I was my child's room mom when he started school. Because of the things I did for his classrroom I was asked to join the PTA board. I signed on as treasurer thinking I could be a positive addition to the school as a whole. When I took to task the fact that I felt the PTA board was eating out to much I was told "You need to quit work so you can go to lunch with us!" When I voiced concern about board members going to PTA trainings and conferences and spending the time not in classes to learn but in the hotel bar getting plastered I was told I needed to "lighten up that's what everyone does" Funny I was in classes with lots of other people. Anyway I learned to keep my thoughts on these matters to myself and after two years was asked to be president. I was still the outsider in the group but felt that as president I could pull in more parents that felt that the school should be the PTA top poritory not having a good time. I have to say my plan was working I was getting more and more parents involved and as we came to the end of the year I could see that there was going to be a fantastic group of parents make up the board for the 04-05 school year. (This was due in part to some of the current borad members moving on because their children were leaving the school.)Anyway, the cliche that I had worked against for 3 years got their hackles up and set out to destroy me. Everything came to a head this week and after being told by the 1st vice that the whole board was saying I should resign; I finally could not hold on any longer and threw in the towel and quit. Now about half of the teachers and staff at the school are sad because they supported the changes I was working for. The parents that were working with me and were going to be on the board have said no when the remaining board called them about serving next year. I'm sad that things ended this way because I see the PTA going back to the way it was before I was president. Before I was president the PTA board was called the "Lunch Bunch" by those who worked at school. I have spent some time thinking about this and I would like to start a new parent/teacher group that focuses on just doing family fun activities. While on the PTA board I wanted to do a bingo/reading night but I was voted down every time I brought it up.) Since the PTA has a lock on anything that brings money into the school the group I want to start will have little money to work with at least at first. I have always thought that any family fun night activity could support itself just by selling drinks and snacks. I don't think I can start a PTO straight out because the PTA has a choke hold on the schools in our district but don't want my past work to be in vain. Does anyone have any ideas on how to go about doing this?