Last year I could have pretty much written your post myself; this year I am on the PTA board at my son's school. There were misunderstandings galore with the last board, although the meetings ran smoothly- I know because I went to every one of them. I made suggestions, offered my help ( and practically had to twist arms to get them to take it), and was very frustrated.
Luckily, one of the people on the board also works at the school and she noticed that she kept seeing me, whether it was at meetings or helping students read or in the principal's office having my say about the teacher my son had; when nomination time came around, she suggested I be contacted. Contact consisted of the outgoing President telling me to go see this woman in her classroom, where she told me of the 2 openings she thought I might be interested in, and she was right about one of them.
I now know a lot of the "whys" about what went on last year, as well as the problems we are having this year with some members of the board, so I am not as angry as I was. While we still are in need of much more help than we have, we did send out surveys at the beginning of the year, and if you put your name down for an event we HAVE contacted you about it. Unfortunately, out of about 600 students we only have maybe 25 names of people willing to help overall, and many of those only for one event, so we're still working on it.
One thing-the president and I are becoming known as a "clique" because between she and I we are getting things done. Other board members are agreeing to do work, and then a few days before it's due we find out it isn't done and we figure out how to get it done; we don't like it, the others don't like it, but it has to be done. Why should the kids lose out on something because some adults didn't do what they agreed to?
We must be doing something right because we are being asked to be involved in more and more at the school, much more than the last board, but we are exhausted. We worked at the city Halloween festival last night, have a board meeting tomorrow night-our 3rd this month- to firm up Nov. events, are working a table and refreshment stand at the City Yard Sale Nov.3, the Penny Social is Nov. 16, we have to shop for the Xmas Shop and hold it,we're having our own Yard/Bake/Craft Sale Dec. 8, plus get out the newsletter, solicit donations...I'd better get to sleep!