Next Wednesday, March 24 from 9:00pm – 10:00pm EST we are hosting a Twitter chat on this very topic. Here’s your chance to chat with Tim, founder of PTO Today, dad, and president of his kids’ parent group about the challenges, strategies and rewards of growing parent involvement.

If you are new to Twitter, check out a post I did a few weeks ago titled How to Use Twitter to Grow Parent Involvement. That post will familiarize you the basics of Twitter.

The next question is how do you participate in a Twitter chat? It’s really pretty simple.  Here are the basics of a Twitter chat:

What is a Twitter chat? A Twitter chat (sometimes called a Twitter party) is an event where a group of people decide to get on Twitter at a pre-determined time period to discuss a given topic.

How do you join a Twitter chat? To be part of the the conversation, you must first have a Twitter account. If you are just signing up now, again I recommend that you watch the Twitter basics video.  All Twitter chats use a # (hashtag) in their tweets to designate that they are part of a specific chat. Our hashtag is #PTOchat. Once you have an account, you then choose how you want to follow the conversation. You can just follow it in Twitter but there are many other unrelated conversations going on and it’s somewhat difficult to follow.

To make the conversation easy to follow there are online applications that organize the tweets: tweetgrid and tweetchat. Tweetgrid has a nice, little how-to tutorial on how to use Tweetgrid to set up and participate in a Twitter party.

Don’t let all these videos give you the wrong impression though – it really is simple to participate. You are basically IMing with other people on one topic and participating in and following the conversation using the #PTOchat hashtag. Easy Peasy.  It’s a very forgiving form of communication — can’t really make a mistake.

That said, if you are not ready to jump into a conversation but would like to get a gist of a Twitter chat, we’ll let you off the hook this time. To eavesdrop on our parent involvement convo,  go to one of the sites mentioned above and search on the #PTOchat hashtag during our chat (don’t need to use your Twitter login this way).  The downside of sitting on the sidelines? You are not eligible to receive our #PTOchat give-away, that folks will receive for tweeting with us during the March 24th chat, using the #PTOchat in their tweets.  This month we are going to give away a free Parent Involvement Kit to every person who tweets during our chat. At the end of our #PTOchat, we’ll also be giving away a t-shirt.

Hope you’ll join Tim and I to talk about effective ways to increase parent involvement. Bring your questions and ideas. Lots to talk about!

Some of the ways that Tim suggests to promote your group are:

• newsletters
• local newspaper articles (write a press release)
• brass plaques

We also hear of many groups using Twitter and Facebook to toot their horn a bit and grow involvement.

How does your group get the word out to your school about your hard work? We’d love to hear from you.

If you are not familiar with the basics of twitter, watch the video below:

Most importantly, Twitter is a great tool for building parent involvement. Here are some sample posts or tweets from parent groups:

PTO Meeting this Thursday. XHS Princpals will be on hand to talk about the upcoming transition for the 8th graders. Don’t miss it!

Thanks to all who have volunteered for Friday’s Holiday Shoppe. We still need more volunteers – if you can help, DM me.

Working on our school auction. Anyone have an ideas for a fun theme?

Some Twitter lingo and basics:

Follow- When you follow someone on Twitter, that means you elect to see, in your twitter stream,  the tweets that they post.

Tweets – this is just another word for post or status.

Your “followers”-  (a.k.a. “tweeps,” or “tweeple”) are the people who have chosen to see your tweets.

@ Replies – When you want to reply to someone or simply get their attention, you use the @ sign followed by their username and your message. Note that when you do this, everyone who follows you and that person sees your message.

Direct messages –  To send a private message you type a ‘d’ before their user name and then the message. Direct messages  are often referred to as “DM.”  You cannot, however, DM just any Twitter user – only people who you follow and happen to be following you back. This restriction helps prevent spamming.

Adding links to your Tweets:  You can include links in your tweet simply by posting the complete URL, including “http://”, but some URLs are long. Luckily there are free online services that will shorten your URLs. Three popular services are Hootsuite, snurl,  and bit.ly. They all work basically the same way: You enter the long URL, and the service generates a shortened URL. You then copy and paste the short URL into your tweet.

Still not convinced you should jump on the Twitter bandwagon? Watch this Youtube video about the social media revolution.

Now that you’re convinced, we hope you’ll follow us on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/ptotoday
http://twitter.com/TimPTO
We’d also love you to join the conversation on our Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/PTOToday
Does your school use Twitter? We’d love to hear how you are using it and how you have encouraged parents to engage with this new form of communication.

