I came to this board with that exact question about three years ago. Resoundingly, the advice was don't sweat how many attend the meetings, as long as you can get the volunteers you need. So, ok, we stopped trying so hard. No more pizza, etc. We still talked it up and sent home notices, even have the dates on our lunch menu calendars. Then a funny thing happened. When it came time for nominations and elections...SURPRISE! There was no one to run. We were averaging 3-4 people other than board members and on nominations nights, we were lucky to have 2. Soooooo, I now think it DOES matter, at least a bit, how many you have coming to meetings. We got some "new blood" this year on our board and I am ecstatic to see their enthusiasm, it's very contangious. [img]smile.gif[/img] They both have been talking non stop and inviting. Something else new is that I included attending PTA meetings on our Three for Me forms. I am personally calling each person who marked it to invite them to next Tuesday's meeting. Hopefully, next year, we'll have people clammering to sit on the board. LOL...like THAT is gonna happen! Hey, ya never know! [img]smile.gif[/img] )

I'm trying a lot of what I'm learned here and at the PTO Today conference. We're doing monthly exec board meetings, which will be open to all and then alternating general meetings with informative speakers with PFO Family Fun Nights (from PTO Today). Like Tim's says, we're not going to be so worried about attendance at meetings; as long as people are engaged, having fun, and we have enough people to have the event, we'll be ok.

I am trying a few things this year to try and get our numbers up. This is my 3rd year on the Exec Board, and my first as President. I didn't get it done before our first meeting, but I will put an Agenda in our school newsletter the week before our meeting. I will provide some sort of munchies, and we are welcoming children.

In all the meetings I've attended, I've only seen one large one, and that would be more than our exec board and 3-4 others. Our first meeting of the year we had the exec board and almost 10 others!!!

I'm really hoping to keep the momentum up. I did also post a notice on the front door to the building about the meeting, and sent the notice home to each family, incase they don't come in to the building often!

Good Luck!!!

Thank you for the great ideas - there are definitely some pearls of wisdom in these posts. I will try a couple new things this time and report back. Surprisingly, I no longer feel as bad about my turnout after reading all these responses. We usually have 40-50 people at most of these meetings, the attendees are engaged, we do not have the "clique" issue, we have great support for an HSA activities, and we have clear limits on the leadership terms. People like to be on the board in every position except President. Thanks again!

Originally posted by <Unregistered User>:
Also, our Prez indicted that SHE decides which fundraisers we do - and it's always MarketDay, MarketDay non-food items, and candles. Let's see - she's a PAID MARKETDAY EMPLOYEE, and her mother is the candle distributor. See???

I think there should be a 2-yr term limit on each person serving in a particular office. That way if there are parents or teachers who are turned off by a certain parent, then within 2 yrs maximum they're out of that role, and someone fresh comes in.

Why don't you check the Bylaws and see if what their doing follows the bylaws. I know we do have a 2 year limit on one office. However, we will probably change that becasue initially only four people were interested in the PTO. Since we had to start from scratch and get it going we wrote the bylaws to include a 2 year term. However, at the end of this year that will be changed to a 1 year term. Maybe we need to think about term limits too?

We have very minimal Bylaws, but even our limited ones specify that no PTO member is to profit from activities the PTO does. For example, I do web design. I contribute my time for free to the PTO and design their website. However, if I decided to start charging the PTO while I was still VP that would be a conflict of interest.

clique groups tend to groom and then vote in their own come election time so nothing ever changes, unless of course enough parents come to meetings and start getting involved(a catch 22 situation obviously).

Tone/school culture is set by the principal, if she is part of your group and you are a service arm of the school, and that sort of activity is tolerated and overtly or tacitly condoned by the principal, thats a no win situation and one that cannot easily be changed under that sort of school direction.