Thanks for your replies. I just wanted to clear up a few things. Our PTO is in a big downswing. I am the only elected officer (Pres.) to take an office. Our Sec. was nominated but hasn't been voted in yet and we have no other officers. We'll have to start the year off with another election before we can even get started. The two years dd has been at the school I've heard mostly negative things about the PTO, how it's just a big fundraiser, nobody listens and most decisions are made without a vote (and we've never done an Executive board and only one committee and that was just the first year I was at this school). These aren't empty complaints. So, our goal is to increase communication and to offer more activities aside from meetings and fundraisers, other chances to get involved in the school. But the money has to come from somewhere and last year at the last meeting they did a flurry of voting to approve last minute purchases that are still being put into place. I still can't get an answer as to how much $$ is still obligated out and what we'll have to start with next year (okay, it's now THIS year, just weeks away). I think that once everyone sees that we are trying to refocus our goals, we will see more people becoming involved. As of now, it's "why bother?". So, we want to bring in new things but we need to have a little security as well, you know? That's why I thought that our PTO might split the cost of the dinner. It wouldn't be a fundraiser at all it would just allow us to have a "Back to School" dinner instead of having to wait until later in the year when we have had a fundraiser and have more of a nest egg. We've gotten lots of feedback from people who would like more done at the beginning of the year, so we liked the idea of the dinner.
These problems are why I'm having difficulty deciding how to handle some things. Like the dinner, we can't afford to buy food for 150 people and have 50 show up. That's why I thought preselling tickets might be a good idea, to get a good start on what to expect. We would probably open it up after a certain time once we had an idea number-wise. I like the idea of color coding the tickets, that would make it much easier to keep up with purchases and to pass that info. onto those handling it next year. We have hardly any information that is being passed on from one year to the next and we want to change that this year. As it is, each year each group is pretty much having to reinvent the wheel.
The pizza idea is a good one but we are heavily sponsored by a local pizza place and we offer pizza parties throughout the year and have a weekly night at the pizza place where we benefit from sales. So, we do pizza quite a bit and I think something else would go over a little better. How much work was the spaghetti dinner? Did you use the school equipment to cook for that volume of people or did several people each make up a batch at home?
Also, donations for the dinner would be harder to come by because we have an Octoberfest (Fall Festival)that is a large income producer for us and we depend heavily on donations for it. We have food, games and a silent auction so we pretty much hit up everybody we can think of by the time it's over with. Most places here don't want to donate multiple times (unless they have a child at the school) because they want to donate to other places as well. So, I hesitate to rely on donations in order to have a Family Night.
Hopefully, after we've made a few changes this year (like by-laws, creating a budget, etc.), next year will be easier to make decisions. This year just has us stumped as to how to get some things done.
Gee, I'm really rambling and I'm sorry. It's just that there are reasons why we are in this predicament but we want to change things without creating a huge bill. If we start spending too heavily then I'm afraid many people will back off. Like I said before, typically we've bought "things" with the PTO's money and even though people want things to change, it will take a while for people to get accustomed to not having "things" to show for their money but having family nights, craft make and takes, teacher appreciation and other things as well.
Thanks for your input
Carrie