What does your PTO do to help dads be more connected to your school? We would love to hear about your programs and ideas.

Tim mentions Watch D.O.G.S. and Safeteam — two organized initiatives that are doing their part to engage dads in their kid’s education — in this video. Thought you might like to check out their websites.

Hope it helps. Maybe this can be your group’s collective new year’s resolution: to stop the drama and move from controversy to consensus.

What steps have you taken to make your principal your pal? Anyone have any stories about how they have successfully worked out differences between parent group and principal? Love to hear them!

Lindsey Ferrier writes about her desire to be a valued member of her school’s PTO. Sounds like a good and attainable goal. So here’s someone  – as far as I can tell from her blog — who is bright, capable and has a good sense of humor. Sign her up, right? Wrong. This woman volunteered not once, not twice, but three times… without even an email acknowledging her offers!  Ouch. Now that’s what  I call frustrating.

Please don’t let this happen in your group! We are several months into the school year. Make it someone on your board’s charter to go through your forms and emails and match the volunteer offers up to volunteer opportunities.  Lots of good articles on our site on how to attract and keep volunteers -take few minutes to read them. Do you have a system for managing your volunteers? If yes, tell us how you don’t let people like Lyndsey fall through the cracks. If no, perhaps you’d like to check out our PTO Manager/Volunteer Builder software package.

Find a way to let those who volunteers help out. If you can’t use them right away, at least email them back and thank them for their offer and tell them you’ll call them when the next volunteer job comes up. Communication is key. Despite the lack of communication and validation from her PTO, Lindsey hasn’t given up. But most people most certainly will!

Oh, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter – http://twitter.com/ptotoday.

Image: Andy Newson / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So did it make you feel better to have Tim put parent group meetings in perspective? Hope so.

If you are interested in learning about the  basics on running an effective meeting, be sure to check out the Meetings and Robert’s Rules section of our site.

Our school has been running an increasingly successful auction gala for five years now. I like it because it helps us support really good work and because it winds up being a fun, grown-up night out with friends — different from when we’re all chasing kids around ball fields or school gyms. (We have a ton of good auction resources on ptotoday.com.)

But there is one area I still don’t get and where I think my group is leaving money on the table. It’s my tip for you this week, if you have an auction: Who says that silent auctions have to end using a clock?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had five items I was following and bidding on, with all five spread in different sections of the room. It was impossible for me to get my max bid in for each of those items as the clock ticked down. I usually win the one or two that I stay physically closest to (sharp elbows and fast pen help immensely) but lose the several others across the room. Our school winds up selling those items for less than they could have. Auction profits go down.

The solution: Write into your auction rules that you reserve the right to turn any hotly contested silent auction item into a quickie live auction. If the clock hits the appointed hour and two or more parents are still competing, grab the sheet, hop up on a chair, and take bids. Two minutes later, you’ll know that you got the most dollars you could for those items. Unfair? No way. Not if you disclose it in advance and run it openly. In both cases there is a winner and a loser of the item, but in my system the school maximizes earnings. Which is kind of the point of the auction, no?

Related note — if you’re looking for creative auction items to sell, this list of suggested auction items has been one of our most popular for years.

I’m already sharpening my elbows and working on my pen speed for the upcoming silent auction at my kids’ school. Sad, but true.
Our school has been running an increasingly successful auction gala for five years now. I like it because it helps us support really good work and because it winds up being a fun, grown-up night out with friends — different from when we’re all chasing kids around ball fields or school gyms. (We have a ton of good auction resources on ptotoday.com.)

But there is one area I still don’t get and where I think my group is leaving money on the table. It’s my tip for you this week, if you have an auction: Who says that silent auctions have to end using a clock?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had five items I was following and bidding on, with all five spread in different sections of the room. It was impossible for me to get my max bid in for each of those items as the clock ticked down. I usually win the one or two that I stay physically closest to (sharp elbows and fast pen help immensely) but lose the several others across the room. Our school winds up selling those items for less than they could have. Auction profits go down.

The solution: Write into your auction rules that you reserve the right to turn any hotly contested silent auction item into a quickie live auction. If the clock hits the appointed hour and two or more parents are still competing, grab the sheet, hop up on a chair, and take bids. Two minutes later, you’ll know that you got the most dollars you could for those items. Unfair? No way. Not if you disclose it in advance and run it openly. In both cases there is a winner and a loser of the item, but in my system the school maximizes earnings. Which is kind of the point of the auction, no?

Related note — if you’re looking for creative auction items to sell, this list of suggested auction items has been one of our most popular for years.