I am so glad that I was given the link for this site. Its helping me a lot already & its only my second time here.
I was elected VP w/o even being at the meeting. Our Current group are probably burnt out, but they are very unorganized on everything. It took me 3 wks before the Pres. told me I was elected & took 4 to find out who the 2 other elected members were. I have no clue if our group has by-laws or not, but after the current VP told me that they voted to only allow someone to serve 2 consecutive yrs. I assume we do.
Who ask's for the "current" years books? Our group apparently only did 2 "big" fundraiser's this school year & I'm not sure where or what they were. I know what one was, and that wasn't very big....the expenses were bigger than the profit.
There is no discussion of the old & new members having a meeting at any point, they said that at the end of the year (which is at the end of this month) is the end of our deal & the beginning of the year (school) is yours have at it.
Our fundraiser's were geared towards the parents rather than the kids. Can the PTO do more than 2? Can the new group work with the old at the last "party" to help end school with a Bang? Or is it bad 'form' to suggest this.
Who has the by laws. Can they be changed? How about the use of the PTO account?
Thanks for all of your replies! I'm going to print them out...Yes, we do have by-laws and they only say that we need to have at least 4 Board meetings a year. This year's president (a Dad, a lawyer) was a super-busy professional so he kept it pretty streamlined. I have a bit more time so I think I'm going to have the Board meetings; it would make me feel more prepared for the meeting. Thanks for your input--all good ideas!
Shelly
We don't use a formal agenda with words like "call to order" and "adjourn" but do use a basic printed agenda and keep it pretty simple. Usually the key parts are:
Presidents' Report
Approval of the Minutes
Treasurer's Report
Principal's Report
Committee Reports
Old Business
New Business
Funding Vote
The committee reports, old business, and new business usually have bulleted topics or a list of committees. Sometimes the Prez may go around the room and ask every (active) committee if they have anything to report. If we are trying to speed things up, it may just be the ones with pressing business.
I've seen some leaders use "new business" as just a catch all for anything someone wants to bring up. Others only want items presented in advance and listed on the agenda. (I found that too restrictive myself and encouraged advance notice, but also took verbal additions.)
We added an item called "funding votes" to the very last because we found ourselves being asked to make decisions about expenditures throughout the meeting. We found it better to discuss those in their natural sequence, but hold the funding decisions until the very end so we could consider the big picture.
My pet peeve is usually around Treasurer's Reports. I'm in two organizations that present the treasurer's report almost last - which I find very inefficient. So much of the discussion is tied to the financial picture, it's important to have that presented early and clearly. The other issue is that treasurers often just present the current bank balance or revenue/expenses. But, unless you make it an expectation, they don't present the financial picture. For example, if you have a $5,000 balance, but last month you authorized $3,000 in expenditures that haven't hit the books yet - it doesn't help to know the balance is $5,000. You need to know that AND that $3,000 of it is committed.
Agendas are very important to help keep the meeting on track.
We have monthly board meetings right before our general meeting. We always use an agenda because it helps us make sure we cover all the important things and it keeps us from jumping around on topics-well pretty much anyway! How much decision making power your board has may make a difference on how often you need to meet and what you discuss. You should be able to determine that from your by-laws. Giving the board some powers of its own can help to shorten meetings by eliminating long discussions on every topic or having to vote on every little expenditure.
SHC I guess my first question would be do you have bylaws? If so they should state if you should run meetings... We do hold monthly executive board meetings and schedule them the week before our membership meeting. At the meeting is our principal the entire board and any committee chair that may have an event coming up to discuss what is going on.
For my own reasons I do prepare an agenda and as president head the meeting and try to cover up coming events and discuss policies and procedures if needed.
The agenda will look like my agenda for the general meeting, Treasurers Report (we have started reviewing the books at each board meeting); then go into cluster reports, activities; fundraising; communications Principals report where she will go over things going on or teacher requests... We get sidetracked frequently but try to stay on topic as much as we can.
I know this sounds like a dumb question but...I've been VP this year and our Pres. didn't really have board meetings. I'd like to do it differently and actually have the board meetings like we're supposed to so my question is:
what do you usually do at yours?
do you have a printed agenda? Do you talk about what's coming up at the upcoming meeting?
Although I don't have to actually have a board meeting until this summer, I need some help here from you experienced pros!
Thanks!
Shelly65
