I have been in the same place and have found only one thing that works, keep calling leave no messages talk to a living breathing human and get a direct answer! After you all meet at least once then leaving messages is ok but you cannot tust machines (kids and husbands/wives erase ech others messages and forget to share all the time) people need to feel they know you to feel abliged to let you know they are coming or not! Nothing beats personally being asked to do things, nothing not even incentives although they can help along with that!
Your right, we won’t give up. We will communicate, communicate & communicate until they are talking about how much were talking. One thing that surprises me is that very few use e-mail which is my preferred method. Well I guess that we do live in Wyoming where we are still 10 – 15 years behind.
Thanks to everyone here for the encouragement! Everyone has the same concerns, just hang in there and keep a steady pace.
The parents should have contacted you letting you know that they could not make the meeting. BUT that does not mean that they might not be interested in volunteering still. Call them and ask. Give them the information they need to know. We have several people who are in charge of events and they don't make it to the meeting at all. You will probably have to find another way to communicate with them. I e-mail my board members several times a week. Hope this helps.
On another part of this forum somewhere (can't remember where) I saw a good idea from a PTO that had developed 'job descriptions'. They said they had better response from people when they knew what would be expected. Not sure whether that's a solution for you, but maybe it will help?
At our first meeting, we only had 3 people sign up. At our next meeting, I think we will try going over each committee (what it entails and the time frame it will entail) and asking the dreaded question:
"Who, with a show of hands, would like to be on this committee?". It is drastic, but we need chairs for each of the committees. We can get the volunteers to work it, but the word 'committee' seems to scare a lot of folks. Maybe if you explain each commitment out loud at a meeting, folks will be more likely to sign up. Sometimes they think that the word 'committee' means weekly meetings for months at a time... Maybe if they know that some committees only require a few hours instead of a lifetime committment, they will be more prone to sign up.
