Alex Rast wrote:

> >On the contrary, due diligence can be a defense in a law suit. Failure
> >to do otherwise may be deemed to be negligence.
>
> If you follow that line of reasoning, you've already succumbed to the fear
> of lawsuits. Spending time considering how a situation might best be
> positioned legally in advance of actually having a lawsuit amounts to the
> kind of paranoia I'm talking about, that leads to irrational behaviour.

I only follow that line of reasoning because of the time I have spent in court
rooms and listened to due diligence defences. If you want to conduct some sort
of business venture that offers products or services that may result in injury,
go ahead. There will be lots of lawyers lining up to extract as much money from
you as they can. It is an unfortunate reality.

> It's up to them to decide what pricing to attach to an item. Since they're
> the ones running the sale, they're the ones who should make the final
> decisions. The idea is - in contributing to a bake sale by providing baked
> goods, you don't provide them with all sorts of restrictions placed on them
> like how much they can charge for them or who to sell to or what tables
> they must set them on. If you did, then it would become more your sale
> instead of theirs, in which case, again, you're perfectly free to set up a
> private bake sale and forward the proceeds on to them. But if you donate to
> their sale, then what price they decide to set is up to them.

Yes, it is there sale so they can price things however they want. However,
after seeing that they considered my goods to be worth less than I paid for the
ingredients it was the last time I bothered.

> Well, if you'd feel parasitic in buying somebody else's stuff, then again,
> the option of simply donating money is always there. But begrudging others
> because they don't price according to what you would price is trying to
> impose your will on somebody else's decisions.

Yes, I could simply donate the money. And as I have suggested, they would have
made more money if the donors had simply given the money they would have spent
on ingredients and saved themselves the work. However, it would not have been
much of a bake sale. It would be a different matter if it was a soup kitchen or
some sort of food bank.

> >As I said before, it is a bake sale, not a food bank. The idea was to
> >raise money for the association. I expect that they would consider
> >contributions to be on a value added basis.
>
> Just because their sale wasn't being operated in the "official" capacity of
> a charity doesn't mean they can't price at rates that include more people
> rather than fewer. If an organisation pursues activities that have an
> unintentional quasi-charitable effect I think this is altogether for the
> good. Why not have the maximum benefit come to the maximum number of
> people?

One good reason is that, as mentioned before, the people who go to the expense
and effort to provide the goods are disappointed in and insulted by the value
placed on their contribution and lose interest in participating.



> One of the ways society operates is under the premise that there are some
> people who will give freely of their time, effort, and resources in order
> to help other individuals or institutions without expecting any physical
> compensation in return. In this case, the Association trusts that there
> will be a certain number of people who will gladly provide baked items
> without asking to be paid for the items they provide. That's the whole way
> by which these kinds of events make money.

No one was asking to be paid for their contribution. I am sure that we all felt
that we were offering something of value. Obviously, they did not value the
contribution and out efforts were squandered.

>
> If you take the opposite viewpoint and require that everybody receive
> compensation for their contributions, this is the pure free-market
> capitalist economy, without any not-for-profit entities whatsoever. A pure
> free-market economy is a model some people advocate, but this would make it
> impossible (essentially, by definition) for Associations and other such
> entities to operate. So such organisations assume from the start that there
> will be those who will contribute unconditionally.

Once again, no compensation was requested or expected. All I wanted was for
them to charge at least as much for the goods as I spent to make them, and
preferably a little more because it was supposed to be a fundraiser.