We wear nametags at events where everyone is mobile. And Critter is right, they're invaluable.

For meetings, the nametags just never worked. Also, it only works if you're facing the group. If you're beside or behind, you have no idea.

Perusing, we rarely have general members at the meetings. It's almost always just the board. Like your's, all of our parents/guardians are members.

The name cards are printed on card stock, and 'tented' to sit on the table in front of each member. The print is large enough for everyone to read and is printed on both sides so they're easier to read from different angles. I bring along blank cardstock and sharpie markers for guests to use but they're rarely necessary.

We use nametags at all our meetings. We have permanent ones for our board members since we wear them at any school function and want them to look "official", but we use standard stick on ones for meetings. We had our annual volunteer appreciation breakfast today and if it hadn't been for the nametags, we would have been at a loss to smoothly connect people (about 70 of them!) with their volunteer work. Often we know the name from a committee list or PTO flyer, but seeing the name on a nametag gives everyone the chance to speak personally and sincerely.

a OK,

Now that's an idea. A couple of us in our group are pushing for name tags. What we hate is that our group goes around introduces themself and usually tells # children & grade.

The problem is that it's difficult to remember who people are. If I could see their name at least once, I have a better chance of putting names and faces together for later. It also gets monotonous when everyone knows everybody six months later, but we continue to do it since there might be one new person. . . I feel like it's a waste of 10 - 15 minutes, especially when 45 minutes later the same people are trying to rush the end of the meeting to get out for their favorite TV shows.

Chief,

Do you have many non-board members at the meetings? We have open membership (by virtue of having a child attend, you are a member) and 17 board members. Usually half of our attendees are non-board members and those faces tend to rotate. (Yippee!! Did I mention that the first 6 months this year we averaged over 30 people. The previous 5 years we were lucky to have 5-7 people total at the meeting.)

I love hanging out here and seeing the different ideas and how things worked or not.

cards are hard to read when the seating isnt circular. how about name-visors..the $1 craft store variety? you can put a sticker on it to reuse at each meeting. the goofiness might make for an ice breaker, at year start before folks know each other. PTO = Put That On (or you cant join the meeting)!! SMILE

I am one of those people whom hates name tags! So I love your idea of name cards!

We've all had them - Ah Ha! moments that made us wonder why we never thought of that before. It's usually something so simple yet so meaningful that it quickly becomes standard practice.

Every year I tried to get meeting attendees to wear nametags so we'd all get to know each other's names quickly. Well, clearly, adults hate name tags.

This summer I attended seminars and everyone had a large name card that sat on the table in front of them. Ah Ha!

For this year's meetings, I had a name card for each person with their full name and board position. This helped everyone learn names quickly and also helped our new secretary feel more comfortable about accurately recording the minutes.

I'd love to hear other ideas that you've all discovered along the way.