Does anyone have any suggestions for meeting days and times that will attract the most members?

I think we all struggle equally with this and there's no perfect answer. If yours is a pretty typical community, more often than not both parents will work outside the home. Certainly people work a variety of shifts and jobs, but that usually means the majority of people are available in the evenings. Then you start looking at it day by day.

Monday - some avoid Monday because it's right after the weekend and people forget. Others like Monday because it may be less scheduled than other worknights.

Tuesday / Thursday - these seem to be two of the most popular for groups I'm in, but then we may get into seasons where one or both are heavy sports night (especially Thursday).

Wednesday - some avoid this because it's still considered a "church night" for many families. Others don't see it as an issue.

There are groups who hold their meetings during the day. Maybe someone else can speak about those and how well they worked. I've never had a group even consider it because the majority of our community would not be available.

There is no perfect day/time. You'll just have to work through the issues and pick the best for your group.

But I can tell you this - make the meetings a reasonable length (shorter is better) and full of good information. No one is eager to go to a meeting that's seen as a waste of time.

Our PTO generally holds meetings on a week-day morning as it is most convenient to the board members (most are SAHP's). However, twice per year, our meetings are scheduled for the evening as the agenda of those meetings is most likely to interest school parents. I don't know why we bother, though. Despite heavily advertising the agenda and meeting time for those evening meetings, we get one to two guests at the most.

The type of meeting is a good point. Some organizations still hold a monthly general meeting. My elementary school PTO held a monthly business meeting of the Board. Our board was large (20+) with the regular officer positions, committee chairs, and a parent rep from each grade. Visitors were welcome (but rare). We focused on the business of the PTO and looked to our parents to volunteer and donate goods for programs - not come to a monthly meeting. We, too, had the twice-a-year general meetings. They were always very short, placed right before a popular school program. Fall meeting was to vote on the budget and lay out plans for the year. Spring meeting was to vote in new officers and review accomplishments.

I did really like that model. Our business/board meetings were in the evening because at least half our members worked outside the home.

We found it's not the time or the day, it's what's done at the meeting.

Most people don't want to sit for an hour or hour and a half and listen to you and all your committee members to give reports, then listen to the principal babble on endlessly promoting her agenda.

We changed to a format where we're all at round tables. Each table has its own agenda. I open the meeting. We get the treasurer's report and very breifly highlight the business which is all spelled out on the main agenda. They can all read. No one needs me to read it all to them. We do principals reports, but have asked them to keep it brief and bring handouts if there's a lot of info they want to give out.

This takes about 30 minutes, but I try to make it even sooner.

Then we adjurn the regular meeting and the committee meetings start.

They have an agenda that looks like this:

Movie Night:
Date: ___________
Pick movie (from list provided)
delegate: Popcorn poppers:
Drinks:
Order pizza:
Flyer (create, approvals, copy, distribute:
Collect RSVP's and make ticket envelopes:
Email for and organize intermission servers:

There are similar agendas on each committee table.

By the end of the night, everyone leaves having committed to a small job, feels like their time wasn't wasted, because decisions were made and work got done and we always seem to have enough hands on deck. It's so much easier when you just have to make a flyer and don't have to commit to doing that whole list.

Interested concept-- we've tgried Morning, after school and evening. Mornings were pretty good-- afterschool brought some teachers, but little parents even with offering free after school daycare and evening was even worse this past year

We're trying all Morning meetings since they have been the best--- but since we are a PTO (Parent-Teacher) Organization we are going to have 3 after school meetings throughout the year to include teachers. Teacher don't volunteer to chair an event-- so we're trying to focus on parents for our meetings... but we've also started a PTO connects with the teachers and staff-- where a board member comes to a staff meeeting once a month and informs them of what we have coming up, any pertinent information they need for reimbursement or anything else and answer any questions they might have... this way they stay informed and feel included even when they can't make a meeting. We'll see how this all works out this year.