I'm going to ask you all since like me - you are frugal :lol: I was contacted by a kindergarten class of 16 kids + parents to come and do a farm tour here. We charge usually $5 age 5+ They wanted a lil pumpkin (usually $2-3 extra), gather eggs ($1.75 extra) and or feed the chickens ($1 extra) So I said we would do $7 each kid and they could take home a pumpkin, feed the chickens (no egg gathering), and even a hay ride! I was told this was too expensive! And I just don't see it as being such. What do you all think?
I don't think that sounds bad. I mean, it is your business, and they shouldn't expect you to just do it for free!
I would gladly pay your prices. I however would pass on getting near the chickens. I am terrified of chickens! (Unless they are fried of course.) Don't feel like you have to give tours away just because it is a class. It is a business for goodness sake.
I think that is very reasonable. It bothers me that people ask for a discount and are almost never happy with the discount you give them. DH has learned the hard way not to give in to people that ask for discounts. Besides you're already giving atleast a $3 discount times that by the 15 that are coming and that's $45 total that's been discounted.
That is not too expensive at all. I would gladly pay that to come tour your farm! Man VA is a long way from TX. Too bad!
I agree! I have been trying to arrange a photo fundraiser and for $25 the lady will do the photo shoot and give an 8x10 and the club will get $15. So they are coming to do the shoot and give an 8x10 for $10 profit. And people are not happy with it. I give up!:roll:
I think you offered them a great deal and I wouldn't worry about it. I know easy said than done sometimes but...the truth is that the schools don't have funding to do things. I know several school teachers in our city and they district can not even offer the spelling bee book to students for a cost of $1.50 because that would discrimination for the students who can't afford to pay it. So...we hold everyone back? argh! Unfortunately we live in a world where everyone wants it for free and give it to me now. You were generous no matter what.
From your perspective it is not too expensive. I think you were being more than fair. But from a teacher's perspective, I never would've been able to take my whole class on a trip that cost that much. A lot of places give schools grants to pay for field trips too so the students don't have to pay much. But it is rare to have students who can all pay that much. So you were fair, but I wouldn't feel badly that they can't pay for it either.
I'm just making sure - because she was really nice until the last email stating that they can't afford it. No offense here, but she isn't in a non-affluent area (the houses on no acerage are $1 mil + - lil mcmansions) so I'm surprised they didn't ask the parents to cough up the money - which I know last year and the year before that MY kids while in PS were asked to cough up a lot more to go on a similar trip.
I obviously don't know the area but if it's a ps, just bc it's affluent doesn't mean every one in class is and in order to get a permit to go on a field tirp everyone has to be able to do it. Maybe it's different but here there's like 10,001 rules to follow to get to go. ;-) If it makes you feel better--I"LL come to your farm! ;-)
I don't think it's to expensive for the school. I know the schools here have money set aside for field trips. It doesn't pay for the whole thing but at least half of it.
We could not charge for field trips, and we did not have much of a budget, so that would probably have not been an option for kids at our school. But you are running a business and not a charity!!
Well the farm we go to each year and others down here charge 5. That gets you a hayride, medium sized pumpkin-big enough that you can carve it if you want, and you also get to see the rest of the farm animals- horse, turkies, ducks, rabbits, goats, ect. There is actually someone that takes each group around to each animal and talks about their habitat, what they eat, ect. But really 7 isn't that bad. A little high, but not that bad.
To put it into perspective, we're doing a corn maze next month. We will have a walk through the maze, unguided (nominal expense to the farm for upkeep of corn), mini-pumpkin painting (nominal expense to the farm for growing the pumpkins), and a bonfire on which to cook our own food (tiny expense for wood, or none if it came from their property). I do understand that they have overhead to recoup, as well. So I have no problems at all with paying $7 each for my 5yo and 3yo. When I know full well that the only thing that we're really paying for is overhead. Farmers have to make a living, too. You're offering a lot more than we'll get for the same $7. I think you're being totally fair.
wow everything was ten for us here, when we did preschool it was ten dollars cause we got the pumpkin and storytime, small petting zoo and play in a hay maze ... I think your deal is good, but what if you told them they would get a 25 cent discount per child for doing something .... i dont knwo what, a few cents seems to make a difference in Advertizing! for instance if you think you are getting something for uner 7, as 6.98 you will get more people buying it!
I don't know - the PS that they are coming from has a lot of money - believe me.... kids from the special needs section came over in the spring and we had a blast. Oh and those kids paid for themselves which shocked me a little. We aren't a large farm and our hired help doesn't exist A group of 16 takes about 1 1/2 - 2 hours of time with a hayride. We don't know how many pumpkins we will have (huge drought in this area) and we plant by hand so my husband took about 3 days to plant the 2000 pumpkin seeds. I think I was just taken back by her attitude about it. But I am afraid also if I gave 1 discount too much, she would spread the work and others would expect it. I priced out all the places in the area who do similar things (most are very commercial and not a true 'working farm') and they are a minimum of $9 - not including a pumpkin during this time of the year.
Maybe after she calls around a bit, she'll see what a good deal you're offering. If money isn't really an issue and she's just fishing for a big discount, then she'll probably call you back. If money really is the issue, then the kids will just have to miss out.
It sounds in line with what is paid around here. When I taught in a private school, most of our families were very hard up for money. A lot of our fund raising profits were divided between reducing the costs of field trips and paying the teachers' salary (how sad is that?) Anyways, we also always had one or two parents who would send an extra dollar with their kids admission and just ask that it be applied toward another child who couldn't afford it. Even as a teacher, I usually gave a little extra to make sure my class could go. But we also didn't do paid field trips very often - about three times. All the others were free or $2.00 towards gas - like fire hall, sledding hill, library, etc. If the teacher really wants this field trip, she'll find a way.
I think it's a great price. Like it was mentioned, people want things for free & can't be happy with the things you DO do for them. I'm guessing you did explain the cost breakdown & how much it would normally cost? Maybe you can drop it to 5, NO pumpkin? ETA-To make sense, I have no idea what happened
