PTO Today

Hi All,
We just had our first PTA meeting and it was stansing room only, very exciting. I hope we can continue to have successful meetings. I would like to
know if anyone has any fun, icebreaking ideas that will work with a diverse parent groups.

I'll let you know what we did tonight, we did a getting to know you Bingo. The first five people to get a bingo got a school t-shirt. The only drawback was the pres forgot to have the Bingo translated to Spanish for our Spanish only speaking parents so they were not able to participate. Most of the SPanish only speaking parents sat together, so I communicated to them in Spanish to ask you neighbor how many kids they have at this school and what grades they are in. This got the Spanish only parents interacting. I work very hard to make them feel welcome.

Any more ideas? I would like to do somthing like this at each meeting.
Becky

The Bingo game is a great idea! I never seem to have that much time what I started last year that I now am known for is my question of the meeting. I theme it around whatever season/holiday is coming up. For our May meeting I did the what would you want to recieve for Mother's Day or Father's Day money no object as well as realistic gifts. I can't tell you how many spouses stopped me in the hallway to find out what their spouse had said. I have made the questions both about their children (i.e, child's favorite food) as well as things about the parent. It has been great fun. Unfortunatley, for our first meeting we had too much to discuss and I couldn't do my question of the meeting and people were really disappointed.

Oh, I would love to know how you get parents to attend your meetings!!! Unless we have some sort of play or music event we normally only have a few people that show up. And we have over 500 students! I would love some ideas on how you get parents to attend the meetings! This is my first year serving on the PTO but I've attended the meetings in the past and they are very sad...lol. Most people are looking at the PTO with a look on their face just telling them to hurry up and get on with it so I can see my child perform! I would love for them to want to be there for the meeting. Our first meeting is being held in October and as of yet there is no performance to get the parents in the door. I've seen meetings where maybe only 10 people showed up! I would love to see that change.

Thanks!