IMO, the first thing to do is make a list of things that will need to be done. This varies from group to group.


The second thing is to put someone else in charge of as many of those things as you can.

You were elected president, not martyr. Lead the troops.

(Also, start small and see what your group is capable of before launching huge projects.)

Good luck!

Jen,

I would recommend first deciding what your group's priorities are going to be for the remainder of the year. This is something that should be discussed between all of the executive members. Set up an informal meeting somewhere, maybe someone's house or at a restaurant, and just brainstorm. There are many questions that need to be answeed, such as...

- How much funds do you presently have?

- What events do you want to have throughout the year, such as seasonal events, a back to school event next year, field day, enrichment programs, funding field trips, family nights, etc.

- Once you have decided what you want to try to have then you need to come up with a way to fund it. Does your group have a Fundraising Coordinator? Are there certain fundraisers that you are already looking at?

You'll need to make sure that your fundraisers match your needed funds, and then some (you'll want extra).

- Does your group have Bylaws? If not that may, or at least should be, one of this year's priorities.

- Agendas. Once you have an understanding of your calandar you should be able to generate an agenda for your meeting. Use the agenda to control your meeting. Give the Principal a section to discuss things going on at the school level. Provide a section for your treasurer to go over the budget. The other sections should be past events or programs and upcoming events or programs.

In regards to how much time this is going to take, that really depends on what your group tries to do and what you try to do. For example, my group didn't even have a President back in 2005. Last year I was voted in and wanted to improve the group. I took on many of the things that others would not. I created a website from scratch, created monthly newsletters from scratch, added five new events throughout the year, and maintained all of the events and programs that the group had always done. As you can imagine all of this had me spending upwards of fourty or fifty hours a week. We're talking every lunch, a couple of hours every night, upwards of ten hours on the weekend, etc. Most probably would not go to this extent. At the same time, having done that last year this year should be much easier. I would venture that my time is going to be about half of what it was last year. At the same time if you took away the website and the newsletter my time would decrease to about ten or fifteen hours a week instead. Get away from some of the events and it would be even less. It's difficult to give you a definitive time that you'll be speding as President as it all depends on what you and your group wants to do.

Anyway, I am sure you'll do great, and good luck.
PresidentJim

I was scared to death when our principal asked me to take over our PTO. It is definitely a huge responsibility, but how much time you put into it is up to you. I pretty much made it like a full time job. I got all of our files together, cleaned up our PTO room, and wrote a list of things that I thought would be good for our group. I started a monthly newsletter, and I wrote a PTO Handbook so that the next president would know what to do and when to do it. Taking over as president has been a very rewarding experience, and I am so glad I accepted the challenge. Good luck to you. I know you will do fine.

My advice from horse country is to take the reigns and set the pace. Go to fast, and you'll fall off the horse. Go too slow, you won't cross the finish line before the race is over.

The role of President can require a lot of time committment, but it can be rewarding and fun.

You'll read a lot about dependent and independent organizations. Both are really ok, but based on the amount of money that will be handled and the amount of independence you will have from the school, the group needs change.

You can have committees it you have enough people to staff them.

The people that nominated you should be chairpersons of the committees. You didn't say if other officers were selected or not.

You probably have no money. These boards have many posts of people that have had to have fundraisers with no startup money. Just and browse away.

You didn't say what age groups you represent. This affects what you can and should do for activities and fundraisers.

You might want to think about how you will run meetings.

PTO today has a lot of BONUS Tools you can read. You have to decide if you want to buy some. Some are free.

Read all you can about getting off to the right start.

I don't know how small you're talking about, but ask the staff to appoint a teacher for day to day business and ask the administrators how often they will be involved in helping you set your future direction.

Good luck, we're pulling for you...

Hi everyone!
Our school is a small private school on the Gulf Coast, only in it's second year, but growing. They decided to form a PTO this year, though we just got around to our first meeting tonight. They called for nominations toward the end of the meeting and to my shock someone whom I'd never even met before tonight nominated me and 3 others immediately seconded it. I said I was willing to give it a try and before I could blink, I was elected President.

While I am very humbly flattered, I'm scared to death, as well. I've never done anything like this before and don't want to disappoint our members/faculty, etc. I have no idea whatsoever how a PTO works.....I get the gist of it but now I'm the one 'in charge' or the 'go-to' person and feel like I need to get more than just the idea of how a PTO functions and what exactly my responsibilities are.

I also have some basic questions such as....how much of my time is this really going to take up? How often should we meet? Do I have to keep track of the different Committee meetings and what occurs during them? And just how, exactly, do I lead a PTO meeting??? LOL How formal/informal should they be?

I must admit, after reading that last paragraph, even I wonder if I've got what it takes to do this. But I'm willing to try my best and so honored that the parents at our meeting tonight thought I was the one for the job. I'd appreciate any advice & guidance anyone can offer.

Thanks so much!
Jennifer