Jewel3;145800 wrote: If he is ends up being the only nominee for an office, he automatically wins the election for that office, even if every board member abstains from voting or votes "nay".
Fortunately he isn't the only member running for the office!!
I always have an agenda that I send out about a week before, and I stick to it...
There are places where I have "Open discussion", or "Other new events", and things can come up here, but I make sure that they are PTO related.
If an issue comes up that is more school related, then I am immediately looking to cut it off. I'll allow the Principal to address it if he wants to, but the moment I feel it is getting out of hand or is taking up too much time, I'll pipe in with "Well this really isn't a PTO related item. Really something that should be addressed offline with the Principal. We have a lot to discuss tonight so we need to get back on topic."
If I believe that something might be coming up at the meeting I'll touch base with the Principal beforehand and let him know. I'll ask him how he would want to handle it. If he indicates that he would not want to address it at the meeting then I'll jump in to cut it off almost immediately.
**First of all, if he is that pushy and aggressive he has probably turned off most of the voting members, so his chances of election are slim. **
If he is ends up being the only nominee for an office, he automatically wins the election for that office, even if every board member abstains from voting or votes "nay".
**If by some freak of fate, he gets elected you can use all of the tactics you utilized at your recent meeting to keep him in line. I'd even be tempted to tell him right up front that he is the VICE President and that ALL board members will get EQUAL time to voice ideas and that there will be NO insulting, belittling, or arguing.**
To accomplish this, become familiar with making a Point of Order. It's a deliberative process procedure that calls a member into line when decorum in his/her comments is lacking.
Try not to stress too much over this parent's running for office. First of all, if he is that pushy and aggressive he has probably turned off most of the voting members, so his chances of election are slim. Next, you can help make sure it doesn't happen by subtly throwing your support to the other candidate. It sounds like you have been making a good impression with your group's members, so they will certainly take your opinion into consideration when voting. Lastly, it's Vice President, he won't be running the group you will. If by some freak of fate, he gets elected you can use all of the tactics you utilized at your recent meeting to keep him in line. I'd even be tempted to tell him right up front that he is the VICE President and that ALL board members will get EQUAL time to voice ideas and that there will be NO insulting, belittling, or arguing.
So now I am looking at another issue. Aparently this parent as come in and announced that he plans to run for the Vice President position that is vacant.
The principal and the secretarys are dead set against this. So are others I know that are involved in the PTO. Thank goodness there is a member who is going to run for the office as well and she was involved last year so that is a plus for her.
I think they are runing out of spite. I dont think they liked that I let them state their ideas and we talked for a few minutes and I moved things along. He had many ideas and was very outspoken but I dont think they understand we are dealing with 3-4 year olds with special needs. They dont have the abilty to put on a play and raise money for the school!!! We talked about asking for donations for pumpkins for a pumpkin patch at the school. Well by the next morning they had called the local pumpkin patched and had asked for the donation. This would have been fine but remember they dont have much social tact so we worried that they may have demanded the donation. The principal called them and did some damage control thank goodness but when I called them to follow up on Thursday they said they would call back and never did. So I think the damage is done there.
The meeting went well and I was praised by the faculty and members for making the meeting run along smoothly. We only have a hour of childcare so we have to push things through very fast.
We had some great parents who made some very generous donations and I was shocked. So far we have a great group, I just hope they stick around.
Luvmykids was spot on with her advise. Use it but take it a bit further. If you have someone on the board that can facilitate the meeting, utilize them. Facilitating means that another person besides you will keep everyone on track and 'table' issues that come up that may need further discussion but should not be addressed immediately. It's not easy but it's necessary.
Saw by your post date that the meeting was last night. Hope it went well.
