the parent* and *the
individual parent to the school*) sent out to people I don't know just to make
addressing invites easier isn't great.

Banty

.

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