Advice from PTO Today

Craig writes:
Wow! Three hours? The short answer is for a meeting that long people do need something to help keep them alert. It makes sense to serve some moderately healthy snacks. (In other words, avoid doughnuts and other heavy things that will make people crash rather than keep them going.) But I'm more concerned about the length of your meetings. Three hours is way too long for a general meeting. You should limit them to an hour tops. Look at it this way: If a volunteer has three hours a month to give you, wouldn't you rather have that person spend one hour at a meeting and two helping with your activities and programs? Your officers should have a prepared agenda. The detail work should be done by committees, and you should be making only major decisions at your general meetings. You should never be discussing blue or green as the color scheme for the pot luck supper. And whether you should switch to a new fundraising vendor should be investigated by a committee (or the board) and their findings presented at the general meeting. That will help make your meetings purposeful and directed. And when discussion drags on, limit the amount of time people are allowed to speak or cut off discussion entirely if it's repetitive. The article Robert's Rules: What You Should Know offers some tips (beyond Robert's Rules) on how to run an effective and efficient meeting.

• Report Abuse Nonsense Spam

Community Advice

badpants writes:
We have a Social Committee, who is responsible for making sure we have drinks for the meeting, which our group pays for. We have grades assigned for each month to bring snacks to the meetings. The Social chair also contacts the room parent for the grade to remind them that it's their month and the room parent gets their parents on board. It also helps getting parents to meetings. We have some grades that are pretty involved and attend and other grades where it's not as strong.

• Report Abuse Nonsense Spam