My last school followed a very specific format. To tell you a bit about the group: We were a service group of the school and reported to the school board, all staff and all parents/guardians of enrolled students were members, four officers (pres, vp, treas, sec...), two teacher reps and as many committee chairs as necessary made up the board.

Regarding your specific points:

- Every meeting was a general meeting following bylaws first and then Roberts Rules.
- Formal format. President sets agenda one week ahead, principal reviews and approves, then agenda is sent to board members via email prior to meeting.
- Over half of voting members must be present for a quorum.
- Agenda:
Review Minutes
Treasurer's Report
Principal's Report
Committee Reports
Old Business
New Business
- Attendance was primarily just enough for a quorum (we sweated it out every month!) and usually only board members. Rarely were other parents/staff present.
- Meetings held on the first Tuesday of every month. Same place/same time to make it easy.
- No incentives, just guilt. Some wanted to make meeting attendance a requirement to hold an office or committee chair but that would have made us lose volunteers.

This is less of a question and more of a hopeful gathering of ideas!

I'd like to hear about:
- how do you run general meetings? Robert's Rules?
- if you have a formal way of running them, how well does that formality actually work?
- are your meeting agendas made up of mostly updates and new news, or are they more "business" like?
- what kind of attendance do you have?
- how often do you have meetings?
- do you offer any kind of incentives? (free cookies, coffee, etc.)

Okay, I think that should get this started. If you can think of anything else that would fill in the blanks, give it to me! Thanks!