While I agree that it's not PTO's focus to make volunteering "fun", if it's not at least a little fun then you may not get as much help. Sometimes fun is just having a group of friends volunteering together (while their kids stay home with another volunteer or an on-site babysitter...or the dads!)...it's amazing what some Mom's will do for a night out!
To Nadine, I have found that even though we're an elementary school PTO that people have less time to be phjysically present these days. We communicate a lot by e-mail because even our board members have a hard time making it to meetings sometimes! We have about 150 families that participate in our e-mail communications and while only a handful actually interact with responses, they are likely people that would otherwise never have taken the opportunity to provide their input. Just a thought.

Hello NaDine:
We have always found it helpful to break down a large planning and organizing of the event into small pieces and then ask specific people (or 2 friends) to take on the responsibility. People have a hard to time showing up to a general call for help, but will show up when asked specifically by someone who also knows why they would be a great asset to the cause. Work you contacts, hard!

We often have volunteers doing menial tasks like stuffing envelopes or sorting paperwork - which isn't fun no matter how you slice it. What is helpful is to get to know your volunteers well enough to know what kind of jobs they would enjoy and feel comfortable with. The real trick, to my mind, is to match the job to the person - which will foster a feeling of real contribution which will up your chances that the volunteers will be willing to say "yes" again and again!

We definitely have fun during our events. However it is very stressful during the planning phases because our meetings rarely if ever have more than 8 persons attending. (Out of approximately 800 students) That leaves all of the work on the few members who attend regularly enough to help with the planning. We are busy in our meetings planning for the next event. We do offer a light dinner or snack with our meetings to intice new comers. Ours is a high school PTO and getting parent volunteers is practically IMPOSSIBLE. I am open for ideas.

I have to agree that 'fun' as a volunteer would be a side effect of a groups organization and focus. If a group knows specifically what their mission is and what their goals are, the environment will be less stressful and scattered.

If it is clear who does what by when and what is specifically expected, I believe volunteers will naturally have more fun.

I don't think that making the volunteer experience "fun" should be a specific objective of the PTO/PTA.

A pleasant volunteering environment should be an objective, but there's something about the expectation that a PTO/PTA is responsible for making the parent volunteer experience "fun" that rubs me the wrong way. Assuming that the volunteers are all adults and parents, having an entertaining experience in everything we do for our school/children isn't realistic or (in my opinion) necessary.

"Fun" may be a side effect of the volunteer experience for a well organized activity, but I would be very disappointed in our PTO if much time is spent devising how to make a volunteer experience fun.