We had a great experince with Mad Science and the kids had a great time!!
Being in the "retail" world, I agree with Tim, PTCA Prez, you really need to share your information with the corporate. SomethingI have learned with Franchises, there is always a person the "one in charge" has to report to! While you can't prevent a car from breaking down, the owners adittude was unprofessional. You didn't need "Superman" you needed supplies!
....but just think if Superman would have brought the supplies!!!! NOW THAT would have been cool!!! [img]smile.gif[/img]
You're right that the Mad Science folks are all franchises and that one franchisee can be very different than another. Pays to check references on your local franchise.
But if you're really dissatisfied, you can lodge a complaint with the Mad Science corporate office at www.madscience.com.
Most franchise agreements still allow some quality control from on-high. Because one poor experience reflects on all the individual franchisees, the corporate office has a duty to make sure all franchisees live up to service minimums and quality standards.
I had heard great things about Mad Science and finally convinced our PTCA to pay for an evening assembly. This consisted of a 45 minute show with "hands-on" stations afterward. The first performer showed up 5 minutes before the show was scheduled to begin; once she got started, the show was great. I was watching for the others (hands-on group) to arrive - one by one they came in separate vehicles except for the vehicle carrying the supplies! Finally got a call that the car had broken down and was told to send all of the kids home ( and believe me, these kids wanted to make their slime!). The owner (I think these are like franchises) was very rude to us and begrudgingly drove the supplies to us. By this time many families had left and the owner felt like he had saved our night! It was one of the worst experiences of my PTCA career!
Please get referrals from other schools/groups in your area using the specific Mad Science company. Our principal did some calling around afterward and found other schools had similar problems with this guy. And there's no one to complain to because he is the owner! The woman doing the show really did her best at trying to make things work, but her hands were tied. The owner also expected full payment - we finally settled on paying only for the show portion, but he never apologized. Be cautious....
We have had a couple of Mad Science activities in our school. It helps that one family in our school owns their own Mad Science business! We have had a four week after school program that we had to restrict due to the popularity and the size of our school to only grades 3-5. The classes were filled to capacity and then some! Several kids signed up for the second week, after hearing about it form their friends! To make up for not being able to include the pk-2 students, the owner graciously donated an in class assembly for every class in grades pk-2! We were amazed by his willingness to donate this. ALL of the kids LOVED it!! We also had them at two assemblies and one famimly fun night as well! The family fun night, they set up a slime making booth. For one ticket the kids got to make a container of slime to take home(and a bunch of parents did too!). The PTO sold the tickets and he allowed us to keep all of the money form the sales! The assemblies were during drug free week and a reading promotion week that our school sponsors. The first had one of the principals involved in an experiment with cigarettes to demonstrate how bad they are for you. And at the reading assembly, one of our principals always agrees to do something different if the kids reach a goal of reading so many hours during the two or three week period! One year, he kissed a pig on the auditorium stage in front of the entire school. This year he voluntarily sat in a chair and had the Mad Scientist dump a bucket of slime over his head! They also got one of the music teachers on the hover craft!! The kids absolutely loved every activity that they did. I guess I just can't say enough about how wonderful they have been for our school. We are lucky to have them in our community!
I've scheduled a Mad Science assembly for our school in late May. I still haven't personally seen their assembly, but I've gotten very positive feedback from other area schools.
I'll let you all know how it goes. By the way,
they also do a 30 minute show that a little easier on year end budgets.
