Our situation is quite different. Our PTO(years before me) gave up the struggle of organizing monthly general meetings that usually yielded an almost empty room. We hold only two general meetings a year. One in August to approve the budget, and one in May to elect officers.
Our Board is very large (20-30 people, depending on how may positions are co-chaired). It conducts all the day-to-day business of the organization. All Board meetings are open to anyone who would like to attend. We rely on parent voluteers to assist with activities and projects. Anyone who wants to get involved is welcome.
Since we don't have monthly general meetings, we deliberately want the Board to be large so we can't get into situation where 4 or 5 people run their own little private empire.
Thanks for your input. I believe we are very close to being burned out. No one comes out for meetings or events. It's horrible to see the kids suffer due to ridiculous adult behaviour. While there are a few woman working together to reorganize our organization. The Board is fighting every step of the way. Pettiness is abundant and friendships have been destroyed.
I'm of mixed opinions here, as our executive board has 6 members, one seat is currently vacant, and combined we each chair at least one committee. We also, in conjunction with the school administrators, have planned out our entire year. Since we're an international school we are probably more transitional and all of us on the exec board are new PTO office holders. The problem of same people year after year does not often apply. We are always open to new ideas, if the person presenting them is willing to work to see them to fruition. Our location doesn't always make ideas from the states easy to use and these logistics need to be worked out. So maybe from the outside our group looks like a controlling clique, but if you take a closer look we're not. We're a group who has invested time and effort into making this PTO work and expect others to also be willing to do the same, not just submit ideas or opinions without any willingness to work. Now I will admit that I've seen many groups, including one here a few years back, who ran everything and seemed to want to do it all by themselves. Because of that here, we had no PTO at the beginning of last year, a weak group formed in the middle of the year and we're starting out with little or no guidance and winging it from scratch this year. Our group even feels like a brand new group. Groups that are closed and unchanging will eventually burn themselves out.
My concern is as follows: Our 5 Board Members, along with one previous Board Member hold 8 committee chairs. They, themselves, make up our Fundraising Committee. They take it upon themselves to decide what fundraisers, activites, etc...our PTO will provide. They use the "executive committee" to make all decisions behind closed doors.
While I understand that it is difficult to get volunteers, I find it disgusting that they are being turned away.
By definition our Board is comprised of the elected officers, school reps, AND the chairs of each committee. We would consider it critical to link the two functions (Board and Committee).
There's a small enough pool of people willing to take a leadership role. It would be hard for me to imagine forgoing the abilities and willingness of potential chairs because they are Board members. Plus, it could easily become a very silo'd organization to divorce these roles completely.
How do committees interact with your Board? Do they make presentations or only report via the President?
Every one of our executive board chairs a committee. Most of our PTO members are great about volunteering when we ask for specific events and have a signup sheet, but a lot of them won't commit to a chair position. I'm the president and chairing our Fall Carnival (our biggest fundraiser) and I ended up asking a new mom to co-chair. Once we met and she saw what was expected I think she could have/would have chaired it alone, but it was the fear of what she was getting into. So, to answer your question, I think it's fine for board members to also chair committees and maybe they can co-chair them to get new people involved without overwhelming them!
