For those groups that have monthly Board meetings, what time of the day do you have these meetings? Our Board is at 20 members and growing and finding a time for everyone is not easy.

kma- interesting! What kind of notice do you give for meetings? I'd thought of having meetings directly after school. I'll have to feel that one out. After about the first meeting, we usually loose most of our parents and the ones that do come are stay at home parents, actually for some parents it would be easier because many won't come in the evening. I would have to feel that one out with teachers and parents though.

Apparently we fly by the seat of our pants when it comes to meetings--is this a bad thing? We only have meetings with the general membership when we have enough stuff to talk about (updates, results from events, news from the "powers that be," the need for input--that sort of thing). We were going to have monthly meetings, but realized a lot of the time we don't have anything to talk about, and it was too stressful for us to sit there and think about stuff to fill up everyone's time! A lot of our board meetings are conducted on the fly--everyone's schedules are packed with the kids, family, work etcetera, so finding a "regular" time just doesn't work for us. Usually our board meetings are us catching each other up on the stuff we've been working on so that everyone is on the same page in case they should be asked a question by one of the members. Are we weird, or is this the norm?

I agree that getting response from your membership is key. Sometimes, we have included this question in our end-of-year survey - just to make sure everyone still wants it that way.

Overwhelmingly, they vote to keep it the way it is.

We are not nearly as large as you, but I took the advice of a long time teacher on fewer meetings and we had better turnouts and I didn't feel like I was wasting everyone's time. Some meetings there were really nothing to discuss. We now have 6 meetings.

I think that although we will have good advice to give you, you really need to go to your membership with this and get their opinions on it. Put together a short survey- explain what you want to do, why you want to do it and what they think about it. Don't forget to include the question, if meetings remain the same/go to fewer, will you be likely to attend? Then send them home with the kids with a date to have it returned by.
You then will not only get the reaction prior to the possible fallout, you will also have a record should your group be questioned as to why you have done what you did? If your bylaws state you have to have a meeting each month, you will need to ammend them too.
I definitely agree with JHB, if you choose to go to fewer meetings, you should keep it out there that anyone is free to attend the board meetings.