My son attends PVES. I came on the site to find our PTO contact info. I am not bale to join, but I would like to speak with you. Please call me at 615-369-7237 or email me: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Whew-Who! We have had great success with our new membership levels. Last year we had 80 members (remember we're a PTA so they are due paying members) and that was a 3% increase from the year prior. WELL... this year as of today, we have a membership of 125! I'm very excited. We have a school population of 700+/-. Of course I'd love to have 100% parents, but realistically at our school that isn't going to happen. We are only 8 away from having a 100% staff membership though. This is my last year as president of our PTA (we can only serve as president for 2 consecutive years), but I plan on staying on the board as one of the vice pres. and doing membership. Again, here's what we are doing this year:
$7 single membership
$10 family membership (any 2 adults)
$25 family spirit membership (any 2 adults plus 2 school spirit t-shirts)
*reg. price of the T-shirts from the school is $10 ea and we pay the school $7.50 per T-shirt that is given with the family spirit membership. So the parents save money by doing the $25 membership and the school still makes money on their T-shirts and we get 2 members! WIN-WIN-WIN
I'm shooting for a 100% increase this year. I really believe with this as our start, we can do it! Our membership drive isn't fundraiser for us. We only end of making $1 on the $25 membership, $2 on the family membership and $3 on the single membership. It just goes towards our office-type costs.
Something else that I think has helped us... we have partnered with several businesses in our community that have offered our PTA members some sort of discount. For instance, a tax preparation business is offering a 25% discount on tax preparations to our members who show their cards, Wendy's 10% off, a free drink with purchase at a little local restaurant, 10% off cards from Tony Roma's, etc. We also offer a free bag of popcorn to PTA members at our functions/events and our PTA members save $1 per child on the registration fee ($6 non-members, $5 members) for our Gordy's Kids Cooking Club after-school enrichment program.
Dear Holly:
I was reading the many posts and one of yours mentioned something about a "staff/teacher survey" Do you have a copy of this survey you could share or remember any of the questions on it? I think the survey idea is wonderful this way you know what teachers might need or can come in handy for their classrooms, instead of getting something that they might appreciate rather than "surprising" them with something they could really use (within budget of course).
Thank you for your feedback and I hope to hear from you.
Very Respectfully,
Isabel
We are a PTA so we do have dues. This year we're trying something different.
$7 single membership
$10 Family membership (2 adults)
$25 Family Spirit membership (2 adults plus 2
student school spirit shirts)
We start school on Aug. 30 and have open house on Sept. 7. We'll see how this will be received. After attending our State PTA's leadership training we discovered many other PTAs are doing this type of offer. We're hoping by offering a "Family Membership" it will help increase membership. We did increase our membership by 3% last year. I believe that was because of more communication and our welcome letter which includes a list of all of our activities, what time of year each is and what is involved with each. I'll let you know how it works out.
We have always charged $5 for a membership, but when our numbers started to dwindle, we tried something new. Now we offer a calendar listing all school and sporting events, paid for by area businesses. A local print shop puts it together for us, but with the right software, you can do it yourself. So now we say that membership in the PTA is free, but the calendar costs $5. What a difference that makes! People are not afraid to sign up for volunteering now. And the calendar can be sold without filling out extra paperwork and all the information that has to go on the membership cards. Our numbers are up again. And everyone loves the calendar. Definitely a win-win situation!
