Well this very thing happened to us last year. We had invited 3 companies to come in and present their products to us. All 3 had different percentages that we would make. The one that the parent was pushing had the lowest percentage offered and only offered 1 item. (Candles)She even told the board in front of everyone that if we would go with her company should would give each board member $100.00 worth of her items. (This personally did not set well with me because I took it as a bribe as did others on the board)after each company had gave their speech and it was time to vote the 2 outside companies gathered up their stuff and left. The parent that presented her stuff left and went into the bathroom and called her husband to come and vote. He showed up and they were ask to leave while we took a vote. She proceeded to tell us that she had kids in our school and she had a right to vote. After telling her that we felt it was a conflict of interest she threw one hissy fit and we decided to let her and her husband vote to save face. However, her company was voted down with me as president having to cast the decided vote because of a split vote. She stood up and started screaming at me and I held it together thanked her for her time and decided right then and there that something needed to be put into the bylaws so that this never happened again. We as a board drew it up voted upon it as stated in the bylaws and here is what our bylaw's now read:
a. No representative of any fund-raiser shall be allowed to attend the PTO meeting
where the fund-raiser is being voted upon. Regardless if they have a student in the
(name of school district). They must remove themselves
and anyone affiliated with them or their sale from the meeting before a vote can be
taken. If a representative of a fund-raiser is to be considered for a fund-raiser that
has a child in the School District it has be by a unanimous
vote by the current officers of the School District
I have taken out the name of our school because I don't want any more problems from this parent. I have changed my name to post this also. Hope this helps you out.
Wow, it really sounds like you are in a jam. This catalogue sale proposed by the parent-was it from a national fundraising catalogue sale type thing or is it that she found a catalogue and is going to mark up prices for her profit? Who put together the catalogue to be used? Did the membership understand this? Besides most catalogue places give you 50% why would your membership choose 40% over 50%. Did the membership realize that the price of the items would be so expensive and what their profit would be? We do not have a problem with parents bringing such things to the table but, would definately go with the more secure and profitable fundraiser. I wonder if you could not have someone make a motion at your next meeting to "revisit" the situation and proceed again. I would be hard pressed to sign a contract with this woman. Most certainly in the event that you cannot get someone to leave the meeting like this or the vote may be one that people do not want you to know how they voted always go with a "ballot vote" in the future.
(NOTE: FOLLOWING WAS POSTED BY TK SIZEMORE IN ANOTHER THREAD. MOVED FOR TOPICALITY -- TIM)
I have been looking over everyone's posts regarding Bylaws. We are a new school who is going on their 2nd yr. Last yr we elected a governing board persay and didn't have any by laws at all. I served on that board. This yr we elected positions which include a president,sec,and 2 treasuerrs. I am on this board and the issue of bi laws has come up. We are currently looking to addopt by laws. We are located in AZ and are called a PTO. I am assuming that we can basically addopt anyone's by laws and change them accordingly.
I guess my main concern and question is there is a situation that has occured and would love some advice. due to parent's possbily reading this post I will not use names. reciently we had our first PTO meeting and we were voting on 2 fundraisers to use. We just took a majority vote. decided on 2 to use. we borught in 3 diff companies to chose from. 2 of the companies are well known organizations that many schools use. The other was brought in by a parent. The PTO board personally wnated the first 2 fundraisers 2 do not the one by the parent. when it came time for the public to vote we asked the 2 companies presenting to leave so we could vote they were very nice and abbliged. we also asked the parent to leave. she threw a hissy fit and said she was a parent and had children that attended this school and was entitled to a vote. Not to make a scene we allowed her to stay. when it was time to vote one of the organizations and the parent fundraiser was approved. after the meeting it was brought to our attention that the parent who wanted to do this fundraiser was telling everyone around her to vote for hers. It made the public very uncomfortable and am assuming to some extent she may have coersed them into voting for her. It has also came to my knowledge that the catalog in which we are doing the parent fundraiser....the items were marked up 50 % on top of what they are normally priced out of the reg catalog. For instance if I went to a person selling this product and wanted to buy it I would pay $10 but from the catalog put together we will be paying $20 for this same exact product. The parent says the school will make 40% from this fundraiser. I guess my question is ....is this ethical to mark the merchandize up that high knowing if I ordered out of a reg catalog I could get it for cheaper? Also is it right that this parent will make a percentage as well off of everything sold? Someone please give me some imput and I hope I didn't make this post to confusing.
