PTO Today

I am in need of some advice. We are a small PTO and board due to the fact of no one wanting to get involved. At our last meeting in June, our treasurer quit and no one would take the position. Our vice pres took the treasury and now holds 2 chairs. VP and treasurer. If someone wanted to take one of the chairs, VP, how would they go about it? I have a person who wants to get more involved and is looking at the VP chair since the one lady holds 2. What advice can I give her?

All that needs to happen is for the parent holding the VP chair to resign that position, the board accepts the resignation (via a vote), then a nomination for the parent who wants to be the VP is made (no second required), and a vote is conducted.

Addition to the above advice: If the person currently holding the two positions doesn't wish to give up either one, the board has two choices:

1) Wait until the end of the term limit and nominate the new parent to the VP position.
2) Create an "Asst. VP" position and nominate the parent to it. Give the position it's own responsibilities in addition to "shadowing" the VP to learn that job.

If the current VP is somehow negligent or inept, you can vacate the chair following an investigation (by appt. committee), a board "trial", and a vote. See Robert's Rules of Order for the procedures on how to do this. However, this would all be very messy and very emotional for everyone involved. If your board is already very small because of lack of involvement, this will put off the parent group even further.

Your best bet is to appeal to the VP's sense of logic -- the more parents involved, the easier everyone's job is, the more that can be accomplished.

Also, check your bylaws. I don't think ours would allow one person to hold two ELECTED positions. (It would be okay for us to head two committees or hold an office and a committee chair position.)

So for instance, we had a time when we didn't have a secretary. The VP often covered and took notes but she wasn't "also secretary". The secretary position remained vacant.

Usually when a position is vacant, it can be filled by appointment. The appointment would be made by the president or the executive board as per your bylaws.

We had the problem last year of no VP and I offered to take it but was told that it wouldn't be approprate for me to hold those two titles together, so our Event Coor. stepped up and took VP but he does hold both titles! Our problem was that VP is able to sign the checks along with Treasure so it wouldn't have been right for me to have both!

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