We had a fall festival and I signed up to work for an hour. My "hour" shift ended up with me running around for 5 hours assisting the person running the festival. Since it was our first time running one and I was there the whole time, the board asked me to sit in on a recap meeting. A couple days after the meeting, the president (also a guy) asked me if I would be interested in being treasurer since our current treasurer was moving out of state. He really wanted another guy on the board. So, after asking a couple of people and having every single one of them tell me not to do it, I decided I would.
My main reason for accepting was that I wanted to get to know the school staff and other parents. I figured the PTO was a good way to meet other people that had no social lives on weekends because they would also have kids. So, what I started doing after each event was to have a "recap" meeting at my house. I invited several other board members, their spouses and their kids to come over on a Friday or Saturday evening. The kids play together and the adults get a "night out". Some snacks and drinks and we just had a good time. These "recap" meetings are a good way to get other adults (also read as the husbands) involved because we do actually talk about some PTO stuff whenever we get together. So, just being in a social environment, the other dads chime in with their ideas. Pretty soon, we are organizing and planning events without the dads every having to go to a PTO meeting.
The best advice I can give is to get 2 or 3 dads involved, whether it be your husbands or some guys that are already helping out somewhere. Then, set up some non-PTO situations that have a lot of PTO people at it to start getting other dads to give their ideas.
You have to break the perception that most guys have that a PTO is just a "Stay at home" Mom's Club. We've tried to turn it into more of a group of friend's that get together and just happened to plan/organize events for the school.
First thing you need to do is get some guys on the board. That will liven things up. Ok, so I am a little biased because half of our exec board (Pres and Treas) are guys. And, yes, I am one of them. But, shortly after I got roped into (err, I mean volunteered) to be the treasurer, other board members started joking that our PTO was getting rowdy and "blamed" the Pres and me. I took it as a compliment because what they were really saying was that it started to become more fun. In reality, adding guys to the mix changes the entire dynamic of the group and can make for a fresh perspective.
Now, will this happen for every group? No. Do I have any sure fire ways to get guys to join you group? No (but I do have some ideas).
I went to the Chicago PTO Conference and there were numerous messages that seemed to be repeated throughout the day. One was focus less on monthly meetings are more on the "important" things. (Tim, in case you read this, I am not stealing your thunder, just proving that I am paid attention.) Before you worry about meeting attendance, look at the other aspects of your group. How did the fundraisers do? What about your events? Was there a good turnout? Did everyone have fun? What did you provide the school with the monies raised? If you are able to say that the fundraisers went well, lots of people came to the events and had a great time and the school now has [insert whatever you bought or paid for for the school here] because of our work, then the meetings become less important.
I would rather have 500 people show up to our Fall Festival and 6 people show up to our monthly meeting than 6 people show up to our Fall Festival and 500 show up to the monthly meeting.
I think we have all been in this boat in one way or another. There are just some years when lethargy gets contagious.
I tried making sure my board meetings were schedlued for the same day and time each month. Everybody knew from the beginning that the 2nd Thursday of every month at 6:00 p.m. was PTA Board meeting day.
Some times we would meet at school- but other times we made it a working dinner meeting (at a restarant or somebody's house). As the year started to draw to a close- our schedules got so tight we changed to a lunch meeting.
The bottom line is- we made it interesting, and it also helped to forge some friendships o the board.
I also used some of my President's budget to buy SMALL things periodically for each board member- to recognize all of their hard work. I know we are not in it for "things" but everybody like a little recognition- even if it's just a flower.
So rule of thumb for me was to keep it on time, keep it on task, keep it regular, and keep it interesting.
Wow, at first I thought you were talking about our board. It just seemed to be a real low enthusiam year. I've seen years where we'd have one board member who never seemed to show up , but this year it was the majority. It was really disappointing and I know I had some parents comment to me about it. The board is typically your most dedicated and enthusiastic members, but not this year. Hope next year is better since I'm going to probably be co-Prez. There will have to be lots of planning done this summer to catch up.
Every time we have a meeting scheduled someone has to ask the famous question "Do we need to have one?" Just because our principal won't be attending a meeting, everyone thinks we don't need a meeting. The current board members (some are on the board next year also)just seem to want to wait until the last minute to plan anything out. No matter what I do or say they just blow it off until the last minute. I try to plan our meetings to be the point and take as little time as possible. I'm at my wits end!!!! Our year is coming to an end and the planning for next year hasn't even begun!
