Our PTO committee is also all new and it is operated very informal for now. There are two suggestions that we use. 1. We set an agenda, each topic is allowed about 5 to 10 minutes. Our president uses an egg timer. We have had to use the timer due to negative parents.
After the agenda is met, we allow parents to discuss new issues.
Secondly, We have asked that our principle step in and manage parents when needed. Most of the issues that become problems are issues that need to be addressed to the principle or the school board.
Keep minutes, we post ours with a PTO newsletter each month.
I'm a dad who is all too new to this PTO thing and guess who's running it? ME... I had my first PTO General Meeting in October and I though the whole thing went sour. The reason is there's one mom who is so negative that she poisoned the whole meeting and set the tone for the rest of the meeting.
I have a few questions for the experienced:
1. How do you deal with people who are negative and counterproductive in your PTOs? 2. How do I keep the meeting going and stay within the time limit w/o using Robert's Rules? and
3. Since we're not using Roberts Rules, is that okay and do meeting minutes need to be documented for record keeping?
