We ask all committee chairs to attend or submit a written update/questions/concerns for our E Board meeting. The goal is to keep all Board members in the loop and to get a variety of feedback for the "thinking it through" part. Often, the other Board members will have a great idea and/or way to approach a problem. If they don't find out about it until it is addressed at a general meeting - it makes the whole Board look bad, especially the President.

All Board members should feel as though they are an equal member of the team.

ToH: Are you talking about outside of the regular meetings? I understand you to mean people calling you day and night to ask for details about somebody else's project?

My co-President and I happen to have the same leadership style: if you've agreed to do it, you have the authority to make just about any decision other than grossly overspending your budget -- I'm going to get out of the way and let you do your job. One of the benefits is that people do not feel the need to keep us updated on the minutia of their projects. Another is that people do not expect us to know all the minutia.

Generally speaking, if I get one of those calls I refer them to the appropriate chair. "Red Ribbon Tailgate is on the 25th, not the 18th as originally scheduled -- beyond that, you'll really need to ask Brenda." I'll let the caller decide if their need-to-know is sufficient to justify calling the source instead of waiting for the next board meeting.

Sometimes, they will have a good reason why they don't want to make that call. If they explain that to me, and I agree, I can do it. Recently I got a call from a parent with some very real concerns about how Chat-and-Chew was being done this year. Since this parent chaired Chat-and-Chew last year, they were afraid the new chair would be offended by their questions. I made the call.

The new chair expressed frustration that they weren't called directly. With great care not to reveal who the caller was (she tried to ask some questions to see if her guess was right), I explained that the caller thought this route less likely to offend her. In the end, I was able to convince the new chair not to be offended, was able to convince the old chair that the changes were good changes, and I think everybody was happy.

But, as I said, that was a special case where I needed to get involved. A different parent with different concerns would have been sent to the chair.

Do any of you have fellow Board members who continually question the co-presidents??? We try very hard to not waste 6 or 7 peoples' time by repeating every detail of ideas people bring us until the ideas are more complete or thought through. Several board members are fairly new to school and to the successful running of a PO Board. My co-president and I try to keep everyone informed, yet not waste everyone's time. We expect committee chairs to present reports every month or contact one of the presidents before with their problems, ideas and concerns.