PTO Today

Our PTO has had the same problem -- only a few parents (mostly board members) showing up at meetings and running everything. Although the parents who weren't involved share some of the blame, much of it had to do with the president, who didn't seem to want to allow anyone but her "inner circle" to do anything.

There was also virtually no communication with members (other than a notice of meetings on the district calendar and the sign board outside the school). Anyone who did not or could not attend meetings was completely out of the loop, and if they questioned anything or tried to raise new ideas, they were told, "Business is conducted at the meetings" -- in effect, members were punished for not attending. The meetings were horrible, too -- even with the small group (board members and two or three regular attendees), no one would welcome a newcomer or even introduce themselves, and there was no room on the agenda for members to raise questions, suggestions, ideas, etc.

Things have changed a bit, and this coming year we are expecting to have a whole new executive board, of which I will probably be a member (I am running unopposed, but you never know!). Here are some of the ideas I hope will change things for our organization (all learned from painful experience!):

1. Communicate with members! Ask for e-mail addresses (and permission to contact by e-mail) with the initial membership packet. Set up an e-mail list of all members (be sure to hide addresses when you send e-mails, just to ensure privacy). Send e-mails out announcing meetings -- with the agenda and previous minutes if available -- and send out a call for agenda items. Send out requests for volunteers whenever an event is coming up, too! Have a return e-mail address so people can respond. ANSWER ALL E-MAILS!

2. Set up a webpage that links into the school page. Post minutes, agendas, important dates, volunteer opportunities, interesting articles, links to local newspaper stories about students, etc. Be sure to maintain the page, and update it frequently! Have a "contact us" link to the e-mail address, and again, answer all e-mails!

3. Make members feel welcome at meetings! Greet them when they arrive. Find out what they can offer and what the organization can offer them. Have a place on the agenda for members to speak, and encourage them to share ideas about events and regular business. Have coffee, tea and cookies at the meetings!

I hope these changes help to increase our volunteer lists. I'm not so concerned about meetings -- I think people should come if they can, but they should not be punished by having no voice in their organization if they can't attend meetings.

I hope these ideas are useful to some of you, too. I will let you know how it goes. If you have ideas for me, I'd love to hear them.

I was/am having the same problem with my group. I was averaging about 5 people at a meeting and had a core group of about 6 people running all of the events and fundraisers. I also lost my treasurer mid-year and my secretary was stepping down at the end of this year and I was already serving without a VP! After sending this message, I had 40 people show up at my meeting AND many signed up to take on tasks for next year. I also heard that one parent, who was a room parent, made calls to her class to encourage them all to come, which helped a bunch. So, I don't think it was my message that was entirely responsible for getting folks to come to the meeting. I also told people that while I was pleased to have this great turnout, I would prefer to have 30-40 regular volunteers than the same number of people at all my meetings! Since my message of desperation, I have had lots of folks step up and have delegate many of the events and programs to them!

I have posted my letter in the File Exchange section of this site (which is awesome) you can find it here: http://www.ptotoday.com/filesharing?task=doc_details&gid=301

We too have this problem. I put out a monthly newsletter and in the last one I put in there if we didn't have anyone to chair Market Day for the upcoming year we won't be doing it. I have been asking people for two years and since I couldn't get anyone I have been doing it myself. Don't you know it I had two people say they would chair it for the next year. Now, I hate guilting parents in to these things but I didn't have any choices. I just don't understand why parents don't want to help any more.

Have you ever considered calling people and asking them to participate, calling for volunteers, meetings, events?? This has increased our turnout by 80%, it really works. It is a lot of work, especially when you have 600+ student like we do, but get a few volunteers to help make the calls, create a script and go for it.

I really don't see meetings as that significant of an issue as far as attendence. All of our information is distro'd via our website and our emails and also our newsletter. We conduct meetings and information exchanges all the time via our emails and get committee briefs etcetera via the same mechanism. I hold the meetings in order to assist those folks that don't have the access to emails to be informed; and frankly we think that if folks are happy then really just let things move along. Having said that, our last volunteer lunch we invited over 150 volunteers...so we must being doing something right.

d

EEK! We have the opposite problem! Our bylaws require 16 Executive Board members; 2 co-presidents, a secretary, a treasurer, a member from administration, a school board member, a teacher/faculty represenative from 3 levels of Elementary, a represenative from Junior High/High School, and we have 6 Parent Represenative positions (At this time, we only have 4 filled, and decided to post the openings when school resumed in Fall.) I don't know how our PTO does it....but we only have 650 kids in 4K-12!

We were having a problem where the same people were doing everything....and we had people who wanted to come to PTO meetings, but our bylaws state that only PTO executive board members may partake in voting...so I campaigned for a committee system. You all are probably laughing...but it took me a whole year to convince everyone, and get the committees rolling. NOW everyone knows who is in charge of what. And...we're spending more time preventing fires, than spending time putting out fires. NOW people who want to volunteer for specific events may do so, attend the meetings they want to/can...AND they may vote at their committee meetings. Who wants to got to a boring meeting and not have a say in what happens?

We send a volunteer survey prior to the beginning of the school year...and we have a HUGE bike ride/spaghetti supper fundraiser the weekend after labor day, which everyone loves to work at....loopy huh? I love it!

I just took over the volunteer committee that I proposed, and will do a 2x a year survey. We are in an artsy resort town and people's availability changes in the winter. Some people go south for the winter...and some retire here to get some peace. I am looking to tap into the artsy population that takes the winter off...and needs something to do. I also want to find some nice senior citizens, and even some special needs people. I am also doing a take home project for a few people where they will read a book, and put it 'on tape' for those kids who don't have someone who reads to them...and for our Hispanic students (About 10%), whose parents speak very little English.

Good luck to all!
Monk