Thanks for all of your advice - I greatly appreciate it. I know that its possible that there were conflicts with schedules, and I understand that people work, etc. and all of our activities are approved by the majority of our active members before anything takes place. I guess maybe I do have unrealistic expectations because I'm trying (like someone said above) to hold them to the standard I hold myself to. I work 40+ hours per week, have 2 elementary aged children and a toddler, I volunteer with other national organizations and I still show up. Maybe the bottom line is that I make these activities a priority and I guess I feel as officers of our PTO they should do the same. I'm not trying to demand that they attend everything we do, I'd just like to have an officer presence at the activities. Our officers also chair a lot of our functions and in those cases, its not an issue. But in cases like the housework and remodel that were established as group efforts and don't really have a chairperson, I look to the officers to be role models and be there even though they aren't "in charge" of the activity.

I just read your post.

I am President of the PTA at my son's school and I know what you mean about a handful of people doing the lion's share of the work. I wish I could say this was not the way it is everywhere- but unfortunately this seems to be the norm more than the exception these days.

I know you said your group does not have by-laws and you do not use parlimentary procedure. But I am here to say that they can be your friend. Whether you are are a PTO, PTA, booster group or whatever, by-laws at least give you a road map for your group to run from year to year.
They lay out when in the year you elect your officers, what everybody is responsible for doing etc. They can be very broad, or very specific. It is up to you. But I suggest you think about putting some in place. If not- then consider standing rules. These are a list of basics that again are a road map for the year. They can also lay out expectations for each board member.

As far as non participation in your projects go- Are you sure everybody thought they were a good idea? I know the ones described were wonderful and seemed like worthy causes, but if everybody could not help, or if the planned project conflicted with something else, then that might explain why nobody showed up.
At your next meeting you need to make sure that any planned projects are approved by a majority of the board (there's that parlimentary procedure again...but it does work). and once you have approval- then get a committment for everybody to participate. If nobody can help- then you may need to wait on the project until people are available.

I know you want your group to be informal- but unless you are willing to go it alone- you do need some basics for running your group.
Then no one is surprised or left holding the bag by themselves when it is time to attack a project.


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I just read your post.

I am President of the PTA at my son's school and I know what you mean about a handful of people doing the lion's share of the work. I wish I could say this was not the way it is everywhere- but unfortunately this seems to be the norm more than the exception these days.

I know you said your group does not have by-laws and you do not use parlimentary procedure. But I am here to say that they can be your friend. Whether you are are a PTO, PTA, booster group or whatever, by-laws at least give you a road map for your group to run from year to year.
They lay out when in the year you elect your officers, what everybody is responsible for doing etc. They can be very broad, or very specific. It is up to you. But I suggest you think about putting some in place. If not- then consider standing rules. These are a list of basics that again are a road map for the year. They can also lay out expectations for each board member.

As far as non participation in your projects go- Are you sure everybody thought they were a good idea? I know the ones described were wonderful and seemed like worthy causes, but if everybody could not help, or if the planned project conflicted with something else, then that might explain why nobody showed up.
At your next meeting you need to make sure that any planned projects are approved by a majority of the board (there's that parlimentary procedure again...but it does work). and once you have approval- then get a committment for everybody to participate. If nobody can help- then you may need to wait on the project until people are available.

I know you want your group to be informal- but unless you are willing to go it alone- you do need some basics for running your group.
Then no one is surprised or left holding the bag by themselves when it is time to attack a project.

I'm the PTO President at my son's school, and I am the one who "gets stuck" handling just about everything. It frustrates me sometimes, but I made the committment to be the President. The PTO VP and PTO Secretary are the only two people that help out when things need to get done. However, if they aren't available, I have to do things myself.

The point here is that PTO Officers are regular people with jobs and families and other committments. They should help when they can and show up when they make a committment to help with a particular event. Just my opinion.

More often than not we find people disappoint us because they do not meet or abide by the same set of expectations that we may hold true for ourselves. In the end the amount of effort put into a situation is a personal decision made by the individual. In the case of PTO and parliament requirements, officers should be mentioned in the by-laws or a code of conduct to ensure everyone is working together towards one goal. ROR and your by-laws are a nonjudgmental way to ensure everyone is being fair to other members and were drawn up to protect all involved by your founders. I would suggest that a review of the by-laws, ROR and a decision by yourself as the President to begin inserting more oversight including the use and or updating of the by-laws will go a long way to solving the board member participation issues you are facing. Make no mistake, these changes will bring conversations of ‘we have never needed them before – why change now – we all want the same thing we don’t need to be so rigid’ so be prepared and ready to combat them professionally and without bias by ensuring all members know the rules are there to protect them. Good Luck.

I am president of the PTO at a school with enrollment of about 400. Our PTO is a very laid back, small but mighty group that does quite a bit with our limited budget and parental involvement. We don't have by laws or run our meetings according to Parliamentary Procedure- we are just a group of parents who get together to do things to improve our educational environment and try to make it great for our kids and the school staff. We have about 15 members that routinely handle all of our events.
I'm struggling because I am feeling like some of the other officers are not putting in time on events other than the ones they chair. For example, in the past month, we did some home repairs for a teacher who's husband has terminal cancer - I was the only officer there. We also did a light remodel to our teacher's lounge over the course of an evening and a day and the VP and I were the only officers there.
Our group is starting to grow and I really feel its setting a bad example for new members and not giving them a very good impression of our PTO's officers. I guess I expect more of a commitment out of the officers than other members - is that wrong? :confused: