Karena what a cool idea!
One thing you might consider instead of having tickets(you want everyone to attend, not just "ticketholders") GIVE those attending a coin. (Oriental Trading has a gross of plastic coins for about $4.)Maybe mark the backs of the coins and raffle some "booty" you've gotten donated/have on hand. You must be present to win.Advertise the fact in the flyer you send out advertising the meeting."What's in it for me" is the question busy parents will be asking when they have to decide whether to attend or not.

As far as the letterhead--Printshop and even MS Works/Word have templates for letterhead. If you don't have the appropriate clip art, you can do a search online and probably find it. I personally use Printshop for the things I make up.You start with a blank page and add text boxes and graphics. You can import art, so if you find something you like, right click it and save it to your desktop. From there you can find it easier and import it into your project.
Good luck.

Greetings to all!! I am a new vp on council in charge of membership. I am trying to do a pirates of the caribbean theme. So far my idea is to die cut gold/yellow coins as tickets to enter the first meeting of the year. At the entrance table, I'll have a little scene with a heap sand and a treasure chest.(with an "X" marks the spot which is torn) I'm planning on doing a little skit and a few cheers. I would like any ideas that would elaborate on this idea!!! Please help.. I'm also thinking of making my own letterhead, but have no clue on how to do that. I would like to have children playing pirates with a treasure hunt going on in the header and in the footer have the children grown up (dressed in chosen professions with the treasure chest opened) caption....today's treasures...t'mros leaders.. something of that nature.. HELP...time is of the essence as we all know!!!!