I apologize for obviously misunderstanding what you had written in your first post. Perhaps the brevity of it is what gave it a tone I found disturbing.
I am sorry you took the negative approach to what I said rather than the positive approach. If you have the authority to appoint you have the power to remove! How many posts have you read about run away committees and runaway people that wont take any direction from anyone and end up getting the overall PTO into trouble?
Most Presidents of PTOs serve as ex officio on all committees in any case. By granting the President the authority to appoint and by defualt the authority to dismiss chairpersons you merely put into writting that which makes the greatest degree of sense. BTW you also grant the authority to chairpersons to appoint people to their committees and if they have the authority to appoint then they have to have the power to dismiss. You either do that or you make it the board which holds this authority and power, otherwise you are asking for trouble. You leave it blank is to invite problems that no one needs nor wants. Ego would come into it if I were appointing and dismissing people on a daily base, to date I haven't dismissed a soul. Not to say I wouldnt if I had problems like some that we read on here. Power is tempered with judgement, why did you assume I would automatically misuse the power granted me by the authority of the membership? And I dont mince words if you have noticed. Authority and power follow hand in hand, if you know how to grant someone an authority and not grant them the power to exercise that authority then tell me how that is done. Maybe I should not have used the word power - but that is what it is a power of the office. And yes as such given the authority and the power that goes with it, they serve at my pleasure - volunteer or not! As for leadership, having a volunteer doing the things the original posted said needs a remedy, I was pointing out that in our organization I have a remedy that perhaps more organizations may wish to consider. Leadership is not constantly hoping things will get better because we wish them to, it is work and the sound exercising of judgement to accomplish the goals. Being a leader means knowing when to exercise an authority granted and the power that goes along with it. It may not be popular, but this is not a popularity contest last time I looked.
There is another thing that we do that is a fact of life but I have not read anywhere in anyones by-laws: We state clearly that the Principal holds veto power over board decissions.
Yet again another problem I have seen in by laws no means by which to remove officers. We have a clearly defined process of impeachment and removal.
Rather than dealing with who was going to run the field day we wrote our charter to be a working document on the general functions of how the PTO will work. We grant special authorities to certain offices, as another example the Vice President can perform an audit at any time they so choose, no one can stop this, all must coperate and provided documentation. The VP is also empowered to perform internal investigations as they feel needed.
I hope this clearifies for you what I was getting at with my shorter post [img]smile.gif[/img]
Dave
We (a lot of people) did research and had countless discussions about our charter before we wrote it and enacted it. It works for us rather well as a living document rather than just something that is gathering dust on a shelf.
You know I wasn't going to say anything about DaveP's response, but I can't control myself. Dave, I don't know if you mean to come across this way, but you seem to be sitting in the President position for the wrong reasons. As President of any organization or even our great nation, you are there to lead not "rule". Perhaps your organization has given the President the ability to select committee chairs, but having them "serve at your pleasure" sounds pretty egotistical. This is a volunteer organization and these people are giving their time out of the goodness of their hearts. They may not all be perfect, but for the most part their hearts in the right place. As President, you should be leading these wonderful volunteers toward the goals of the organization through your help, understanding, support, and ability to make decisions when needed. I'm done now!!!
Do you have committee reports at meetings? As dragonlady stated you should require them. Each of our VPs and committee chairs gives a report at the board and general meetings so everyone knows what's going on with every event. It's also a great way to make sure everything is on track and being done the way the membership wants it done. In your case, asking for a report at each meeting will put your "problem child" on the spot. She'll be forced to tow the line or have to own up to her failures. It could be a subtle way to straighten her out. Or maybe she'll hate it so much she'll go away!!
Our chairs volunteer themselves, we don't appoint anyone. But our chairs (there is usually at least 2 chairs for each event) have to report to the Executive Board (4 officers, one teacher rep. and principal) their plan for the event BEFORE they can start any work. As the are working on the event they keep in contact with the President and Principal every step of the way. They make a report to the general membership at the meeting immediately before the event. That is stated in our bylaws that is how a committee will operate. Maybe you can assign a chair to work with her. Anything we do in our school has to be approved by the principal first. That might be another way for you to go.
How do you appoint chairpersons? Myself, I have the power to appoint chair persons and as such they serve at my pleasure, if I am not pleased I can remove them.
