I'm appealing to you endless, creative, and helpful idea people out there. I have to give a PTO presentation (what we do, what our goals are, how to help, etc.) in front of 400 parents in 2 weeks. I'm terrified! How have you folks handled situations like this?

I am also interested in how your parents groups participate during open house. We've been getting free samples from TAL Marketing and handing them out as good-will offerings to parents during open house for the past 2 years and we usually have coffee and cookies available, too. The problem is that our volunteers never get to make it to their own kids' classrooms during open house so we want to make this a self-manning booth, if possible. What are your ideas?

We have 15 units in our PTA Council and we will actually pull from other units if need be. (I'll cover yours if you cover mine)We have found people to be very generous with their time. We have also enlisted parents who have just left the school and no longer have students. They are usually very willing to help out. At our middle school we have asked the help of students who have moved onto the high school to come back to the school to lend a hand.

I was in the same situation that you are currently in... Not sure what to say, etc. I did alot of talking to our past PTO president and came to the conclusion that we needed to basically "challenge ourselves as parents to put forth the efforts for the students of our school (our children) in which they each deserved. I am very visual in the school everyday and always wear a smile. Be confident, speak from your heart and believe that your school can achieve the success that it and you desire. Leadership is not easy, as we look back on the events of the last weeks ourselves, we can see that. Good luck and let me know how it goes!!

Open house went just OK...I had a speech written and rehearsed, displays up for parents to see, even an award for 2 of our parents who helped during back to school registration.

OK - first, the principal - as she was introducing me - said over half of what I had written in my speech. I managed to do alright, but it was difficult to have the "flow" and "punch" that I'd planned. Lesson: check with your "introducer" first.
Second, the display - with parent involvement sign up sheets - was in the gym. After the principal's schpeil, the parents rushed out of the gym to visit their children's classrooms. Only one parent came back to the gym to look at our display and sign up. Lesson: either put the displays in the hallway or put coffee out to attract them back.
Otherwise, it all went fine - we have more parents signed up than ever to help, and a great year planned. We had the majority of them sign up at registration.
Thanks for your suggestions!

Ooops - forgot to say anything about the freebies. We got some Tempo (dry wipes) samples from TAL Marketing for free and handed these out to the parents. They love having freebies, and we had another school's Booster President call us the next day, as she'd heard about the handouts and wanted to know more. Evidently, some parents were pretty impressed...