My VP and I have now formulated this response to those bitching about things they never bothered to vote on or get involved in. "Oh, I'm sorry, did you bring this up at the (last) meeting? If you did I didn't hear you. Please make sure you speak up next time."

Beleive me--I have my nightmare or two as well! Too be honest, I don't particularly care if this one person gets turned off. I'm all for working with people, but you know what--it works both ways! Granted some people don't realize that the PTO/PTA board has external forces sometimes influencing what direction the group has to take--try explaining that to them. "Yes, they idea is great, BUT the principal has said...."

This woman is obviously crazy if she wants to sell your school's PTO's donuts at the HER church,which doesn't benefit from the sale in the least. Has she even considered that the church may have it's own agenda? And you know what, you don't vote at that church--why should you have to sell them there? That wouldn be like me wanting to go to the highschool to do fundraising for my school's PTO, be it on Election Day or not!

One of my little nightmares volunteers for everything, then does a half-assed, last minute job (or dumps the project half-way through), then is offended when she deosn't get called to chair the "big" fundraisers. I've been avoiding being honest up til now, but I've this very uncomfortable feeling the day is coming. Not that I'm perfect, (believe me, I'm the first to admit that!), but at least I realize what my weaknesses are so that I don't have to make people point them out to me!

As far as her suggesting three ideas to do and you being afraid of her response to only one being OKed: she should be grateful she got THAT much. I hate to tell her this, but life isn't fair--even if they were all FABULOUS ideas they might not get chosen for a myriad of reasons. By the way, is she willing to chair and run her ideas, or does she expect you to do it?

Ive always liked the saying, "when life throws you some lemons, turn around and whip them right back!"

I know, I know, every group has them but you know, it's breaking my heart the negativity some of these parents have???

I'm talking parents who NEVER attend PTO meetings but constantly gripe about the fall fundraiser company. We just started CherryDale farms and did the 3 in 3 days promo with the students. One of the forms turned back stated "this is a rip off fundraiser, why don't you ask for suggestions from us parents on what we want to sell instead of this cheap cr*p"??? Funny thing, we DID do a survey at the end of last school year and 80% of the parents said they LIKED the booklet fundraisers???

What these parents just don't understand is that this is the HUGE moneymaker of the year and it's just too risky not to do it and try something totally different????

At every PTO meeting, we give out a copy of the budget and our checking income/expenses for that month. This particular parent attended her first meeting in August in the 3 years that I've been involved actively up there???

My challenge is that we are trying to "reactivate" our PTO. We are WANTING feedback and suggestions from EVERYONE and it seems like this one parent (and sometimes her husband jumps in LOL) always suggests something that just is too risky to replace our current event, or some thing that is just impossibly and not beneficial to the school.

This one parent wants to do a Trivia night, which I'm all for and so are a lot of parents but the principal wants to wait and talk to other schools who have done one to see if they were profitable. Out of 3 suggestions this parent made, the only "probable" one is the Trivia Night. I am forseeing the future when I say this parent is going to be turned off when we tell her no on the other two things?

Is there a better way to handle this? I want to make lemonaide of the lemons we'll be giving her???

Another thing that happened to this particular parent is that We are going to be selling Krispy Kreme donuts during the presidential election to voters at our school. She immediately jumped in and stated that she doesn't vote there and she wants to sell donuts at the church where she votes????? I don't vote at our school either and that thought never crossed my mind and the principal is strictly against it which I too agree to go against that thought???

Maybe this parent, because she works a full time job, so does her husband, is playing the "woa is me" game. maybe she does that with everyone in her life, I don't know????

Anyone got a great lemonaide recipe before I break open the lemons????