I have found it is very hard to get people to plan events. However, lots of people like to show up work a two hour shift and go. We are learning to make this work for our gorup. The 4 of us on the board end up doing all the planning. When someone complains, I tell them they are welcome to plan the next event. They usually say no thanks, maybe things weren't that bad. As for the removal of a board member, I think it be a mess. We were faced with the same thing at the start of the year. The second we were let down was the last. From then on three working board members jsut did what need done. Our slacker quit, because she felt she could more elsewhere. Since she left, our volunteer base has increased and we do less work. [img]smile.gif[/img] Good luck!!!
You have all made some very good points but have missed the obvious one.
People don't volunteer because they don't want to... Why don't they want to? That answer is a varied as our DNA. Some people are wired to help out, to value education and their kids and some aren't. Simple as that. We have tried all kinds of promotions and tactics to increase our participation. It works minimally at best. No matter what we do to sweeten the pot, we know we will never reach about 75% of the parents in our school. And truth be told, most of that 75% of parents are much like the woman that Pabby is complaining about...Lots of lip service but no work ethic. I am not being cynical or unkind here, just calling it as I see it.
Terminating an officer is tricky. I have no experience in actually doing it. Mostly we have just grinned and beared (sp?) it. I would check the by-laws (doesn't everybody say that on this site?).
writermom makes some excellent points. Let me add one: you've got to make it easy for people to get involved. Publicize phone numbers, meeting dates/times/locations, expectations for each volunteer opportunity, chairpeople names, etc. Provide several ways for people to sign up: at Open House, through the newsletter, through your website, during teacher conferences, at any family event, not just at PTO meetings. Call every volunteer who signs up for any PTO committee. The best way to turn off an enthusiastic volunteer is to take her name and then never call her. Call even if you already have enough people to plan/run the event. Maybe you can steer her in another direction. But at least touch base. And one final suggestion that is a little indirect, but I think can really have an impact: memorize people's names and use them.
There are lots of reasons that people don't help and it's not always because they don't want to. We,like many schools, have a problem with getting parents involved and I have talked to some to find out why they don't volunteer for the PTO. Some parents are single or work long hours to provide for their families and feel their limited free time is best spent with their children. Some people don't like how PTO is run and rather than work with difficult people, they volunteer for organizations that value their time. Some people are turned off by being asked over and over again to do the grunt work but are not ever asked to participate in the planning. Some feel for various reasons that PTO just isn't worth their time and they are involved in the school in different ways. These are some of the reasons parents have told me. If you have a problem getting volunteers, maybe you need to find out why and if you are able to, take steps to make people more excited about PTO. There are some good articles on this site about energizing your school and parent group.
Oh yes, we have about 400 kids at our school and I can't come up with a dozen people that I could call on and that includes board members who should be helping! I think it's just normal in our society now that people don't want to help.
Isn't it amazing how alot of people think you can do everything by yourself!!! 
