We have our exec. board meeting the 2nd Monday of each month at 6:00pm. We usually bring our children to this meeting. (We take turns bringing a snack. If we have a specific committee item on the agenda that committee chairperson is invited. It's always on the calendar so if someone wants to attend they are welcome. The real work is done in these meetings and through committees. We only have 4 general PTO meetings throughout the year. These really just tell everyone what we've done and what we're going to do next. The grade levels are assigned 1 meeting per year when they perform. so we have 2 grades performing per meeting. We have a bakers brigade (parents who volunteered to provide snaks The 1st meeting we go over agenda for year etc. 2nd meeting is Christmas. 3rd meeting we've started doing a funny skit(PTO Players. . This year we went with Olympics themes. (Gold medal moments don't just happen, PTO/Students/Teachers make them happen). . At our last meeting we included students representing our gold medal moments (our committees). The more children performing the better attendance. Our parents seem to like it. 4th meeting is during Volunteer Appreciation week at end of year. Our teachers are required to be at general PTO meeting unless of emergency. We usually have 350-400 parents and children at these meeting. It dwindles down at last meeting because of baseball season. Like I said the real work is done in exec. board and committees. We send out info in monthly newsletter so those who want to know what's going on, can. They come to the meetings to see the children perform.

We changed our meetings from 6:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. We never had any members show up other than the board members at 6:30. Guess what - we still only have board members show up. Our thought was that if the "workers" did not show up in the evening then we would target the moms who pick there kids up after school. We are lucky to have 2 teacher reps. on the board the new time right after school works well for them. We are hoping that more teachers will attend our general membership meetings after school as well.

We're lucky if 6 members show up and we have four officers and the pricipal always attends. As the new president(1st month) and agenda maker this is one of the topics for our next meeting. we are also going to try an every other month am/pm rotation. for us it certainly couldn't hurt!
lisa [img]smile.gif[/img]

The article was great BUT if your meeting is at 7:00 PM, you could have the best speaker, Krispy Kreme Donuts etc. and still have 5 Moms show because the TIME is the issue or day of week! This is what I'm learning from the surveys sent home. Monday night has been the kiss of death for our group (Monday night football).
My husband and I belong to a service group and they meet for breakfast, why, it works! All the members are professionals or retired and a breakfast meeting works. A group 20 miles away meets at noon, it works for them. They even have evening groups that works for those people but as I have learned by listening to the retired members of the group it's time and location-- sure speakers help, but if you can't attend a AM or PM meeting, your not going to be an active member.
that's what I'm trying to bring to my group...

[ 02-19-2002: Message edited by: mykidsmom ]</p>

PTO Today had a fabulous article on this exact subject. How to get parents to more meetings.

This scheme could apply to any kind of association (Elks, Lions, Jaycees, scouts). It's a new ball game out there. People need a more meaningful reason to volunteer.

Read on here: www.ptotoday.com/0801involvement.html

We currently have our executive board mtgs from 7pm-7:30 and then our general mtgs 7:30-about 8:30-9:00.....We meet every month.

We may move our executive mtgs to start at 7 and end at 8 and general start at 8, becuz we can rarly get our business completed in the 1/2 hr- then we need to meet for a special mtg at my house.